Author
merpat20
It turns out that evaluating taste and flavor is exceedingly complex. There are multitude of things that effect how we perceive sensations. For example, background noise enhances umami perception, but diminishes sweet perception. This is one reason behind the popularity… Continue Reading →
We first spotted late blight on September 22nd, so the first late blight evaluation was one week later on September 29. We used the modified late blight rating scale provided in the NOVIC protocol, which a 9-point scale referencing the… Continue Reading →
A lot of parameters were considered with the harvests. Weights of marketable and unmarketable fruit, counts of marketable and unmarketable fruit, and the percentage of the harvest that was unmarketable, which I calculated based on weight. In the context of… Continue Reading →
When it came to average fruit weight, I decided to calculate this for each harvest, and then put these observations through analysis. In other words, I have five observations for each variety for this parameter. Since we’re looking at the… Continue Reading →
Picking ease refers to how easily fruit comes off the plant when you’re harvesting and was ranked on a 1-5 scale (1=difficult, 5=easy). The UW-Madison report from last year indicated they only scored picking ease once, but I gave a… Continue Reading →
Photo: A seedling on the way to the compost pile. Preformed defenses (ie: the physical and chemical barriers of the epidermis and cuticle layers) are the first line of plant defense, and are actually quite effective at halting pathogen assaults…. Continue Reading →
To analyze Brix levels, we took 5 fully ripe fruit from each plot, labeled them, and froze them. This sample collection occurred during Harvest 2 for each variety. When all the samples had been collected and stockpiled in my freezer,… Continue Reading →
(Photo credit: Cornell Chronicle) The tomatoes were seeded March 13, 2017 and transplanted May 25th. As plants began fruiting and fruit began to ripen, I made sure to check each plot in each block and write down the date of… Continue Reading →
Leaf cover scoring was very similar to leaf curl. And I would imagine for the same reasons. Leaf cover plays a larger role in fruit quality. On one hand the additional cover protects the fruit from sun damage, but on… Continue Reading →
One of the traits NOVIC requested data for was the severity of leaf curl (or leaf roll) in the varieties. This evaluation occurred during vegetative growth while plants were in early bloom (July 20th) on a 1-5 scale after a… Continue Reading →