1920.] 



The Harvesting of Mangolds. 



559 



THE HARVESTING OF MANGOLDS. 



Wilfred S. Mansfield and Arthur Amos, M.A.. 

 School of Agriculture, Cambridge. 



In consequence of several complaints that reached the Cam- 

 bridge School of Agriculture during January as to the poor 

 keeping qualities displayed by some crops of mangolds that 

 season, an inquiry was made in the Eastern Counties with the 

 object of ascertaining the cause of the trouble. A total of 70 

 replies was received, which showed the following results : — 



v . Total No. of Keeping Keeping Keeping 



Variety. Returns. Well. Badly/ Indifferently. 



Yellow Globes ... 44 30 11 3 



Intermediate ... 10 7 1 2 



Tankard 12 12 — — 



Long Red ...... 4 4 — — 



Total 70 53 12 5 



The season was an exceptional one, dry weather atsowingbeing 

 followed by a dry autumn, with sharp frosts occurring unusually 

 early, long before the bulk of the crop had been harvested. In 

 spite, however, of the early frost no connection could be shown 

 to exist between the crops which failed to keep and the frosting, 

 except in the one case of the Red Intermediate mangold. The 

 cause of failure in the remaining 11 cases, which were reported 

 as keeping badly, was not so apparent, but it was found that 

 the following points were common to each case : — 



1. Harvesting began early — in the second and third weeks of October. 



2. The land was dry and hard at the time of lifting. 



3. The roots were carried free from any adhering dirt. 



4. The mangolds were all of the Globe type. 



Other factors which were examined included differences of 

 soil, care in handling the roots, and manuring, but the returns 

 showed that decay of the roots was independent of any 

 of them. It may, therefore, reasonably be assumed that the 

 decay of the mangolds was connected with the four above 

 enumerated points which were common to all the failures. 



On the Plant Breeding Farm at Cambridge, where similar 

 Globe mangolds were pulled, topped and lumped early in October, 

 the mangolds were intentionally left in the lumps protected with 

 leaves, until rain had fallen and the roots had a chance to 

 absorb water. These mangolds would thus have escaped the 

 bruising of loading and unloading until they had had longer to 

 mature and absorb water, and it was found that they kept well. 



It was not possible to examine in detail all the cases of failure 



