8 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 398 



the best of our knowledge, no one in Massachusetts is growing sunflowers in 

 commercial lots, probably because of the lack of proper mills for processing the 

 oil. The cost of transportation to mills in the Midwest would not justify ship- 

 ment even in normal times. Some seed is grown locally and used as a conditioner 

 of poultry. 



Sunflowers will grow in Massachusetts on any land which will produce field 

 corn and a corn fertilizer seems to do very well. There is an element of risk in- 

 volved in the growing of the crop which should not be o\erlooked. The plant is 

 very susceptible to damage from windstorms and there was complete crop failure 

 after the 1938 hurricane. The "wind-fall" of the sunflower plant is due to a large 

 extent to infestation with the corn borer. Planting the seed too close will produce 

 small and thin sunflower plants, too weak to withstand strong windstorms. One 

 seed per hill every 18 inches in 36-inch rows gave an average crop of over 2 tons 

 of clean seed per acre. The wholesale price of sunflower seed quoted on the western 

 coast ranges from seven to eight cents a pound. 



Sunflowers are hardy to light frost, and can be planted at the time it is safe to 

 plant field corn. Harvesting is usually done during the latter part of September. 

 A growing period of 120 to 140 days, depending on the season, is sufficient for 

 maturing the seed in Massachusetts. It has been found best to cut the sunflower 

 heads off the stalk and place them singly on boards to dry for two or three weeks. 

 This drying facilitates the removal of the seed from the head by striking the head 

 against some object or rubbing it on a very coarse wire screen. 



Black Root-Rot of Tobacco. (C. V. Kightlinger.) The project to improve 

 tobacco production in Massachusetts by producing strains of Havana Seed which 

 are satisfactorily resistant to black root-rot and also acceptable in type, quality', 

 yielding capacity, and habits of growth in general, is being continued. Strains 

 of tobacco which possess most of these properties have been produced, but they 

 have not been entirely acceptable to some leaders of the tobacco trade. Attempts 

 to improve the strains by selection have succeeded in making changes but only 

 in minor properties. New strains produced by breeding show promise of producing 

 the desired results. 



Results obtained from small plot tests show two of the new strains to yield 

 well not only in soil free from black root-rot, but under bad black root-rot pro- 

 moting conditions, as well. They have good general type and produce leaves 

 which have good shape, smaller veins than many strains, and good body and 

 quality. These strains mature as early as the common Havana Seed which was 

 used as one of the parents and bear a close resemblance to that parent in most 

 respects. They have not yet been tested in commercial production. 



Brown Root-Rot of Tobacco (C. V. Kightlinger.) The project to determine the 

 effects that high and low fertility of the soil may have on the occurrence of brown 

 root-rot of tobacco is in progress, but work has not yet gone beyond the treat- 

 ment of soil necessary to produce those diff^erences in fertility. 



Soil Treatments for Tobacco Seedbeds. (C. V. Kightlinger.) Experiments were 

 made again during the fall of 1941 and the spring of 1942, to test the effectiveness 

 of several difi^erent soil treatments in controlling damping-off diseases, but results 

 were disappointing because even the control plots showed no evidence of the 

 disease. 



In the control of weeds, there were wide differences between the difi"erent treat- 

 ments; also, between replications of the same treatment, except in the case of 

 steaming and the combination treatments with chloro-picrin and calcium cyana- 

 mid. Steaming was done by the pan method at a steam pressure of about 100 

 pounds applied for 20 minutes, with the pan kept in place for another 20 minutes. 



