Anti-Drop

An apple falling from a tree may have started Isaac Newton on the way to the Law of Gravitation, but such falls are disastrous to modern orchardists. They want to pick their fruit from the trees, not gather it off the ground. Grounded apples are spoiled by bruises and rotting. Science cannot suspend the Law of Gravitation for beleaguered orchardists, but last week it offered them a substitute in the form of a chemical apple-stem toughener.

Naphthalene acetic acid and naphthalene acetamide are two of the "growth substances" or hormone-like chemicals, which growers now use to stimulate root-sprouting, accelerate pollen production, etc. etc. Dr. Frank Easter Gardner and his co-workers at the U. S. Bureau of Plant Industry station in Beltsville, Md. decided to try these two naphthalene compounds as a spray to keep ripening apples from dropping. They sprayed ten varieties of apple trees just before crop maturity, were signally successful in preventing premature falls. In Science last week they reported that in tests on one troublesome variety ("Williams Early Red") only 2% of the treated apples fell before picking, whereas from unsprayed trees 65% to 90% of the fruit was lost.

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