Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1920-12-07
POTATO MOSAIC
HARD TO CONTROL
Will Scientific Investigations of
Plant Lice Solve the Diff
Guilty? Some of the Results
of Work Along That Line by
State and Federal Investiga-

tors. X
Orono, Me-. Dec. THE following
has been made public, written by DIR.
Charles d. Woods, before his removal
by the trustees as director of the
Maine Agricultural experiment sta
ton at the University Of Maine:
Cooperative work already con-
Quoted by the Maine Agricultural Elk
pertinent Station and the Federal Bu-
reau of Plant Industry have shown
the potato mosaic is important, is
transmissible and is carried by plant
lice. Control measures SO far at
tempted have been only partially sue
cessful. The Station Council, which
includes representatives Of the State
wide Agricultural Associations have
authorized the Entomologist to un-
dertake an investigation in the hope
that potato mosaic can be circum-
vented by an attack on the insects
that carry this disease. With this in
view the Station plans study of
certain rose and other. aphids (plant
lice) of Aroostook County.
Now it may seem like a far cry
from rose aphids to potato mosaic.
Once it seemed a far cry from mos
quitoes to malaria and yellow fever:
or from house flies to typhoid; or
from red cedar and ground juniper to
rusts of apples; or from currants and
gooseberries to white pine blister
rust. Yet no one would undertake,
today. to fight malaria or yellow few
er or typhoid or apple trusts or white
pine blister rust without reference to
mosquitoes, house flies, certain condi-
fers, and gooseberry bushes.
From studies already made by this
Station we know that one Of the
aphid- carriers Of potato mosaic
spends its winter-egg stage on the
rose on which plant the spring COL
onies develop and from which it mi
crates to potato and other vegeta-
ton for the summer. While feeding
in the potato field these aphids pass
from plants sick with mosaic to
healthy plants, carrying with them
the disease which they inoculate
when they jab into the tissue of the
plant with the sharp beak through
which they suck their juick repast.
In the. fall this species returns to the
rose.
The inference that potato mosaic
might possibly be controlled by Grad
icating rose bushes from the vicin-
ity of potato fields is easily deducted
from the foregoing statements. The
situation. however, is by no means so
simple. For it is not one species of
aphid only that spends the summer
on Maine potatoes but several, and
only one of these migrates to the
rose. The habits. life cycles. and 9TH
er food plants for these several spe-
cies are not known. It will be seen,
therefore. that the prospect Of ex-
GLIDING aphid carriers of mosaic in
wolves study Of all the species at
work upon the potato in the hope
that each may have vulnerable
point in its life history where it may
be attacked and routed.
Such hope is not without founda-
ton. The Maine Agricultural Ex-
pertinent Station has, through previ-
Gus study Of aphids by the Station
Entomol0gist, established the fact Of
migratory habits of many species
which deposit the overwintering egg
upon one Kind OF vegetation CASUALLY
shrub or tree) upon which the spring