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- Author or Editor: Ursula K. Schuch* x
- HortScience x
Unsynchronized flowering and fruit ripening of coffee prohibits mechanical harvesting and results in high labor costs. Coffee (C.arabica c. Guatemalan) trees were sprayed at the beginning of the 1988 and 1989 flowering season with solutions of benzyladenine (BA), gibberellic acid GA3 (GA), and Promalin (PR) or were pruned in 1988 to determine effects on synchronizing flowering and ripening. Growth regulators affected the time to flowering and harvesting compared to the control, however, treatment effects were dependent on the time of growth regulator application. Application of PR and GA at 100 mg/l in Jan 1988 shortened the average days to flowering by 16 and 13 days, and the average days to harvest by 15 days compared to the control. Pruning of three apical nodes of primary lateral branches in Feb 1988 caused delays in flowering, reduced flower and fruit number per tree, and caused branch dieback.
Floral initiation in coffee has been shown to be stimulated by short days in young plants, but the inductive stimulus for mature plants is still not clear. Experiments were conducted to determine whether floral initiation in immature and mature plants is promoted by short photoperiods, and delayed by long photoperiods. In a growth chamber study, 18-month-old coffee (Coffea arabica L. cv. Guatemalan) plants exposed to 8 hr photoperiods developed flower buds after 4 weeks, whereas no floral initiation was observed on the plants exposed to 16 hr photoperiods for ten weeks. Trees growing in the field were illuminated with incandescent light from midnight to 3:00 a.m. from July to December 1989. The control plants received no artificial light during the same time period. Night light interruption delayed flower initiation until the end of December on branches that were fully exposed to the light. On control trees, flower buds started to emerge at the beginning of November. These results indicate that in immature and mature coffee plants floral initiation is stimulated by short days, and delayed by long days.
Five cultivars of bare-root rose plants were exposed to increasing periods of drying and after rehydration were grown in containers until flowering in a plastic-covered greenhouse. At the start of the experiment, moisture content of well-hydrated roses was between 51% and 56%. Five or 7 h of drying resulted in moisture contents below 43% for four of the cultivars and caused up to 80% mortality, increased time to flower, and decreased the number of flowering shoots. ‘First Prize’ was most tolerant of drying conditions and all plants survived, whereas ‘Mister Lincoln’ plants were most susceptible and had poor regrowth performance. Whole-plant moisture of ‘Mister Lincoln’ was similar to that in the stem or shank, which means that aboveground components instead of the entire plant can be used for moisture determination.
Dormant coffee (Coffea arabica L.) flower buds require water stress to stimulate regrowth. A xylem specific watersoluble dye, azosulfamide, was used to quantify the uptake of water by buds after their release from dormancy by withholding water. In non-stressed flower buds, the rate of water uptake was generally slower and variable. In stressed flower buds, the rate of uptake tripled from one day to 3 days after rewatering and preceded the doubling of fresh and dry weight of buds. Free, ester, and amide IAA levels of developing flower buds were measured by GCMS-SIM using an isotope dilution technique with [13C6] IAA as an internal standard. Throughout development, the majority of IAA was present in a conjugated form and the dominant form was amide IAA. The proportions of amide and free IAA changed rapidly after plants were water stressed until day 3, and preceded the doubling of fresh and dry weight. Correlation coefficients of 0.9, 0.7, and 0.7 (p<0.l) were found between auxin content and fresh weight, dry weight, and rate of water uptake, respectively.
The U.S. nursery and landscape industry generates 1.9 million jobs and had an annual payroll of greater than $3 billion in 2002, yet little is known about nursery and landscape workers. This lack of information is even more pressing considering that labor generally accounts for greater than 40% of production costs and 31% of gross sales. Labor shortages, immigration reform, and legal status of employees are widely reported as the industry's most critical issues. We hypothesized that relevant data regarding the nursery industry workforce may raise an appreciation of the industry's diversity, increase political power and public awareness, and help stakeholders evaluate policy decisions and plan corrective strategies in a more informed manner. A total of 4466 self-administered questionnaires were sent in 2006, attempting to reach 30 nurseries in each of nine states with 1561 returned (35% response rate). Hispanics constituted 70% of the average nursery workforce, including general laborers (76%), crew leaders (61%), and sales/managers (others) (21%). Across firms, labor retention was less than 51% after 5 years and only 22% of employees understood English, raising questions regarding availability and access to training. Sixty percent of nursery employees had not received work-related training, although 81% of men and 72% of women were interested, and an association between training and employee retention existed. The highest rated training topic of interest was English/Spanish (respective of Spanish/English primary language respondents). There was a positive correlation between developing fluency and worker turnover, making the laborer attrition rate even more unfavorable for employers who not only lost employees with acquired experience, but also with acquired English skills.