IplQ 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page 7 



gations on this subject. The first year's 

 work has recently been published in 

 the Experiment Station Bulletin No. 

 15^, entitled "A Preliminary Report on 

 Pear Harvesting and Storage Investiga- 

 tions." The growers can secure copies 

 of this bulletin by dropping a line to 

 the Experiment Station. Before the 

 harvesting time of another season 

 arrives we will have a second report 

 on this subject which will contain some 

 very interesting data concerning a 

 physical test for the picking of pears. 

 Since this bulletin will be available to 

 all growers, and likewise Bulletin 154, 

 I will not take the present time to 

 elaborate on this problem, but refer 

 you to this bulletin. 



The prune growers have been having 

 their troubles in the past year. Many 

 of the orchards, especially older 

 orchards, suffered greatly from the 

 drouth. Some orchards planted on thin 

 soil, trees that were attacked by borers 

 and orchards that were generally 

 neglected, all showed the efTects of the 

 hot dry season. This was shown by an 

 early deterioration of the fruit. It 

 often became discolored, turning red- 

 dish, and large dark green areas, 

 which had a watery appearance and 

 which often had little green drops on 

 them, were very noticeable on the 

 prunes early in the summer. Some of 

 the fruit developed nicely so that it 

 could be evaporated, but a good deal of 

 it did not, and it dropped to the ground 

 or was found unfit for use at the time 

 of evaporating. In other cases, the 

 fruit became greatly malformed and 

 distorted. Large depressed areas were 

 caused in the fruit, and upon cutting 

 the fruit through with a knife these 

 areas were underlaid with a discolored 

 portion of the flesh, often being brown 



in color. Large areas of the flesh often 

 became dry, almost corky, and it was 

 plain to see that the cells had broken 

 down and that such fruit was a total 

 loss. While there was a great fluctua- 

 tion as regards the amount of this 

 trouble it seemed to be fairly well cor- 

 related witli thin soils, borers and de- 

 vitalized trees. There was much less 

 of the trouble on the better soils or on 

 trees that were shown to be in very 

 good vigor. A few more cover crops 

 and the addition of a little manure or 

 nitrates and more intensive irrigation 

 and cultivation would probably do 

 nuich to rid the prune of such troubles. 

 The walnut growers have been ex- 

 periencing this year considerable 

 trouble with the condition which we 

 call perforation. I have been in the 

 state thirteen years and this is the first 

 time that we ever had very many 

 samples sent in from Oregon. It is 

 quite a conuuon trouble with some of 

 the walnut growers in California. In 

 perforation the shells of the walnut are 

 very thin, so that often the kernels are 

 exposed. With perforation the meat 

 and the skin on the kernel seem to de- 

 velop normally and often the thin inner 

 lining or innner shell covering the 

 kernel, but the hard outer shell of the 

 walnut seems to fail to develop. Thus 

 we have a perforation. California 

 writers who have had an opportunity 

 to investigate this trouble tell us that 

 there are probably two factors at work 

 to help produce this condition, namely, 

 fertilization or pollination of the nuts 

 during the blooming period and its 

 nutrition during the growing season. 

 In California perforation seems to be 

 unusually abundant during dry years 

 such as we have had in the past two 



years in the Northwest. They have also 

 noticed that when the trees are badly 

 attacked by the walnut aphis the 

 trouble is aggravated. It does not 

 attack all trees, sometimes only one or 

 two trees in a row have this trouble, 

 while all the others seem to produce 

 normal nuts. In some cases where 

 pollination has been interfered with by 

 continued dry weather or frost during 

 the blooming period, perforation has 

 api)arently been more common. This 

 latter statement, however, probably 

 needs more investigation to be thor- 

 oughly verified. In conclusion, it would 

 seem that the disease is probably due 

 to the extreme drouth, the soil becom- 

 ing so dry that the trees do not get food 

 and moisture enough, as the English 

 walnut is a big feeder. Again, if a tree 

 is attacked by aphis or other troubles 

 which cut down the moisture supply 

 even more we can expect the trouble to 

 become more serious. 



