352 



The Journal of Heredity 



SINGLE-GERM AND MULTIPLE-GERM BEET SEEDS 



The seedball at the left is made up of four seeds or germs welded together so closely that they 

 cannot be separated without injury. It represents the common type of beet seed; when 

 it is planted, several beets are likely to arise from the same point, and all but one of them 

 will have to be pulled uj) In' hand — a tedious and expensive operation. U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture breeders therefore decided to make the sugar beet produce seeds with only 

 one germ, such as is shown on the right, and their project has already reached such success 

 that three-fouiths of the seeds of their selected strain are now of this nature, whereas 

 in ordinary beet strains not more than 5 per cent of the seeds are single-germ. (Fig. 7.) 



approximately S3,000,000 annually for 

 the entire beet acrcaj^c in the United 

 States. Even if the multi])le-seed balls 

 are dropj^ed in hills one seed ball in a 

 hill, it is ])ossible that in 99 per cent, of 

 the hills there will l)e two or more 

 plants in close proximity to each other. 

 These plants, coming from the same 

 seed ball, are necessarily so close 

 together that they can not be reduced 

 to one plant by any mechanical means 

 that has yet been devised. Hence the 

 only way to avoid this condition and to 

 eliminate the expense and lal)or of 



thinning beets is to have all single-germ 

 seeds. 



BEGINNING OF THE WORK 



The single-genn idea was stiggested 

 to Secretary Wilson in 190v? b\' Truman 

 G. Palmer. Secretary of the Beet Sugar 

 Manufacturers Association. Secretary 

 Wilson approved the project and within 

 twenty-four hours several hundred single- 

 germ seeds had been selected, photog- 

 raphed and ])lanted. Figure 7 .shows a 

 single-germ seed and a multiple-germ 

 seed for comparison. 



