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Lassen variety strawberries replacing an Alameda County apricot orchard—pulled because of severe potassium deficiency symptoms—provided an opportunity to work with low potassium strawberries on Dublin clay soil.

The following article is the first of two progress reports on cantaloupe crown blight studies.

For the first time, a practical and economical means of controlling the European lettuce root aphid—Pemphigus bursarius (L.)—seems to be available for commercial use.

Plants vary in response to applications of gibberellins—plant growth regulating compounds—according to species, from great stem elongation or rapid flowering to no detectable reaction.

An early infestation of the walnut aphid—the most severe during the past 10 to 15 years—occurred throughout much of the Central Valley in 1956.

The paradox walnut hybrid—Juglans hindsii x J. regia—is very much in demand by California walnut growers as a rootstock for English walnut varieties due to its vigor and its resistance to crown rot—Phytophthora cactorum—tolerance of excess water, and apparent potential resistance to root lesion nematodes—Pratylenchus vulnus. Such hybrid seedlings are ordinarily obtained from nuts taken from Northern California black walnut—J. hindsii—trees growing in the vicinity of English walnut—J. regia—trees. Since the individual seedlings vary considerably in their vigor and in their resistance to various diseases and nematodes, it would be very desirable to be able to propagate such rootstock trees vegetatively from outstanding selected hybrid parent trees. However, cuttings of these hybrids have been extremely difficult to root and at present vegetative propagation is limited almost entirely to trench layering.

Increases in the growth of forage and in pounds of lamb produced per acre were achieved by the use of fertilizers and introduced range plants in a study made at the Hopland Field Station during the winter and spring of 1956. In the low feed production period—January and February—the improved pastures yielded about three and one half times as much forage as untreated native range. Ewes with lambs were maintained in better condition and lambs gained slightly faster during the early winter months on the improved range compared to native pastures. However, by the end of May, the average lamb weight was the same in both groups. Also, the pasture treatment resulted in an increase of 141 sheep days per acre for the five-month period ending May 28.

Disposal of garbage as swine feed is of special importance in California—the leading state in numbers of garbage-fed swine—particularly in regions adjacent to densely populated areas, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.