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Culture and Ringing

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M4. K. Patriarche
1802

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
THESIS
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THESIS.

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Culture and Ringing of Chrysanthemuns.

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by

H. K. Patriarche.

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THES!S
CULTURE and RINGING of CHRYSANTHEMUMS.

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One does not usually perform an experiment without some
object in view, and so I will state at the beginning what my
purpose was in choosing this subject for a thesis. First,

I wanted to gain some knowledge of greenhouse work in gen-
eral; secondly, I was anxious to know how to grow and take
care of one of my favorite flowers; and thirdly, an endeavor
was made to ascertuin whether ringing would have a benefi-
cial or detrimental effect on chrysanthemuns,.

The first thing I will consider is the culture and care
of chrysanthemums, which was done during the yeir 1900, and
then there will be a discussion of the first attempt at

ringing commercial plants of the greenhouse.

a

Barly Culture.

In May and June I took cuttings from the most healthy
looking plants of the preceding season, and made them about
two inches long, stripped off the lower leaves and reduced
the size of the upper ones. They were then placed in a sand
propagating bench, which was heated from beneath in cool
weather and shaded during the hot sunny days. The sand was
kept continually moist until the cuttings had rooted pretty

well, and then I transferred them to two inch pots, while,

108228
in the first week of September they were again changed for
the last time into a bed in the side-hill greenhouse, settin;

the plants six inches apart each way.

Greenhouse Conditions.

The house in which the chrysanthemums spent the best

. part of their life was a single spanned structure facing the
south. Most of the plants were put into a solid bed, the
second from the front. Heat came from pipes overhead. Venti-
lation was secured throu;h the upper edge of the roof and
the front side, and the temperature was kept down to between
forty and fifty degrees when possible. The soil was made up
of sand, well decomposed manure and bonemeal, and put to the
depth of ten inches over a layer of broken brick and stone

which served for drainage.

Trimmin;.

After the plants were permanently set, I spent the last
week of September anu farst of October cleaning them off of
dead leaves, suckers and axillary growths. The object of
this was to concentrate the energy of the plants, thus in-
creasing the size of the flowers. A month later I went through
the same operations and cultivated the soil. To show what
neglect will do, I left a group of plants without any care.

The result was, they were badly tangled up, scraggy and had

small blossoms.
Disbudding.

Not only the above work was necessary but the process
of disbudiing is essential to the growth of large blossoms.
There are two forms of buds, crown and terminal. The former
appeared in the summer but this was taken off and the axill-
ary growths that came with it allowed to develop and produce
terminals. I allowed not more than two stems to a plant and
reserved the three best uppermost buds on each stem. Some
plants had only one bud while others had two and the majority
possessed but a single stem. I performed the disbudding the
latter part of the afternoon when the plants were brittle.

Early morning will do just as well.
Staking.

My next step was staking. Four feet above each side of
the bed I ran a main wire to which was attached a cross wire
for each row of plants. Then each plant was tied to a steel
wire stake with raffia and the sti.kes in turn fastened to the
cross pieces with fine wire. This is not the simplest method

of training plants but it served the purpose very efficiently.
Watering.

In watering chrysanthemums, two things had to be con-
sidered, the weather and the condition of the plants. Bright
days were chosen for this work because transpiration is rapid
when the sun shines. Sometimes it was done on a cloudy day

because sunny weatner was not frequent enough. Too much
water made the leaves yellowish in color while an insuffi-
cient supply caused them to droop and curl. A large amount
of food in the soil at places caused the leaves to be large

and dark green in color.
Enemies.

I have now related the work that was done in growing
chrysanthemums, with the exception of combatting the enemies.
All this labor is useless unless the black aphis can be con-
trolled. In favorable weather these insects multiply so
rapidly as to make the upper part of the stem a black color.
If there is no check put on them they will sap the life out
of the plants. Tobacco smoke is the best remedy. I hada
pailful of tobacco stems packed tight enough so as to form a
smudge, put into the house. After the lighted match was
applied, I let it remain there until the house was complete-
ly filled with smoke. The pail was moved three times and
watched carefully so as not to allow the tobacco to catch
fire. Vapor will kill the plants. This operation was per-
formed the latter part of the afternoon at intervals of
from four to ten days, according to the rapidity with which
the insects multiplied, and was continued until the flowers
appeared.

No other insects made themselves prominent except an
occasional mealy bug, but I noticed several diseases which
may be briefly mentioned. There were two leaf-spots, the
SEPTORIA CHRYSANTHEMI and CYLINDROSPORIUM, which are hard to

distinguish from each otner. They appear as dark brown spots
om

on the upper sides of the leaves and eventually caused the
latter to turn brown and shrink up. Then the Rust was quite
prevalent, being distinguished by its purplish brown spots

on both sides of the foliage. Lastly, the mildew was noticed
once in awhile. None of these seemed to injure the plants to

any extent, so I made no attempt to check then.
Varieties.

