Blossoms on Potatoes.

Manawatu Herald, 20 April 1893, Page 3

Blossoms on Potatoes.

" A funny thing," remarked a farmer with whom I was talking the other day, "there is hardly any blossom on the potatoes this season, but the crops are turning out more prolific than last year, when the blossom was most profuse. Do you think the flower bloom has anything to do with the yield of tubers ?" It may interest the general reader, remarks " Thistledown," to know that this subject of the relation between blossoming and the development of tubers in the potato plant recently cfaused a good deal of discussion in Europe, and a German scientist has written a pamphlet in which he describes several experiments carried out with a view to ascertaining whether blossoming is detrimental to the development of tubers. His conclusion was that the efforts of the plant to provide for its reproduction by means of seed resulted in a corresponding weakness of its root growth and the size and number of its tubers. The experiments were carried out on a number of plots on similar soil, every condition being exactly the same. On one plot the plants were allowed to blocm as much as they liked ; the blooms on the other plots were cut off at various times. The crop that had not been topped at all was the worst yield, and the best crop was the one that had been prevented from blooming by being stopped at frequented intervals. Those that were stopped at the latest stage of the plants' growth were not so satisfactory as in the case of the crop frequently topped. The theory that climatic influences have a great ■I deal to do with the yield of potatoes has of late years received confirmation, dryness and abundance of sun* shine being found to induce much

bloom, while a dull sky seems m'dte favourable in the formation of tubers. — Weekly Press. _