CHRYSANTHEMUM CUTTING S§ 
(Cultural Pointers 
WATERING 
The knowledge of proper watering is essential to success. Chrysanthemums produce extremely heavy 
foliage and a great deal of water is required at the roots, and under ordinary conditions of bench cul- 
ture overwatering would be difficult. When grown in beds more care should be exercised in watering. 
Some soils look wet on the surface but are very dry several inches below. 
When planting rooted cuttings directly into their permanent locations it is essential to water thoroughly 
to set the soil around the plant roots. We suggest double watering again when the soil gets on the 
dry side. By this time the plants are established and regular watering should be followed. Keep 
humidity in the house by wetting down bench and walks. 
Steam sterilization causes the soil to become more granular and capillary movement of water in it is 
much slower than in soils not steamed. Cuttings planted in it cannot obtain water readily, and for 
this reason should be kept more moist than in soils not sterilized. 
Surface Watering 
During the past several years many labor saving devices have been developed. Surface watering is 
one that will save many hours of hand watering your chrysanthemum crop. 
The Skinner Superior nozzle is the final answer to the exacting requirements of surface watering. An 
absolutely flat uniform spray is obtained over a full circle with a constant pattern under any pres- 
sure. This nozzle throws a fine spray 5 feet in diameter at 5 pounds pressure at the nozzle, and uses 
0.9 gallons per minute. 
When installing surface watering, check your water supply and the capacity needed to irrigate your 
area. It is advisable to have an engineer figure out your requirements. 
Leaching 
Many greenhouse soils are excessively rich and chrysanthemums will not thrive in such a medium. If 
this is the case, the remedy is leaching with water. After the soil is sterilized it should be leached. 
Use a skinner line and allow it to run for hours if necessary. Raised benches do not require as much 
water to leach, 
CULTURED STOCK 
Through the development of science your chrysanthemum cuttings have all been grown from stock 
that has been cultured to determine the presence or absence of the fungus that causes Verticillium: 
Wilt or more commonly referred to as Seidewitz Disease. The culturing of cutting is to place bits 
of the stem of a cutting into the gelatine-like agar medium which is used for growing fungi. If the 
tissue is not infected, no growth of Verticillium develops. As each cutting is cultured it is placed in 
Lave te 2 : ; =, sterile propagating benches spaced six 
~ ee Ag he ta Naar y, a Fe inches each way. After 10 days of in- 
Bad: f Ey Sehen - cubating the agar plates one can de- 
termine if the wilt organism is present 
in the tissue. All the cuttings that show 
the presence of Verticillium are dis- 
carded and only those that show a 
negative reading are saved and grown 
into stock plants. This clean stock must 
be grown under sterile conditions at all 
times as cuttings can be easily contam- 
inated when planted into soil that has 
the Verticillium organism present. 
wer wet S 
Wns 
\ 
Verticillium wilt is one of the worst dis- 
eases of the chrysanthemum. If you ob- 
tain cuttings propagated from cultured 
stock and provided you grow your 
plants in clean soil this disease should 
not be of any trouble to you. 
Superior Nozzle Showing Uniformity of Pattern 
