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- Author or Editor: Gary W. Williams x
- HortScience x
Growers, nurseries, landscape contractors and installers, and those responsible for maintenance have observed a trend that trees are too deep within the root ball. This study addresses the relationship between planting depth and its effect on tree survival, root growth, root architecture, and caliper growth. The experiment was initiated to determine the effect of planting depth on nursery-grown trees. Three-year-old, 2.1–2.7 m, bare-root liners of Acer platanoides `Emerald Lustre', Fraxinus americana `Autumn Purple', Fraxinus pennsylvanica `Patmore', and Gleditsia triacanthos f. inermis `Shade Master' were planted in April 2004 in a completely randomized design with 20 replications per treatment per species. The trees were selected so that the distance between the graft union and the trunk flare was consistent. Trees were planted with the graft union 15.2 cm below the soil surface, or with the base of the graft union at the finished grade or with the trunk flare at the finished grade. The trees were grown in a nursery field setting with minimal supplemental watering. There were no differences in stem caliper growth at the end of two seasons in any of the four species. Root dry mass, stem elongation, and rooting structure were determined on a representative sample of trees while others were planted into the landscape for a long-term study of the effects of the original planting depth on landscape performance.
This article analyzes the effectiveness of Marketing Order 906 in promoting Texas grapefruit and oranges and focuses specifically on the answers to two key questions: 1) What have been the effects of the promotion programs funded under Marketing Order 906 on shipments of Texas grapefruit and oranges? 2) What has been the return on the investment made under Marketing Order 906 to promote sales of Texas grapefruit and oranges? The article first provides some background on the Texas citrus promotion program and then develops a seemingly unrelated regression econometric model of Texas grapefruit and orange shipments for the analysis of the effectiveness of the program. The results obtained indicate that the Texas citrus promotion program has been effective in enhancing shipments of Texas grapefruit but not oranges and that the benefits of the promotion efforts have exceeded the costs, at least for grapefruit. Insights are drawn for other commodity promotion programs.
The Texas Pecan Board was established in 1998 to administer the Texas Pecan Checkoff Program and is financed through a half cent per pound assessment on grower pecan sales. The Board spends the assessment collections on a variety of advertising campaigns in an attempt to expand demand for Texas pecans and to increase the welfare of Texas pecan growers. This article presents an evaluation of the economic effectiveness of the Texas Pecan Checkoff Program in expanding sales of Texas pecans. First, the effects of Texas Pecan Board promotion on sales of all Texas pecans are determined using the ordinary least squares estimator followed by a test for differential effects of Texas Pecan Board promotion activities on sales of improved and native Texas pecan varieties using the seemingly unrelated regression estimator. The analysis indicates that the Texas Pecan Checkoff Program has effectively increased sales of improved varieties of Texas pecans but has had no statistically measurable impact on sales of native varieties of Texas pecans. A benefit–cost analysis determines that $35.0 in additional sales revenues are generated for every dollar invested in promotion, indicating that the Texas pecan promotion program has been financially successful. The per unit return is large but on a very few dollars available for investment in promotion implying the need for more investment for more meaningful returns.