In conclusion, I feel that the growers 

 of the Pacific Northwest need not feel 

 discouraged because of the trouble 

 they have had during the past two 

 years. We must remember that the 

 conditions were not normal and it is 

 seldom that we have two years in suc- 

 cession like the past two. We have 

 certainly learned that we must start 

 our orchard cultivation and irrigation 

 earlier and we must not allow the 

 drouth to affect our trees as seriously 

 as it has during the past year. Perhaps 

 after all it will be more or less of a 

 lesson encouraging us to a little better 

 and more thorough orchard practice. 

 Despite the various troubles enumerated 

 our crop on the whole was good, prices 

 excellent and the growers as a class 

 excellent. 



Some Prune Fruit Troubles of Non-Parasitic Nature 



Address by H. P. Barss, Chief in Botany and Plant Pathology. Oregon Agricultural College Experiment Station, 

 before Oregon State Horticultural Society, Roseburg, December 7, 1918 



WE have just passed through a 

 remarkable season, quite out of 

 the ordinary in many respects. 

 This is certainly true from the stand- 

 point of the plant doctor who has been 

 watching conditions an"ecting the health 

 of the crops in the state. There has 

 been far less damage than usual from 

 many of the conunonest and ordinarily 

 most destructive diseases, but peculiar 

 and unrecognized troubles have ap- 

 peared and the help of the pathologist 

 has been called for by scores and scores 

 of farmers to diagnose and if possible 

 prescribe a remedy for them. In the 

 experience of the plant doctor climate 

 is found to have a tremendous in- 

 fluence on the prevalence and severity 

 of different diseases. He knows that a 

 wet season will mean much financial 

 loss to growers on account of the multi- 

 tude of microscopic parasites, mostly 

 fungi of one kind or another, which 

 attack vigorously and thrive well under 

 moist conditions. On the other hand, 

 he is well aware that prolonged dry 

 weather during the growing season 

 favors very few of these commoner 

 parasites and reduces materially the 



loss from diseases they cause. But such 

 dry weather brings on many troubles 

 of a non-parasitic nature which arc 

 often difficult of diagnosis and even 

 more dilTicult of control. The season 

 just past has felt the consequences of 

 early and prolonged absence of rain 

 and troubles of a non-parasitic nature 

 have been conspicuous, while those of 

 parasitic origin like apple and pear 

 scab, leaf spots, fire blight and brown 

 rot have in general been far less severe 

 than usual. The prune growers for the 

 most part lost but little this year from 

 that dreaded destroyer of fruit, the 

 brown rot fungus, but in some sections 

 they experienced losses from troubles 

 of a non-parasitic sort and it is in order 

 to throw a little more light, if possible, 

 on the nature and peculiarities of such 

 troubles that I am asked to talk to a 

 few minutes today. The conditions 

 which have affected the prune have also 

 affected many other crops, and I shall 

 not attempt to confine myself strictly to 

 the prune during this discussion. 



W^e want first to get at the cause 

 underlying the connnoner non-parasitic 

 disturbances about which we are in- 



terested, but first I wish to lead up to 

 the subject by asking if any of you ever 

 had to work in the harvest field on a 

 roasting hot day after the water jug 

 went dry? If so you know the distress, 

 growing into anguish, which the worker 

 feels when, without a drop to drink, he 

 goes on laboring and sweating in the 

 heat. It doesn't take a physician's ex- 

 amination to detect that something goes 

 radically wrong in the human system 

 under such circumstances. The thick- 

 ened blood and sluggish circulation, 

 the gradually decreased energy and 

 dwindling ability to put forth effort, 

 all indicate that the healthy functions 

 of the body have been interfered with 

 to a detrimental extent. Water is a 

 very necessary thing for the human 

 body, for its health and normal activi- 

 ties. Lack of water is very injurious to 

 men, and under conditions inducing ex- 

 cessive perspiration when a large 

 amount of water is given off from the 

 skin, it takes but a very short time if 

 the water supply is inadequate to bring 

 about a great change from the normal 

 and healthy physiological state of the 

 human system. In this respect, what is 



