GROWING OF PLANTS WITHOUT EARTH

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 31, 30 October 1937, Page 15

GROWING OF PLANTS WITHOUT EARTH

_________________ a A NEW SCIENCE EVOLVED Striking Climax Reached

& CROM the quiet patieat work of the plant breeder is springing a geueration of new fruits, flowers and vegetables, the like of which we have never seen, as well as vastly improved versions of established types, write A. P. Luscombe Whyte and Georges Delhoste in Pearson's Magazine, With their lamps and soil-cables, the electricians are conquering the seasons, giviag us summer blooms and fruits in mid-December. Even the earth itself has been superseded by the chemists who are conjuring np plants of aatounding yield from concrete and metal ''flelds'* filled with soil substitutes. Plant breeding is now new practice. For centuries farmera have crossed difEerexit varieties of fruits, vegetables and flowers, in order to combine the best qualities of each in one new strain. Bnt it is only during recent j ears that scientific methods have yiolded really dramatic results. Since 1927, dozens of new names have appeared on the agricultural map. But, spectacular though the produe1 tion of new names may be, it is in the 1 improvement of old favourites that the 1 really useful work is being done. 1 Seientists have drawn up a list of the weaknesses inherent in established . plants, and have set out to eliminate i them by breeding. Two methods are used by the plani ' wizaTdsj the niarriage of differenl types of the same plant, and the selec

tion and) inter-breeding of freak "super-plants." In most plant-breeding stations you will find fields filled with thousands of growing plants. Of these thousands, most will be useless to the breeders; but one or two will probably becocne vegetable ''outsiders," differing in some way from their fellows. Perhaps they will ripen a week or so earlier, grow larger or smaller, contain less acid or water. These are the parents which will give birth to the improved generations of the future. But selective breeding is necessarily 1 a slow process. Nature prodnees only a very small proportiorf, of "mutations" or freaks in each generation. i The breeders cast around for a way to i speed up the process. Some time ago a number of research i workers were investigating the effects I of X-and other rays on plant growth. 1 The results were dramatic. The treated seeds produced freaks of all lrinds. ; Some were giants, some were dwarfs. 1 Some had outsize blooms or flowers of * new shapes, while many of thom burst

into unfamiliar colours. One or two showed a tendency to mature earlier or' later than the tiisne set out in Nature 's time-table. To-day at the Univevsity of California a group of plant physiologists ara teaching the climax of sevea years* research in earthless growing— and a striking climax it is. Their "fields" ato shallow eonorete tanks, about eight inches deep, filled with "synthetic earth" composed of cocnmon, inexpensive chemicals dissolved in water. A few inches above the solution stretohes a wire screen, supporting two layers of damp straw between which the seeds ara planted. After a few days the young, sprouting roots reach down into the solution and begin to suck up nourishment. The plant grows. Excellent yields of tomatoes have been obtained in these concrete fields. In one 25-foot-square tank, from 300 to 4501bs. of tomatoes were produced, working out at an ' average of 15 to 201bs. of fruit per plant. Beets, turnips, carrots, celery, fruits and . flowers of avery kind, sprouted and

bloomed in luxuriant profiision in the synthetic earth. Since the composition of the chomisals could easily be varied to give the. very best conditions for each spacies, uature itself was improved upon, and outsize plants of extraordinary quality resulted. Not exactly to-morrow, perhaps, will the Eskimos and Lapps be enjoying dates and oranges grown by themselves in the glacial polar night. Nor can we imsaediately , expect the time when coffee, eotton, rubber, etc., will be produced at will in any part of the world close to the big consuming centres, the date of each crop being fised in advauce accordiug ta the working schedules of the factories utilising these products. B-it that day, with all its consequeuces, is bound to come. When this intensive and simplified stage is reached, the manufaeture of our foods, our textiles and of many Other pToducts up to now exclusively drawn from the soil, will require ihfinitely less labour. And the released surplus will have to find other work. What? Nobody at the moment can say. And the earth, useless and abandoned, will beeome once more a desert, savage and hostile. Is all this desirable? It avails nothing to ask the question, for, once started, progress rolls on like a torreufc and nothiug can turn it bnck. Progress is pitilessl j