OCR Text |
Show TESTING SUGAR-BEET SEEDS FOR IMPURITY Heavy Losses to Growers During Past Two Years. Bureau of Plant Industry Conducting Experiments In Florida to Determine De-termine Presence of Mangel Wurzel Seeds. (Prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture.) Because of the heavy losses experienced ex-perienced by beet sugar companies during the past two years through the presence ,of mangel wurzel, or stock beet seed In the imported sugar-beet seed, the bureau of plant Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture Ag-riculture Is making growing tests of samples of such seeds. The tests are being made in Florida in the open air. Lots of Imported seed have been sent by beet-sugar companies for test- W l K - Loading Beets for Shipment to Factory at Owosso, Mich. tng. When any of these samples are found to contain stock beet seed, the senders will be notified before planting plant-ing time. Similar tests made In the greenhouses green-houses during the past year made possible pos-sible the location of mixtures containing con-taining stock beets of red, or orange-colored orange-colored varieties. It has been found that white-fleshed varieties of stock beets cannot be determined through germination tests alone but must be grown to a considerable size before thL"ir distinguishing characteristics are discernible. That the heavy losses experienced ex-perienced during the past two years due to this cause constitute a strong argument for the development of an American-grown supply of sugar-beet seed, sufficient for the needs of oue beet Industry, is the belief of the officials working on the problem. |