GROWING TURNIP SEED: AN EXPERIENCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3364, 4 September 1918, Page 12

GROWING TURNIP SEED: AN EXPERIENCE.

TO THE EDITOR. I Sib, —In regard to an article by “ Agri- ' cola” in last week’s Witness about growing : turnips seed, kindly allow me to make a 1 few remarks. When I was a farmer’s boy ■ in (Scotland 60 years ago 1 had often heard | it remarked that two varieties or more 1 grown together might produce anything or nothing. Never thinking I would grow turnips, I took little notice of it. A few years after I came to New Zealand I hadi turnips of my own, so it occurred to me to test what I had been taught in my youth. I will give you my experience. I had Green-top and Purpletop Yellow Aberdeen and swedes growing in the paddock. I picked out 12 or 15 oi the finest bulbs I could find of each variety, and planted them in the garden. Alongside I had 10 bee hives in front of them. The roots all grew beautiful plump seed. I kept the seed all separate, sowed it next year, and every variety grew as pure and distinct as those I planted, and a good crop; so I think this cross-fertilisation and growing the different varieties half a mile away is a mistaken idea altogether. I worked on the same principle for years with the same results. I never grew seed for sale, only about 401 b or 501 b for my own use; but one year I had more than I required, and sold a few pounds to several neighbours, and saw the turnips growing just the same as my own. __ Lately, in growing such small quantities in the garden, the birds became such _a pest, and seed being so cheap, I gave it up, but would never hesitate in growing it on the same principle.—-I am, etc.. Mataura, August 30. J. M. “Agricola” replies: “Despite your success, which might well, happen in the early days, your Scottish friends were right enough in their surmise. It would have been risky at Home, and ordinary care is necessary here to-day. In the fertilisation of flowering plants what commonly happens is that the pollen of one flower is carried to the stigma of another, and germination takes place. . Wind is an important agent, but insects _ are the most important, and bees, in visiting flowers for nectar (honey), become the unconscious means whereby the pollen of one flower is carried to the stigma of another. Flowers are but rarely susceptible to the pollen of flowers other than those of their own species, but by selecting two plants of the same species both possessing exclusive characters which }t is desired to combine in the same plant bv cross-fertilising them and raising fresh plants from the seed, cultivators have been able to establish new varieties. Turnips, cabbage, rape, kohlrabi, etc., are believed to have descended from one original stock or group, but are all one and the same plant differently developed by cultivation and by taking advantage of natural ‘sports.’ Thus the swede and turnip have the root abnormally developed!: cabbage, Brussels sprouts, the leaves and leaf stalks { rape, the stem and leaf; cauliflower and broccoli, the flower stalks much increased

in size. If plants can be developed as indicated above, so, too, can they rapidly deteriorate. Swedes, for instance, if neglected, will revert to the form of the smooth-leaved summer rape, and the turnip to that of the rough-leavedi summer rape. In the case of rape it is the foliage and not the root which has been the object of improvement, and no one wishes to-day for seed from a hybrid turriip rape. Excellent seed might and has been saved from crops from mixed seed if the parents are good roots and maturing about the same time, but no commercial house would buy the output of soed except at a minimum price."