- As nitrogen is essential for plant growth and can also determine plant quality, it is important that it is supplied in adequate quantity to meet the needs of crops. The best approach is to monitor the nitrogen content of plant tissues and then adjust the nitrogen supply accordingly. Plant tissues can be analysed chemically to determine their nitrogen content, but it is a time-consuming procedure.
- Blackcurrants have to reach a certain size before they are able to respond to day length, the environmental signal that triggers stems to stop growing and to form flowers. The present experiments examined the effect of summer temperatures on stem growth and flower initiation and development under natural day lengths.
- Cherry tomatoes are susceptible to cracking during storage and can then be infected by Botrytis. In the experiments reported here, cherry tomatoes were picked when red and were then dipped for 10 minutes into a variety of different liquids.
- The impact of light quantity on rooting has not often been investigated with vegetatively propagated, herbaceous annual bedding plants. In the research reported here, uniform shoot-tip cuttings were harvested from vegetative stock plants of various species including Argyranthemum frutescens, Diascia barberae, Lantana camara, Nemesia fruticans, Osteospermum ecklonis, Sutera cordata, and Verbena x hybrida.
- Growers are always interested in techniques that might enable them to detect stress in their crops more quickly. One such technique is chlorophyll fluorescence because it can be used as an indicator of photosynthetic activity.
- Growers and researchers are well aware of the need to use water efficiently (HW, 20 May, 9 September and 11 November 2011). The present research examined how to deploy a limited number of moisture sensors to predict the substrate water content of a large number of containerised trees.
- Various plants have been tested for their ability to remove volatile organic pollutants from the air, especially those associated with new buildings.
- Nitrogen is the most important mineral nutrient for plants and growers usually ensure that it is supplied at an appropriate rate.
- Many people are concerned that winters are getting colder and there is anecdotal evidence that exceptionally low temperatures have caused the death of many trees and shrubs in recent winters.
- Onions possess many health-giving properties, some of which are related to their pungency.
- Fruit thinning is often required to produce a commercially profitable apple crop, yet fewer chemicals are now approved for this purpose.
- Young rose plants produced for cultivation in gardens are now most commonly raised in containers and sold in spring. Customers are usually seeking compact, well-branched specimens and such plants can be produced in many different ways.
