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The second of a series of reports of a survey of characteristics of retail grocery stores in five counties in California made cooperatively by the Departments of Home Economics, University of California, Berkeley and Davis, and by the United States Department of Agriculture under the authority of the Research and Marketing Act as part of Western Regional Research Project WM-26.

Relative yields of green asparagus obtained by mechanical harvesting and by hand cutting, the operational characteristics of the machine in commercial plantings, and plant growth characteristics that influence the results of set-level harvesting, were studied in field test plots on two types of soil during the 1957 cannery season.

The first trials of rose clover in California were made in 1944 as part of Research Project 1194B. Rose clover, an annual reseeding legume, is well adapted to soils low in phosphate or sulfur and on which bur clover scarcely exists. It is a good companion crop for subterranean clover. In addition to increased green forage in the spring they produce high quality dry feed for summer and fall.

Incomplete ear fill—blanking—in fresh market sweet corn is due to the failure of individual kernels to begin development and has been particularly troublesome in the Coachella Valley. Usually blanking is most serious near the tip of the ear, but it can extend over the body of the ear.

A shrivelling—or arested development—of the kernels of fresh market sweet corn has been observed for several years in the San Joaquin Valley, the Coachella Valley and the Riverside area.