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Cultural Pointers 
WATERING 
The knowledge of proper watering is essential to suc- 
cess. Chrysanthemums produce extremely heavy foli- 
age, 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 de- 
vices 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 pressure. 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 neces- 
sary. Raised benches do not require as much water 
to leach. 
ai ‘a Bare iP lhe * a 
Showing Uniformity of Pattern 
Superior Nozzle 
GRAFT INDEXING 
Graft indexing to eradicate stunt has become standard 
procedure with Yoder Brothers, Inc. 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 indicate the 
usual symptoms very readily. In order to check those 
which do not express the usual symptoms readily, the 
technique of graft indexing was developed whereby 
a variety such as Blazing Gold serves as the under- 
stock and the variety to be checked for virus is grafted 
on to Blazing Gold. By this method, it can be told 
within 2 months whether stunt virus is present or not. 
By making selections 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 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 
Mosaic, Aster Yellows, Rosette and Asperimy. For- 
tunately, 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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