The last thing. to consider now, will be the varieties
grown, as I think it might be of interest to know what ny
choice was. Of the yellows I grew Major Bonaffin, W. H.
Lincoln, Golden Wedding, Georgiana Fitcher and Marion Hender-
son. The whites were represented by the Niveus, Henry Rob-
inson, Queen, Mutual Friend and Lenawee. In the class of
pinks I had the Glory of the Pacific, Helen Bloodgood and
W. R. Smith. The Tippecanoe and G. W. Childs were the only
red varieties. Of all these sorts I give tle Niveus and Gold-
en Wedding the highest rank because they have a strong sten,
hold their flowers erect, have a general healthy appearance
and keep well. The first named has full florets which are
incurved in the center and reflexed outside, while the petals
are broad. The Golden Wedding is golden yellow in color, has
long, broad, somewhat ragged petals and 2 high center. I
thought they excetled all the rest in beauty as well, although
the Robinson and Bonaffin almost equalled them in this res-
pect, but lacked the other good qualities. It is not necess-
ary to go into detail about the other varieties of chrysan-
themums for they do not concern the culture directly. I simply
aimed to give the results of my labor.
6.

Here, in detail then, I have given you the description
of my culture of chrysanthemums. Perhaps there were some
minor things neglected, but I met with success, neverthe-
less. The flowers averaged a good size; the plants, on
the whole, were in pretty good condition; but there was an

unevenness in height.
 

 

 
RINGING.

During the fall of 1901 I took charge of the chrysan-
themums again for the purpose of trying an experiment in
ringing. This has been practiced in other branches of horti-
cultural work with success, but it is not known to have been
applied in the greenhouse before, hence it was thought to
be a good subject for experiment. Being familiar with the
Chrysanthemum, I chose this flower for my work.

fhe conditions the plants grew in were practically the
same as those of the preceding year, described in the first
part of this thesis; except in one respect. The plants were
grown in benches instead of a solid bed. The codition of
the plants themselves, however, was considerably different.
Taking them as a whole, they were weak, somewhat dwarfed,
more unhealthy in appearunce and very uneven in height, all
being due to lack of care during the summer. This does not
mean though, that there were not plenty of healthy specimens.

In the latter part of October and the first week of
November, when the buds were pretty well open, I performed
the work of ringing on forty plants, most of which were the
strongest and healthiest in the two benches. The varieties

I used were the Wanamaker, G@. W. Childs, Marion Henderson,

\
Glory of the Pacific, Golden Wedding, W. H. Lincoln, Henry
Robinson and Mutual Friend. For comparison I reserved as
many again which appeared to be of the same conditions as
those treated with the knife. The method of ringing is
comparatively simple. I made two incisions around the stem
about three-ei,;hths of an inch apart, and cut to the wood.
The bark was then shaved off and the wood scraped to get
rid of all material not wanted. If inner bark was left on
the experiment would be of no account. You can readily see
what little time is required for each plant, and no doubt,
I did not do the work in the simplest and quickest way pos-
sible. Having dame this, an explanation of what ought to
happen is perhaps next in order. Those familiar with its
structure know that there is a fibro-vascular system in

the stem, made up of bundles. These are arranged in such a
manner as to form a continuous passage for food from and to
the leaves. Each bundle is divided into the phioem and
zylem, the first being found in the cortex or inner bark
and the second in the outer layer of wood. Sap passes up
from the roots through the zylem, is acted upon in the leaves
by chlorophyll and carbonic acid, then, this assimilated
material passes down through the phloem and is conveyed to
parts which are in need of it. Since ringing would cut off
the flow of sap downward, the food must go to the formation
‘Of flowers at the expense of the other organs. Evaporation
from the base wood might tend to slightly check the upward
flow and cause the growth of large leaves below the girdle.

Now let us see what results I did get. In the first place
9.

I found that none of the plants were in the least bit in-
jured. Wilting is apt to occur and there is danger of fungi
getting into the wound, but such was not the case in this
instance. Among the benefits the most marked were the has-
tening of the blooming period and the increase in the size
of the leaves above the girdle as well as their healthier
appearance. As to the size of the flowers, I noticed little
difference. By taking measurements, the Wanamaker averaged
in favor of the girdled plants, while the Childs was just
the reverse. This shows how conflicting the results were,
hence nothing definite can be said.

This experiment should be repeated in order to form an
opinion, because of several things which ought to be con-
sidered. You must take into account the variety, the health
of the plant, amount of foliage, season, cultural care, and
the number of blooms. You have seen how the effects
differed with the varieties and as I said in the beginning,
of the poor health of same of the plants and their lack of
care. As to the blooms, three were left on each plant. I
have started the work with some success, others must continue

it.
          

  

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