Latest FEATS of the PLANT BREEDERS (Jul, 1936)
Honestly, I’m not that interested most agricultural articles, but that picture on the second page is way too good not to post.
Latest FEATS of the PL
Latest FEATS of the PLANT BREEDERS (Jul, 1936)
Honestly, I’m not that interested most agricultural articles, but that picture on the second page is way too good not to post.
Latest FEATS of the PLANT BREEDERS
TWENTY-FIVE per cent of the vegetables and annual fruits we eat were unknown ten years ago, says an agricultural authority.
Of course, he adds, common vegetables like peas and potatoes still look the same but we are now using improved strains that didn’t exist a decade past. Scientific plant breeding is continually creating new varieties of commercial plants that are larger, better flavored, more resistant to disease, or more desirable in other ways.
Few who buy ordinary cantaloupes in season, for example, know that the melons they get today are a brand new strain. Ten years ago cantaloupes were afflicted periodically by a mildew that caused the meat to resemble that of a leathery cucumber. Then a plant scientist discovered a relative of the melon family in India that was practically useless except for a strong resistance to mildew. As a result of a long breeding program this quality was joined with all the desirable features of the old cantaloupe in a new strain of fruit. Today the melons are as tasty as ever and also highly resistant to mildew blight. Today, also, we have tomatoes that resist nearly all the old diseases. New lettuce varieties escape the slime and wilt diseases that were periodic menaces, and even a threat to the green onion industry has been eliminated by developing an onion that produces leaves instead of rolled stalks above ground, thus removing the hiding place of parasitic insects. Another innovation is corn that grows on small thin cobs, enabling “corn on the cob” to be marketed in tin cans.
Improvements like these are the achievements of genetics. Meanwhile the hybridizers have created a startling array of new plants that no one ever dreamed about before. Things like the garlion that is a cross between the garlic and the onion, the topeppo that combines the tomato and the pepper, the odorless onion and odorless cabbage, and the lemon cucumber that grows on a vine but looks like a lemon, are all new vegetables. Yard-long string beans are on the market, a coreless carrot is available, and stringless, better flavored “Utah” celery grows in the west.
A new seedless grape with a muscat flavor ripens in July instead of in October. The new boysenberry may replace the loganberry in popularity. Developed by Rudolph Boysen in California, it is a cross between the loganberry, raspberry and blackberry. It is a prolific producer and has a larger, sweeter fruit than other berries. One test plot of one-tenth acre produced 2,200 baskets of fruit from 100 vines.
A lemon tree whose branches yield a lemon extract is reported from Russia, a freak hardly more astonishing than the distinctive juices that resemble punches and soft drinks of several new orange varieties. These have been grown by the citrus experiment station of the University of California. The purpose was not to create new fruit flavors, but to produce varieties that would flourish in different kinds of soil and to combine strong tree growths with desirable types of fruit. The citrange and the tangelo, the first a hybrid resembling a grapefruit and the second a cross between the tangarine and the grapefruit, are two unusual types gradually being planted commercially.
New kinds and strains of flowers in whole rainbows of colors are being produced. At one recent flower show, more than 250 varieties of chrysanthemums alone were exhibited, as well as new strains of orchids, dahlias, and roses. Dozens of nurserymen are working on roses alone, seeking new shades and bi-colors, longer buds, and better stems. Plant breeding is tedious work, and in 20,000 attempts, only a dozen or so new varieties may be obtained. A new yellow petunia developed by John Bodger was produced only after ten years of work.
“The future possibilities in genetic experiments are practically limitless,” one research worker says. He declares that practically any desired characteristic within reason can be produced in any plant, although a particular objective may require many years to reach. In a “scientific Garden of Eden” maintained by the University of California the work of improving present types of plants, especially common vegetables and flowers, is being conducted along several lines. Resistance to mildew in delphiniums and zinnias is being sought and a breeding program is being carried on to remove the tendency toward wilt in watermelon vines. Elimination of the mosaic disease in celery and spinach is also being sought. A new variety of corn that resists earworm also may be developed. One department of the farm is seeking to transfer the double blossom of the Golden Gleam nasturtium to the other color varieties of the flower. Most of the work is being conducted along lines followed by Prof. S. L. Emsweller when he created a rust-free strain of snapdragon after that disease had affected flowers in all parts of the country. After a long search. Prof. Emsweller found several snapdragon plants in Indiana that appeared to resist the disease although other plants of the same strain in the same garden were suffering from it. These resistant 