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. They thank and express their appreciation to Emily Bosland and the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions to improve the manuscript. A contribution of the New Mexico Agr. Expt. Sta., New Mexico State Univ., Las Cruces, N.M.
Manually and chemically pinched plants of 18 cultivars of Impatiens hybrids (Kientzler New Guinea impatiens) were compared to control plants to determine the effect of shoot apex removal on flowering, plant size, and branching characteristics. Either pinching treatment delayed flowering by ≈3 days compared with nonpinched controls. Pinching had no effect on plant height or fresh or dry weight. Plant diameter and form changes due to pinching depended on cultivar. Total branch count was increased by chemical but not manual pinching although both pinching methods affected mode of branching. The 18 cultivars of Kientzler New Guinea impatiens were best grown as 0.4-liter potted plants without the aid of pinching.
Sweetpotato roots, especially the cultivar Beauregard, tend to experience epidermal loss during harvest and postharvest handling which results in a less attractive product in the market. A survey study was conducted among North Carolina (N.C.) sweetpotato growers in Fall 2001 and 2002. The purpose of the survey was to gather information and try to correlate cultural practices, growing conditions and site characteristics with the occurrence of attractive roots and to define new scientific approaches to reducing epidermal loss. Samples were obtained from 42 N.C. farms. Survey field information and laboratory results were correlated to identify possible factors affecting the appearance of the roots. 1300 roots were used to measure skin adhesion, peeling susceptibility, skin moisture, skin anthocyanin and lignin content. From survey questions, 50 characteristics were defined for each sample, according to field characteristics, cultivar information, cultural practices and harvest and postharvest practices. Statistical analyses were performed to determine the relationship between the skin characteristics analyzed at the laboratory, and the survey descriptors information. Analysis of variance was used for laboratory data analysis. Person correlations were made between survey variables and laboratory characteristics. Several possible relationships between root appearance and other characteristics/practices were identified. Root skin adhesion may improve in later generations from elite propagation material. Early application of phosphate and potash fertilizers were correlated to improved root skin adhesion. There appeared to be a relationship between soil moisture at harvest time, increased lignin content in the skin and peeling susceptibility. Future areas of study were identified.
Vegetative and fruiting characteristics were measured for a spur mutant of `McIntosh' apple (Malus × domestics Borkh.). Nine-year-old `MacSpur' trees in an orchard in New Brunswick, Canada, were grouped according to three degrees of spurriness. Reduced terminal growth, fewer limbs per tree, more flowering spurs per unit length of 2- and 3-year-old wood, less yield, and lower yield efficiency were associated with the highest degree of spurriness. The variability suggests that `MacSpur' may be an unstable periclinal chimera.
As well as investigating physiological characteristics of the new yellow cultivar of Celtis julianae—`Golden Phoenix' (Julian hackberry, which originally distributed in south of China, is important environmental plant, because there are numerous hairs on surfaces of the leaf, which can absorb dust and clean the air. Julian hackberry is deciduous big tree, more than 25 meters in high, with deep green leaf, red flower and orange fruit, blossoming in April.), differences in leaf color between the new cultivar and the normal Celtis julianae were evaluated. The new cultivar is a natural seed mutant from some cultivated seedlings of Celtis julianae found in 2001. It has golden yellow leaf, average color is Yellow-Green150A mensurating by English Color Card, is significantly more different than those of the normal. It can normally growing but slowly, with smaller plant-size and shorter internode than common plant. The new cultivar's leaf contains less chlorophyll than the normal, but same carotenoid. Its net photosynthetic rate is lower than that of Julian hackberry common cultivates in full sunlight. Shading of leaf to 50% sunlight decreases chlorophyll content and photosynthetic rate compared with full sunlight and sharper in photosynthetic, resulting in deepen green color. Leaves of the new cultivar show higher values of lightness and yellow-green as compared with other normal. Shoot multiplication frequency was highest on woody plant medium containing 1.5 mg 6-BA(benzyladenine)/ml, producing 6 shoots from a single explant, but these are some troubles to root.
