SPRAYING FOR FUNGOID DISEASES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1106, 12 May 1893, Page 9

SPRAYING FOR FUNGOID DISEASES.

At a meeting of the Nuriootpa branch of the South Australian Agricultural Bureau, held in Angaston during November, 1890, the subject of fungoid diseases affecting fruit trees was discussed. Professor Lowrie and others strongly urged the appointment of a committee to investigate the matter and conduct a series of experiments having for their object the prevention or eradication of the diseases. At a subsequent meeting Mr F. C. Smith, of Yalumba Vineyards, Angaston, S.A., and Mr W. Sage, with Mr A. B. Robin, as secretary, were appointed a committee, and in the following season they carried out numerous experiments in the orchards in the cooler parts of the colony and in the Angaston district, where the fusicladium had seriously injured the apple and pear crop and trees, and where also tho shot-hole fungus had been prevalent in apricot foliage. During the interval before spraying Mr F. C. Smith corresponded with the heads of the pathological departments in the Australian colonies, England, California, and Washington. Amongst the replies received was a very valuable one from Professor Galloway, the chief vegetable pathologist at Washington, which showed that certain solutions in which copper sulphate was an important item had proved successful in destroying the scab and restoring the trees to health. The experiments and their results may be referred to hereafter in time for next summer's operations. It is, however, gratifying that the fugicladium has not been developed in any part of Victoria to the same extent as it appears to have done in the orchards of the cooler of South Africa. Mr F. C. Smith, the gentleman above referred to, and the son of Mr S. Smith, of the Yalumba Vineyards, South Australia, is at present in Victoria, but is on a tour of the world, one of his special objects being the investigation of fruit diseases, and the prospects ol the fruit export trade for fresh, dried, and preserved fruits generally constituting separate phases of his proposed work. Mr Smith has favoured us with an inspection of a series of photographs, showing trees that had been sprayed with a solution of lime and sulphate of copper, and of others that had not been so treated. The latter are almost leafless, and the fruit had all fallen without ripening; the photograph of the sprayed trees showed trees in full leaf and heavily, cropped. We hardly need say that next year tho whole orchard will be sprayed effectively.—Australasian.