BITTER PIT.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1634, 28 December 1912, Page 8

BITTER PIT.

THE VICTORIAN INVESTIGATIONS. Tlie first progress report by Mr. D. M'Alpino," Victorian Government Pathologist,,,on his bitter-pit investigations is now .available. ;

i "Certain obscure diseases," eays the author, ''are cropping up and coming into prominence, which are due neither to insects nor,to-fungi, nor even to the übiquitous bacteria.; Such is, tho. bitter-pit of the appio and pear. ... . Tho' success already achieved in connection with the treatment of plant diseases encourages us to hope that even such well-marked diseases of unknown origin as bittcr-pit, when thoroughly investigated, may become amenable to treatment.- ,

"The principal contributing factors to bitter-pit are:—(l) Intermittent weather conditions when the fruit is at a critical period of growth; (2) amount and rapidity of transpiration; (3) sudden checking of tho 'transpiration at night, when the root 9 aro,6till active owing to the heat of. tho soil; (4) failure of supplies at the periphery of the fruit, followed by spasmodic and irregular recovery; (5) inequality of growth, so that the vascular -networlc con-trolling'the-distribution of nutritive material is not regularly formed; (6) fluctuations of temperature when fruit is in store; and (7) nature of variety. The weather cannot be controlled (except in. so far as a smoke-blanket is allowed to drift over the orchard on frosty night),' but the soil and tree and the fruit formed may be controlled ' to a large, extent by cultivation, manuring, including green manuring, irrigation, the stocks used, and the method of pruning. The relation of each of these factors to tho development of bitter-pit is being determined by means of. experiments."