Rootstock breeding programs in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Japan have all released apple rootstocks in the recent past that are potentially important to the worldwide apple industry in the next century. Several of these programs are continuing to breed new rootstocks. Each program has focused on different breeding objectives, thus giving a wide range of horticultural characteristics among this new group of rootstocks. All programs have focused on the horticulturally important traits of productivity, dwarfing and precocity but certain programs have also emphasized other characteristics such as propagability, stress tolerance, disease resistance or insect resistance. Commercialization of this new group of rootstocks is proceeding at an extremely fast pace due to the worldwide networking of fruit tree nursery companies and the use of plant patents. This presents a large job for research and extension personnel to properly test rootstocks for adaptability to different growing areas before they are planted on a large scale. The national rootstock testing project (NC-140) composed of researchers from most apple growing states and provinces in the U.S. and Canada is collecting rootstocks from around the world and conducting uniform field trials that give performance data from a wide variety of climates and soils. This information becomes the basis for local rootstock recommendations in North America. This presentation reviews the most promising rootstocks from around the world and summarize the research information from North American and worldwide trials.
Acreage of white potato production in Pennsylvania has steadily declined in the past 20 years, from ≈25,000 acres in 1976 to 18,000 acres in 1996. This decline in acreage has occurred mainly with potatoes used for chips, with a much smaller acreage loss for tablestock potatoes. The most common tablestock varieties on the market are round white or long russet varieties, which have been around for 30 to 50 years. However, the 90's consumer is more perceptive and creative with food choices, such that color, texture, and taste have become important characteristics in choosing new food items. Specialty new potatoes represent a relatively unexplored market with excellent potential for sales expansion in the fresh market and tablestock industry. Today's consumers are demanding more variety with respect to virtually all produce commodities and potatoes are no exception. Consumers demand different size, color, and taste of fresh vegetables, including potatoes. New specialty potato varieties (Yukon Gold is an example) are currently in demand by restaurants and some retail markets, and it appears that relatively high returns are possible with these specialty potatoes. Twenty-nine red, buff, or blue-skinned and white-, yellow-, purple-, or red-fl eshed potato varieties were planted in a replicated study at the Hort Research Farm, Rock Springs, Pa., in 1996. Yield and quality characteristics of these varieties will be presented along with some consumer acceptance/evaluation data collected from a local supermarket.
`BetaSweet' is a new “designer” carrot that was conceived as a research project with the objective to create a new high-quality vegetable with unique characteristics. The gene responsible for purple or maroon color in carrots is a natural one and has been around for many years. Carrot breeders have discarded carrots which occasionally segregated to this color because orange has been the preferred traditional color. In 1989, three carrots grown from Brazilian seed were observed to have a blotchy maroon color mixed with the normal orange. Within two generations of breeding effort I had obtained a few carrot roots with near complete maroon exterior color and orange interior. The contrast of orange and maroon was very attractive in carrots cut as coins or sticks. The maroon and orange color would serve as the perfect way to identify and promote this new variety. Several additional generations were required using extensive laboratory testing for low terpenoids (strong carrot flavors), high sugars, high carotene, and crispy texture. Thousands of carrot roots were analyzed and selected for those qualities and for the dark maroon exterior and orange interior colors. The few best for those characteristics were intercrossed, and reselected for their adaptation when grown under Texas climatic conditions.
between the two roses ( Yan et al., 2011 ). R. odorata and R. chinensis germplasms contained benzodiazepines and sesquiterpenoids as their characteristic substances, whereas 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene was significantly higher in R. chinensis than in R
For accelerating the filling in of bare areas in native lowbush blueberry fields or converting new areas to production, micropropagated plantlets rooted after three subcultures outperformed seedlings and rooted softwood cuttings. After 2 years of field growth, they averaged 20.3 rhizomes each of average dry weight 3.5 g, as compared with 5.7 rhizomes of average dry weight 1.1 g for rooted softwood cuttings. After 1 year of field growth, seedlings produced on average 3.3 vs. 0.4 rhizomes from micropropagated plants that had not been subcultured and 0.3 rhizomes from stem cuttings. Apparently, subculturing on cytokinin-rich media induces the juvenile branching characteristic that provides micropropagated plants with the desirable morphologies and growth habits of seedlings. These characteristics favor rhizome production while the benefits of asexual reproduction are retained. The advantage in rhizome production of micropropagation over stem cuttings varied among clones.