Northern Nut Growers Association, Report Of The Proceedings At The Tenth Annual Meeting.: Battle Creek, Michigan, December 9 and 10, 1919
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association, Report Of The Proceedings At The Tenth Annual Meeting.: Battle Creek, Michigan, December 9 and 10, 1919
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
I may as well say here as anywhere, that by resistance, I do not mean
total resistance, for that would be immunity. There are, of course,
degrees of resistance, in the plant world just as in the animal world.
One person may resist a cold germ or the influenza bacillus better than
another, that is, it will cause him only a little discomfort. Another
person may not be affected at all, that is, he is totally resistant or
immune. I say this because I have misunderstood when I have used the
term resistance. The trees in the New York region show all grades of
resistance, from individuals where the fungus makes very little headway
in the bark, to cases where it grows almost as fast as in the average
non-resistant tree.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESISTANT TREES
What now are the characteristics of these resistant trees? How are we
going to know one when we see it? I have outlined the leading features
as follows:
1. BARK. In the case of this particular disease, it is obvious
that the character of the bark is the most important feature since this
fungus is primarily parasitic in the living cortex. In other words, the
character of resistance must necessarily depend on the living cells of
the cortex. Now, careful observation of the resistant trees reveals a
most striking feature of the bark, namely its tendency to heal, by means
of a callus growth around the margins of the lesions, whether large or
small; and it is very apparent that this callus growth wards off the
advance of the fungus for a time at least. When the callus growth is
once formed, the fungus of the original canker encroaches on it very
slowly, or often not at all. Inoculations in the callused margins of
cankers showed usually only slight growth of the fungus after two
months' time in the summer, or in some cases no growth at all. Several
layers of wood could be counted underneath these callused margins--often
6 or 7--before reaching the annual ring exposed at the surface of the
canker. This of course, shows unquestionably that the callus had
remained healthy at that location for that period of time.
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