NOT A SIGNAL FOR WATERING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 December 1940, Page 2

NOT A SIGNAL FOR WATERING

DROOPING FOLIAGE IN HEAT. We had enjoyed only a few days of sunshine at summer heat when the cry arose that rain is badly needed. Many anxious home gardeners began to water the carrots and peas and even potatoes under the impression that they were adopting the only means of rescuing their crops from collapse and failure. Their idea seemed to be confirmed by the fact that the leaves of most plants and especially those of young or soft growth, looked limp and drooping during the hours of mid-day sunshine. That was taken as an obvious sign that the plants wanted water and out came the hose and watercan. Wilting of the foliage in the middle of the day is a sign that the demands of the sun for release of moisture from the leaves is, for the brief spell of the mid-day hours, so intense that the leaves cannot keep pace with it and they show fatigue through trying to work at racing speed. Those of us who have to keep working in spite of the heat, know something of what mid-day fatigue means, but if we are wise, we do not try to counteract it by copious draughts of cold water; we look to the cooling hours of the evening for recuperation.

There is, perhaps, a similarity between plants and people that we scarcely realise. The mid-day droop of foliage, at any rate, so far as it happens when, only the top crust of soil is dry, is symptomatic of just that same feeling of fatigue that we experience, even though physically fit, healthy and strong. Some indication of the truth of this is forthcoming if those same plants which looked limp and drooping at noon, are visited at six o’clock next morning. It is only those that do not look perky again, that are really suffering. Where the mid-day droop is excessive, the probable causes are:—(l) The plants grow in soil that is too shallowly cultivated; (2) the’ surface has been allowed to remain compressed by the last rain instead of being hoed to a fine loose tilth; (3) the plants were so recently transplanted that they have

not realty gained sunicienr root noia to enable them to stand up against the heat. No. 3 is the only instance where immediate watering is justified. Overhead spraying with clear water at sundown after a hot day is recommended, but even for that, it is best to use tepid water. The main purpose of this treatment is to secure a greater degree of humidity in the atmosphere surround- . ing the plants, making it easier for them to resume their normal functions ; after the hours of strained effort.