December, 1921 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page 9 



Bud Selection and Frequency of Mutations 



THE efficacy of bud selection as a means 

 of improving the type is dependent up- 

 on the occurrence of bud mutations; its 

 practicability, upon their frequency. If the 

 above statement holds as a general principle, 

 and it probably does, it is obvious that he 

 who would change existing varieties through 

 bud selection must first discover bud varia- 

 tions, or plants that grew from bud variants, 

 of a relatively permanent nature, i. e., the 

 bud variant must maintain its distinctive 

 characteristics when multiplied by vege- 

 tative propagation. 



Such a permanent bud variation, result- 

 ing from a mutation in some vegetative 

 cell, is commonly called a bud sport, and 

 the general occurrence of bud sports in 

 plants is well known. Concerning the 

 frequency of their occurrence, however, 

 very little is definitely known, yet it is a 

 subject of the greatest importance to horti- 

 culturists, who propose to improve our com- 

 mercial varieties of tree fruits through bud 

 selection. 



Nurserymen, especially, should be keen- 

 ly alive to the practical aspects of this 

 question. Because of the successful dem- 

 onstration of the value of bud selection in 

 the citrus fruits, there is an increasing ten- 

 dency among nurserymen to propagate 

 standard varieties of all tree fruits from 

 selected trees which are known, either frcm 

 mere observation or actual performance rec- 

 ords, to be consistent high producers. Of 

 course, such selection of high-yieiding stock 

 trees is commendable, provided proper pre- 

 cautions are taken to insure trueneis of type 

 for the variety in regard to characters other 

 than yield. 



Date Prune Planting 



APPROPRIATE ceremonies attended 

 the planting of the first Coates 

 "1418" prune tree by the Oregon Nursery 

 Company, in the big commercial orchard 

 of this particular prune it has started at 

 Orenco, Oregon. The tree was planted on 

 October 29. The ceremony was witnessed 

 by many interested fruit men including 

 Henry E. Dosch, representing the State 

 Board of Horticulture. 



It had been hoped that Leonard E. 

 Coates, orginator of this commercial prune 

 with the date flavor that now bears his 

 name, would make the trip from his home 

 in California to be present, but he was 

 unable to do so. 



The Oregon Nursery Company has ob- 

 tained exclusive propogating rights for the 

 Coates prune and, according to M. 

 McDonald, president, intends to develop 

 large orchards of this variety at different 

 localities of the Northwest adapted to its 

 culture. 



By E. B. Babcock 



Unhersity of California, Berkeley 



Such nursery stock can then be oiTered .as 

 first-class stock of the variety, but nothing 

 more until it h.as been proved by perform- 

 ance tests of the budded progeny that the 

 character of high yield is actually trans- 

 mitted. This is what too many nursery- 

 men fail to appreciate and they are rushing 

 pell-mell into an expensive campaign of 

 searching for high producers, with the 

 avowed intention of representing the 

 budded progeny as of superior merit be- 

 cause of the high yield of the selected 



parents 



A general warning as to the importance 

 of using proper methods when attempting 

 to carry out in deciduous fruits what has 

 already been accomplished with the citrus 

 fruits was given by Shamel in his 'paper be- 

 fore the American Society of Horticultural 

 Science last year. It is the purpose of this 

 paper to emphasize the existing uncertainty 

 as to what can be accompl ished through per- 

 formance records and the propagation of 

 selected high producers among the decidu- 

 ous fruits. The motive of the paper is not 

 to discourage extensive experimentation in 

 this field. 



The more well-planned and carefully 

 executed experiments the better, especially 

 if they are fully reported, with adequate 

 data on the performance of the budded 

 progeny in comparison with the parent trees. 

 But the whole question of the practicability 

 of increasing the yield of deciduous varie- 

 ties through bud selection is still unan- 

 swered, and it is this aspect of the subject 

 which it is the duty of horticulturists to 

 keep before the nurserymen and the fruit 

 growers. Following are some of the reasons 

 for maintaining an attitude of suspended 

 judgment on this question. 



"DOTH species and varieties differ as to 

 ^-^ the frequency with which bud muta- 

 tions occur. We are greatly in need of 

 actual data, but presumably there is no hor- 

 ticulturist who would venture to assert that 

 bud sports are as frequent in any deciduous 

 fruit as they appear to be in several of the 

 citrus fruits. Thus far, only two varieties 

 of orange, two varieties of lemon and one 

 variety of pomelo have been intensively 

 studied, and we do not know that bud 

 mutations are as frequent or of as great 

 practical importance in other citrus varieties 

 as they appear to be in the five California 

 varieties with which Shamel has worked. 

 But even though all citrus varieties are 

 found to be inherently prone to mutate fre- 

 quently in their vegetative tissues, it would 

 not necessarily follow that any varieties of 

 apples are equally apt to do so. 



Furthermore, even if one variety of 

 apple were to produce many bud sports it 

 would be unsafe to infer that all other 



varieties were equally variable. Of course 

 it is well known that in apples, plums and 

 other deciduous fruits new varieties have 

 arisen as bud sports. But the number of 

 varieties arising in this way is relatively 

 small and it is therefore fair to infer that 

 vegetative mutations which favor or cause 

 high productivity are also relatively rare. 

 The point I am making is simply that as 

 yet we lack sufficient data to justify any 

 conclusion regarding the practicability of 

 increasing the yield of deciduous fruits 

 through bud selection. 



The danger in assuming close similarity 

 between deciduous and citrus fruits as re- 

 gards the practicability of isolating high- 

 yielding strains through bud selection is 

 further emphasized by the few experi- 

 ments that have been made with deciduous 

 fruits. The outstanding work of Whitten 

 in Missouri, Gardner in Oregon and Cran- 

 dall in Illinois, all gave negative results in 

 the apple, and in the strawberry only one 

 positive case was reported and that re- 

 sulted in deterioration of vigor and lower- 

 ing of yield. While these experiments were 

 of limited scope, only a few varieties being 

 represented, and similar experiments with 

 other varieties may give very different re- 

 sults, still it must be admitted that thus 

 far experimentation has tended only to in- 

 crease our doubt as to the practicability of 

 increasing the yield of standard varieties 

 of deciduous fruits through bud selection. 



T^HE question of the frequency of mu- 

 -'- tations has received some attention 

 from geneticists. Without going into de- 

 tails we may consider the general bearing 

 of the Drosofhila investigations on this sub- 

 ject. The students of heredity in the po- 



Land Show Awards 



nnHE number of fruit exhibits at the 

 -'- Land Products Show, held in Portland 

 in connection with the Pacific Interna- 

 tional Livestock Exposition, was not so 

 large as it would have been but for the 

 threatened railroad strike. Despite inter- 

 vention of the strike talk the show was a 

 success, exhibits of fine quality filling all 

 but a few feet of the available space. 



Sweepstakes prize, for the best 2 5 -box 

 entry of apples, went to the Hood River 

 Apple Growers' Association. T. A. Sammis 

 of The Dalles w.as a close second. In the 

 five-box display, Dewey G.isson of The 

 Dalles won first. 



The Mcdford district showed up well 

 in the one-box displ.iys of various varieties. 

 The Medford Orchards won first on 

 Hoover Reds; the Monitor Orchards, first 

 on Ganos, and C. Y. Tengervvald, first on 

 Bell flowers. 



