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program. Only by increasing the production of good fruit per hectare, thus con- . 

 serving land for other crops, are farirers likely to change from the present double- 

 cropping system to the more gjecialized method of growing fruits in this coxintry, 



^IT.H.Thies 



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Some Facts About Agriculture in Massachusetts. Only 2°' of our 

 people are engaged in farming, Vife rank UUth in size and 9th in pop- 

 ulation among the states. About 6^% of our total land area is 

 covered \n.th tree grovifth vfhile many thousands of acres are too steep 

 or stony to be tilled, or are poorly drained. Our farm lands need 

 an annual application of 320,000 tons of agricultural lime, and some 

 individual acres need an initial application of as much as 3 tons. 

 The total value of all agricultural products s old in Massachusetts 

 in 1952 was $202,615,000, The value of cranberries vras $7,966,000 

 and of other fruits, $5,31^,000, 



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STR-'VUBERRY BLACK ROOT ROT 



Recently I had the good fortune to spend ten days at the Plant Industry 

 Station at Beltsville , Maryland, working on strav/berry problems with Dr. George I-;. 

 Darrow and his associates. The principal purpose of this visit vras to learn about 

 the latest developments concerning the strawberry black root rot disease. 



Black root rot of strawberries has caused severe losses to strawberry grow- 

 ers in Massachusetts for many years. Usually, affected plants look fairly good till 

 a dry spell occurs. Then the plants begin to die. The lower, older leaves die 

 first and then the younger, till the whole plant dies. When a dead or badly dis- 

 eased plant is dug up, the root system is found to be mostly black and dead. 



Plant pathologists have tried to associate this disease with a fungus and 

 a rather imposing list of fungi has been isolated from the roots of plants infected 

 with the black root rot. Some were parasitic and were causing damage, others were 

 saprophytic and had invaded the dead roots. However, it was never possible to tie 

 the disease up to a single fungus. 



About a year ago Dr, Darrow, iirfriile visiting Holland, found that Dutch straw- 

 berry growers were having nematode troubles and vrere doubling their yields by soil 

 fumigation. This suggested a possible relation between our puzzling black root 

 trouble and nematodes. 



Nematodes, also known as eelworms, are very small, almost transparent, 

 worm-like organisms v»hich are present in crop soils in tremendous numbers. For- 

 tunately not all are harmful. One of the very common ones, the meadow nematode 

 viiich causes a serious broirm root rot of tobaccr and other troubles, is under sus- 

 picion as the cause of black root. 



If the meadoTJ- nematode is the cause of black root, it should be present in 

 the roots of plants showing the symptoms and the worse the symptoms, the more nema- 

 todes should be found. To obtain information on this, 2U stravrberry plant samples 

 v;ere collected from eight Massachusetts counties and taken to Beltsville for exam- 

 ination. These samples were collected from fields where the black root sjTnptoms 

 varied from none to very severe and were examined in cooperation with Dr, A, G, 

 Goheen, nf the U, S. D. A,, who is working on the black root rot problem. Of the 



