GOOD SEED. 



21 



Professor Watts: I would like someone to tell me that. I 

 know of all sorts of theories, but whether they are facts or not, I 

 couldn't say. Some claim that if a plant is checked in growth at 

 any time, that will cause it to send out seed shoots. One man had 

 a lot of plants growing in a cold frame in boxes, and he didn't think 

 he would have any use for them. He neglected them, sometimes 

 letting them go for days without being watered. He told me that 

 happened over and over. Those plants lived and revived, and when 

 they were put out in the field, not one made a seed shoot. 



A Member: I have a theory, and is it the only one that is 

 satisfactory. It is a check, but a check from a drop in temperature. 



Professor Watts: Will it always hold? 



A Member: In our experience. 



A Member: In '97 I set four rows across the field. They got 

 a pretty fair frost. Of the plants out of the same hotbeds, over 

 seventy-five per cent went to seed, — of the plants in the field, hardly 

 one per cent. 



Professor Watts: I think I could parallel that with a drop 

 on plants in the cold frame. One lot of plants I had taken from the 

 greenhouse to the cold frame. They were fine plants, but we had 

 some snow fiying after that. A large per cent went to seed. It was 

 a check in growth. That is additional information. When growth 

 is checked by a drop in temperature, it causes the plants to send out 

 seed shoots. 



A Member: In selecting tomato plants, have you ever tried 

 to isolate a particularly good plant 



Professor Watts: Yes, that should be done. One good plant 

 w^ould probably make all the seed you would need, unless you were 

 growing a great many. Do you mean to move the plant 



A Member: No, to put something around it. 



Professor Watts : That would be worth while, I should think, 

 because there is more or less cross-pollination, although the flowers 

 don't pollinate so well with a cloth over them. 



A Member: Could you judge your plant till some had already 

 pollinated? 



Professor Watts: No, you couldn't. 



