Calag Archive

The Black Corinth (Zante Currant) is a specialty raisin produced in the central San Joaquin Valley. Its main popularity is with the baking trade where the small, fruity, and tender raisin is ideal. Traditionally, the grapes have been hand picked and dried on trays in the vineyard. The variety has the advantage of being the earliest ripening and harvested raisin variety. However, hand harvest is difficult and costly because the clusters are small and the berries fragile. Pickers too often smash berries and cause juicing on the tray, and understandably complain about the numerous small clusters they must harvest.

This article reports results of trials with a systemic experimental nematocide, du Pont's 1410, chemically identified as S-methyl 1-(dimethylcarbamoyl)-N-[(methyl-carbamoyl)oxy]thioformimidate (D-1410). When D-1410 was released for testing, evidence was presented that demonstrated its systemic activity. Trials reported here have shown that when D-1410 is sprayed on plant foliage, it—or one of its breakdown products—is translocated to the roots and controls plant-pathogenic nema-todes.

AN EXPERIMENTAL BREEDING LINE for a cotton resistant to Verticillium wilt, given the name “Waukena White,” is described in this progress report. Limited tests in a wilt nursery maintained on the Don Davis ranch at Waukena, Tulare County, where the breeding line was selected, indicate that it has the capacity to yield 1.5 to 2.5, 500-lb bales of cotton per acre on heavily infested wilt land. The fiber quality is excellent, and the seed has a high oil content. Verticillium wilt resistance previously has been available in such cotton varieties as Tanguis and Seabrook, but they are late maturing and low yielding under San Joaquin Valley conditions. Therefore, a new cotton with tested resistance, ideal plant type, and highly acceptable fiber, has potential value to the cotton breeding effort in California. Botanically this cotton has been identified as Gossypium barbadense L. It has yellow flowers with red petal spots, and thus— as identified in section 347(a) of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938—it is classed as extra-long staple cotton. Lack of Federal allotments for extra-long staple cotton in the San Joaquin Valley of California prevents cultivation there of Gossypium barbadense and hybrid cottons derived from the species. However, the wide publicity it has received makes it advisable that it be described. This description is given in the hope that some day it may be useful in the development of improved varieties for the cotton areas of California now economically depressed because of wilt.

FIELD RESEARCH on the effect of pesticides on honey bees has been conducted in California since 1952. F. E. Todd of the Bee Research Branch, USDA, ARS cooperated in these field tests through 1968. Several methods have been used to collectively measure the effects of pesticide treatments on honey bees. Of these, colony strength, forager bee visitation in the field, caged bees in the field, bioassay of foliage residues in cages using honey bees, and dead bees at the colony are the most useful, according to previous tests.

Mechanical harvesting of citrus by tree or limb shaking necessitates catching frames to lessen fruit damage and to facilitate fruit collection and transport. Some low limbs and foliage must be removed to move and position catching frames in the grove and under trees. The trials reported in the following article were designed to determine the effects of skirt pruning on fruit yield and quality. If shake-harvesting of oranges necessitates the removal of the lower 2 or 3 ft of tree limbs and foliage (to facilitate movement of catching frames) there will be some loss of fruit yield. However, there will be no appreciable loss on mature trees with a large bearing surface.