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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 
culture 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. | 
GRAFT INDEXING 
Graft indexing has become standard procedure with Yoder Brothers Inc. eradicating stunt. This was 
made necessary by the fact that certain varieties express visual symptoms of the virus much more readily 
than others. There are some varieties which are seemingly tolerant to stunt and which have never been 
known to express clear cut symptoms of stunt virus. Others, such as Blazing Gold for example will in- 
dicate the usual symptoms very readily. In order to check those which do not express the usual symp- 
toms readily, the technique of graft indexing was developed whereby a variety such as Blazing Gold 
serves as the understock and the variety to be checked for virus is grafted on to Blazing Gold. By 
this method, it can be told within two months, whether stunt virus is present or not. By making selec- 
tions in this manner it is possible to eventually select out mother stock of all varieties, and by careful 
isolation practices, maintain them stunt-free. Until this is accomplished there will always be the chance 
that certain few varieties, although they do not show any symptoms, may be carriers of the virus and 
act as sources of infection for other varieties. 
Several other virus expressions have made their appearance since stunt. You probably have heard of 
Blanche Mosaic, Ivory Sea Gull, Aster yellows, Spotted wilt, and Nightingale mosaic. Fortunately by 
the use of the above technique, these are isolated early, before any of them will have become so 
widespread as to cause any great difficulty. 
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