SEED INSPECTION 76 



TYPE AND VARIETY STUDIES OF VEGETABLES 



Conducted in Conjunction with the Department of Olericulture, 

 Grant B. Snyder, Professor 



Tests have been conducted by the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment 

 Station for the past six years to acquaint vegetable growers with the relative 

 merits of different commercial strains of certain vegetable varieties and to inform 

 seed distributors of the adaptability of their varieties and strains to climatic and 

 soil conditions similar to those prevailing at Amherst. 



During the 1941 season 220 lots were planted in the trials, including beans, 

 beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, corn, cucumbers, lettuce, parsnips, 

 peppers, radish, rutabagas, spinach, squash, tomato, and turnip 



The soil of the trial plot was a fine, sandy loam and is naturally fertile. A rye 

 cover crop was plowed under, a liberal quantity of fertilizer was applied, and the 

 soil was thoroughly prepared prior to seedage and plant setting. Growth and 

 development was generally satisfactory although it was necessary to replant 

 several of the kinds due to a poor stand of plants caused by a hard crust of soil 

 which had baked over the germinating seedlings. _ 



Yields of the various crops were not measured because of the necessity of using 

 small plots and also because replication of the plantings was not feasible due to 

 the large number of strains and varieties that were compared. Conformity to 

 type has been the measure of general excellence in these studies. lype in 

 plants deals with many characteristics such as shape of the marketable part of 

 the plant; relative smoothness, tallness, or dwarfness; different colors o flowers 

 fruits, or seeds; disease resistance or susceptibility; and many other well defined 



Individual plants have been called "off-type" when they could not be classified 

 in a group of plants ranging fairly close to the average for the particular strain or 

 variety under consideration. The results reported below, however, should be 

 interpreted with certain reservations because of the fact that all strains and 

 varieties are not affected alike by various climatic and sod conditions. It is a 

 noteworthy fact that there were about the same number and degree of oil-type 

 plants as in the tests for 1940. . 



\11 the samples tested in the field trial plots were taken by an inspector em- 

 ployed by the Massachusetts State Department of Agriculture from lots of seed 

 offered for sale in Massachusetts by various wholesale and retail merchants. 

 The source of the seed and the laboratory germination records are to be found in 

 the tables on pages 39-74, where the lots of seed used in the field tests are identi- 

 fied by the letter "F" added to the laboratory number. Those seeds tested in the 

 field and not included in the following table were found 100% true to type. 



