Calag Archive

Extensive cotton producing areas of California suffer from air pollution. There is reason to believe that this problem will increase in severity and extent with increases in industrial and urban development. Premature aging and dropping of leaves of susceptible plants are known to be caused by natural and experimental, photochemically produced, compounds in smog. Ozone and peroxy-acetyl nitrate (PAN), two known phyto-toxicants in smog, have been demonstrated to produce such leaf separation under laboratory conditions.

No ladders are needed as pickers harvest fruit from these five-year-old cordon-trained El Dorado plum trees at the Elliot Ranch, Tulare County. Eight to 10 upright shoots developing from one horizontal limb (in each direction down the row) are selected for the permanent framework of the cordon trained plum trees. Horizontal limbs are trained for three years by bending and tying them flat along a staked wire at first dormant pruning.

Milk has been long recognized as a particularly nourishing and adaptable food, but was limited in use until production and quality controls were instituted about 50 years ago. The good reputation of milk as a highly nutritious, high quality food is firmly established today but it must be continually guarded and strengthened. This article reviews the effects of mastitis on milk quality and discusses the value of quality control testing programs as they affect dairymen, manufacturers and consumers.

HELMINTHOSPORIUM LEAF BLIGHT, caused by the fungus Helminthosporium turcicum, was first noted on sudan leaves in San Bernardino and San Diego counties in 1956. Tests conducted in San Bernardino County in 1954 showed Sudan 23 and Piper to be the highest yielding varieties. At that time, they were outyielding Tift by about 20%. Consequently, most sudan acreage during this period was planted to the susceptible variety, Sudan 23. Characteristic symptoms of the Helminthosporium disease on sudangrass are elongated, linear lesions. The lesions are water soaked at first, and then turn brown to straw color. Under conditions favorable to the disease in San Bernardino and San Diego counties, entire leaf blades are killed.

The use of dry grass mulch in cotton furrows substantially increased irrigation efficiency in recent tests at the U. S. Cotton Field Station, Shafter. The millet and sudangrass used in these tests was seeded in 8-inch bands down the furrows and then desiccated by oil-spraying when growth reached 10 to 18 inches high. Time required for irrigation water to flow down the furrows was nearly doubled by the sudangrass mulch. Infiltration rates were substantially increased by the grass mulches and a greater soil water content, following irrigation, was obtained. While cotton seed yields showed no significant differences in these tests, data indicated that both crop uniformity and yield improvements could result from use of grass mulches on soils with low infiltration rates.

Grande, a new feed barley, released by the University of California, and ARS, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture offers a yield advantage over the varieties Atlas and Winter Tennessee. In 16 years of testing at Davis and 5 years of tests at many other locations in California, the yield advantage over these two established varieties ranged from an average of 9% over Atlas to 21% over Winter Tennessee. The variety has been equal to Arivat in an average of 57 yield comparisons, as shown in table 2. Grande is recommended primarily for use in the upper Sacramento Valley and is suitable only for feed grain use. It seems especially well adapted for early sowing on clay textured soils where winter rainfall or supplemental spring irrigation is adequate for medium-late varieties. Because of its lateness, it may be useful in areas where spring frosts frequently cause damage to early heading varieties. It has good tolerance to net blotch, scald, mildew, yellow dwarf, lodging and shattering as compared with currently available commercial varieties in its area of adaptation. Foundation seed should be available to qualified growers in the autumn of 1964. Certified seed should be available after the 1965 harvest. Non-certified common seed of Grande (formerly CAS 1358) is presently available from Sacramento Valley sources.