438 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXIX, No 9 
sufficiently serious during most seasons 
to justify the application of control 
measures. However, a large number 
of spores may be produced on a com¬ 
paratively few spots. These spores 
may infect the curd or may lie dor¬ 
mant until the heads are in transit. An 
attempt should be made to discard all 
heads with apparent lesions when the 
cauliflower is being crated, since such 
heads will have little if any market 
value after several days in transit. 
However, many inconspicuous lesions 
will be overlooked and also many 
more may originate during the ship¬ 
ping period. That the disease may 
be expected to develop during transit 
is shown by the fact that in the writer’s 
experiments infection was evident at 
about 2° C. in from 5 to 7 days. The 
lesions, however, developed rather 
slowly, being about 1 mm. in diameter 
by 0.5 mm. in depth in 14 days under 
conditions of high humidity. At 7° 
the lesions were evident in from 4 to 5 
days and had developed to 1 mm. in 
diameter by 1 to 2 mm. in depth in 19 
days. These data indicated that it is 
possible for the disease to make con¬ 
siderable headway in the 10 days or 
thereabouts which must necessarily 
intervene between the time California 
cauliflower is placed in the car and the 
time it reaches its destination. The 
amount of loss caused depends upon 
the amount of infection and the num¬ 
ber of spores on the heads at the time 
they are loaded into the car, as well as 
the temperature and humidity main¬ 
tained in the car throughout the trans¬ 
portation period. In another experi¬ 
ment cauliflower inoculated and held 
at about 2° became infected, but the 
lesions were hardly visible to the un¬ 
aided eye even after 20 days and would 
not have been recognized as such by 
the layman. In this experiment at 
temperatures varying from 6° to 7° C. 
the lesions were hardly recognizable at 
the end of 10 days and were still quite 
inconspicuous after 20 days. 
From this and other experiments it 
seems that, although it is impracticable 
to hold cauliflower at a temperature 
which will inhibit infection during 
transportation, much can be accom¬ 
plished by maintaining the tempera¬ 
ture and relative humidity as low as 
possible. If the temperature is held 
at 5° C. or below throughout the trans¬ 
portation period of, say, 6 to 12 days, 
little injury will result from this dis¬ 
ease. This is entirely practicable, as 
shown by tests with cantaloupes made 
by the Bureau of Agricultural Eco¬ 
nomics, United States Department of 
Agriculture (12). These showed that 
refrigerator cars loaded with canta¬ 
loupes at Brawley, Calif., did not 
reach a constant temperature level 
until about the end of the third day, 
after which a fairly uniform tempera¬ 
ture was maintained. The tempera¬ 
tures in a couple of cars varied from 
about 1° to 6° C., depending on the 
part of the car in which the records 
were obtained. The cars were on the 
road 5 or 6 days and 12 days when en 
route to Chicago and to New York, 
respectively. Temperature records of 
other cars similarly loaded showed that 
after the cantaloupes became thor¬ 
oughly cooled (about the third day) a 
temperature varying from about 4° to 
10° C. could be maintained. 
The cauliflower heads should be kept 
as cool and dry as possible after reach¬ 
ing their destination, and should reach 
the consumer without unnecessary de¬ 
lay. Precooling the cars and the cauli¬ 
flower especially during warm weather 
before loading should be of material 
benefit in getting the temperature down 
and retarding the development of the 
disease during the early period of trans¬ 
portation. 
The inspectors of the Bureau of Agri¬ 
cultural Economics reported the arrival 
of a car of cauliflower in Pittsburgh on 
November 21, 1921, which had been 
shipped from Orchard Park, N. J. 
About one-third of the curds showed 
brownrot in varying degrees of sever¬ 
ity; some had only a few small spots, 
while others were almost entirely cov¬ 
ered with them. The temperature of 
this car taken at the time the inspec¬ 
tion was made was 8° at the bottom 
and 9° C. at the top. Although these 
figures are of little value in showing the 
temperature condition of the car during 
transit, the condition of the cauliflower 
indicates that the disease can develop 
in transit when hauled only a compara¬ 
tively short distance if the conditions 
are favorable. No record of the time 
elapsing between the dates of loading 
and of unloading the car was obtained. 
The data presented in this paper 
seem to justify the following recom¬ 
mendations for controlling the brown- 
rot of cauliflower: 
Prevent field inoculation and infec¬ 
tion by keeping the disease under con¬ 
trol on the growing plants. With this 
in view, practice seed treatment, sani¬ 
tary seed-bed preparation, and crop 
rotation. If the disease becomes at all 
prevalent the plants should be sprayed 
with 4-4-50 Bordeaux mixture. 
Pack and ship only cauliflower en¬ 
tirely free from the disease. 
Ship in good refrigerator cars, which 
are kept at as low a temperature as 
possible (7° C. or below) throughout 
the transportation period by refilling 
