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- Author or Editor: Daniel J. Cantliffe x
- HortScience x
Extension gained strength from its inception in the early 1900s until the early 1980s. Then things changed—trends led to the notion that extension should get out of social programs and let producers pay their own way. These were the Reagan/Thatcher years. England, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada largely dismantled their extension services. This was supposedly due to financial reasons. They let the private sector take up whatever was released. In the U.S. during the 1980s the Extension Service came under similar attacks and some erosion of the services took place in various states. This has led to a reorganization of the extension service at the federal level, bringing the ARS and Extension Service closer together. I believe that this is the future for Extension—to bind and to build with research to improve and promote continued transfer of new technology. I see this as very difficult for the private sector to do. The ARS and university researchers have to be intimately involved with extension personnel. Program development must be two-fold and must begin to cross state lines both at the state and county levels. Extension workers are doing many of the research jobs of the 1960s and 1970s. For example, our Florida county agents are now doing demonstration and applied research studies that the experiment station personnel did up until 1980. For survival, county operations will need further combining and refining. The basis of the future lies in accountability of extension programs to the public and continued public relationships to express the good job that extension does for all Americans.
Transplants are grown and shipped locally or over long distances. Shipping conditions and time in transit depend on the distance travelled. Local growers may receive transplants in trays they were grown in while those shipped long distances are pulled and packed in boxes. Plant field performance is directly correlated with seedling vigor at the time of transplanting. Factors which can affect transplant vigor during growing and shipping include the plant hardening techniques employed, mechanical injury at any stage of plant growing, shipping and planting, length and conditions of transit, and storage prior to transplanting. Mechanical injury begins as soon as the plants are removed from the tray, while reduced watering and/or nutrition during hardening may have a long term effect on plant productivity. High temperature during shipping, packing plants too densely, and prolonged storage in the dark can reduce subsequent yields. Knowledge of proper conditions for transplant pre- and post-harvest handling and shipping are not clearly understood by many transplant producers and growers. Such knowledge can greatly improve transplant vigor and potentially give growers better yields.
Abstract
Cucumbers, [Cucumis sativus L. cvs. Triple Cross (pickling) and Gemini (slicing)], were grown in the field in the spring and fall under conditions of normal pollination (uncaged) and conditions precluding pollination (caged). When about 5 pistillate flowers were open, some plants from both treatments were sprayed with 100 ppm methyl-2-chloro-9-hydroxyfluorene (chlorflurenol). Very few fruit were produced by either cultivar unless plants were pollinated or treated with chlorflurenol. The most fruit per plant were produced on pollinated, chlorflurenol-treated plants. Numbers of fruit from chlorflurenol-treated plants equalled that of pollinated plants. Chlorflurenol application reduced fruit size in ‘Triple Cross’. No viable seeds developed in fruit from unpollinated plants and chlorflurenol reduced seed number in pollinated fruits.
Abstract
Fruit development from pollinated flowers of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) on early nodes inhibited fruit set on later nodes. Application of chlorflurenol (methyl-2-chloro-9-hydroxyfluorene-(9)-caroxylate) overcame this inhibition and increased the number of fruit which developed from both pollinated and nonpollinated ovaries. In nonpollinated flowers, chlorflurenol promoted fruit set through parthenocarpy. In chlorflurenol treated plants, approximately 80% of the fruit from pollinated flowers produced seed, while the remaining 20% were parthenocarpic. However, chlorflurenol reduced the quantity of seed in the nonparthenocarpic fruit by 30%. This included fruit set from flowers that had been pollinated up to 5 days before chlorflurenol application. Pollination tended to improve the effectiveness of chlorflurenol to increase fruit set.
Shoot and root growth changes in response to handling and storage time in `Sunny' tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) transplants were investigated. Transplants, 45 days old, were stored either in trays (nonpulled) or packed in boxes (pulled) for 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8 days at 5 and 15C. Also, 35-day-old nonpulled and pulled transplants were kept in darkness at 20/28C for 0, 1, 2, or 3 days. At SC, pulled transplants had longer and heavier stems, a higher shoot: root ratio, higher ethylene evolution, and lower root dry weight than nonpulled transplants. At 15C, pulled transplants had more shoot growth than nonpulled transplants. Nonpulled, initially 35-day-old transplants had heavier shoots and roots and higher (7.0 t·ha-1) yields of extra-large fruit than pulled transplants (4.1 t·ha-1), but there were no differences in the total yields of marketable fruits.