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Periodic prescribed burns of lowbush blueberry barrens promote high yield, aid in weed control, and reduce fungal and insect damage. Whether such prescribed fires should be set in the autumn or the spring has been a matter of some dispute. Previous research on Vaccinium angustifolium Aiton suggested some advantages to autumnal burning, but few data have been collected on V. myrtilloides Michaux. To evaluate whether time of burning affected plant qualities most favorable for mechanical harvesting, such as stem length and lateral branching, a series of experiments was conducted on V. myrtilloides. Differences in stem length, numbers of lateral branches, and buds per stem were nonsignificant among plants burned in fall vs. those burned in spring. In three of four experiments, however, fall burns resulted in the growth of fewer lateral branches. Furthermore, among the four experiments, growth responses were more uniform following fall than following spring burns. We therefore suggest that, where possible, fall burns should be prescribed for blueberry plants that will be mechanically harvested.
Bulb onion (Allium cepa L.) is a globally significant crop, but the structure of genetic variation within and among populations is poorly understood. We broadly surveyed genetic variation in a cultivated onion germplasm using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and sequenced regions flanking expressed sequence tag (EST)-SSRs to develop single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers. Samples from 89 inbred and open-pollinated (OP) bulb onion populations of wide geographical adaptation and four related Allium L. accessions were genotyped with 56 EST-SSR and four genomic SSR markers. Multivariate analysis of genetic distances among populations resolved long-day, short-day, and Indian populations. EST-SSR markers frequently revealed two major alleles at high frequency in OP populations. The median proportion of single-locus polymorphic loci was 0.70 in OP and landrace populations compared with 0.43 in inbred lines. Resequencing of 24 marker amplicons revealed additional SNPs in 17 (68%) and five SNP assays were developed from these, suggesting that resequencing of EST markers can readily provide SNP markers for purity testing of inbreds and other applications in Allium genetics.