A NEW WORLD FOR PLANTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 April 1926, Page 3

A NEW WORLD FOR PLANTS.

am ericax experiments

How plants respond to strange conditions never found in nature, such as, daylight arbitrarily set at anything from zero to twenty-four hours a day, carbon dioxide 10 times are concentrated as is normal air, and atmospheric moisture held anywhere that the manipulators want it. was told in an illustrated discussion hefpns the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as Kansas City. I ■ SA., oil Deoemher 29th. by John M. Arthur, of the Boyce Thompson Institute, Yonkers. X.Y.

One lot of plants was given ten times the normal amount of carbon dioxid and at the same time had its

daylight period lengthened six hours with powerful electric lights. Red (lover plants in this lot blossomed and produced a good crop of hay in 38 days, when under ordinary agricultural conditions, two years would have been acquired for the same results. Spring wheat, barley and oats, in the -same group, produced taller plants, yielding larger crops of both grain and straw, than control plants under normal conditions.

A second serves of plants was given light for 24 hours a day. hut no extra carbon dioxid. These did little better than the control plants, and on the whole not nearly as well as tlio-v- that were given the extra gas. Apparently plants need a rest, for a tomato plant, subjected to continuous light treatment, finally died. A second tomato plant, given 1!) hours of light and five hours’ rest, survived and grew slowly, while a third, with seven hours’ rest each night. Imre fruit. With its facilities for complete and accurate control of all conditions all'octing plant life, the lloyce Thompson Institute plans a long and extensive campaign of research into the I'umhu mental problems of plant physiology.