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Early Experiences with the Chayote

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Early Experiences with the Chayote 172 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 1947 Terminal buds were removed from girdled effect of the terminal bud upon the lateral branches of the Haden variety of mango, buds were conducted on forked branches. and all leaves were removed from the area When the terminal bud and the leaves were between the girdle and the cut end at various removed from one branch of the fork and intervals to determine the minimum length the lateral buds were removed from the of time that was required for the hormone other branch, lateral flower clusters ap to influence floral development. In 1945, peared from the buds at the end of the growth from these lateral buds was vege leafless branch (Fig.l). The hormone pro tative if the leaves were removed 24 hours duced in the leaves moved down that branch after girdling and the removal of the ter and up the leafless branch and caused minal bud. When leaves were allowed to growth in those buds to be floral. The in remain for 96 hours or longer flower clus hibiting effect of the terminal bud was not ters developed. observed to move into an adjacent branch. In 1946, an attempt was made through However, flower clusters appeared from histological studies to correlate the length lateral buds below the girdle which indi of this period with cell division. A longer cates that the transmission of the inhibiting period was required because drought delayed effect was intercepted by the girdle. growth. Evidence from these studies indi cates that the hormone does not initiate Flower formation was caused by the ac growth and cannot affect the course of the tion of the hormone in buds previously development of a bud until cell division has unspecialized as late as March 4, 194'6. The started. fact is emphasized that floral initiation be Studies of the movement of the floral- gins shortly before the flower cluster is inducing hormone and the growth-inhibiting clearly discernible. EARLY EXPERIENCES WITH THE CHAYOTE By David Fairchild it should be given another chance to take Coconut Grove, Florida its place among the excellent vegetables of our southern states. When the members of the Florida Horti Feeling as I do that the chayote is worthy cultural Society see on the program the of a more extensive trial than was ever name "Chayote," and that I am giving some given it, I thought it would be helpful to notes on it, I am sure there will be those give you some account of the experiences who will smile and say: "Fairchild is back my colleagues and I had with it in the early at his old game; trying to cram this so- days of the Section of Seed and Plant In called 'new' vegetable down our throats troduction of the Department of Agricul again." ture. Nothing of the kind. Fifty years ago It was at Christmas time in 1895, forty- I did get a lot of people to grow the chayote nine years ago, that I first saw a chayote and thousands of them learned to like it, arbor. I had stopped off.in New Orleans but a combination of the root knot and on my way to the West Indies and was in other factors which I propose to describe, the seed store of Stechler and Co. inter discouraged them. Now, however, with the viewing them about the various local fruits possibility in sight of controlling its worst and vegetables. enemy, the nematode, it seems to me that They told me of a little French horti- FAIRCHILD: EXPERIENCES WITH CHAYOTE 173 culturist in the suburbs who had an arbor As soon as we started the Plant Intro of chayotes, so of course I went out to see duction Garden in the wilds of western him. Florida, cutting down great forest trees in There were no fruits on his vine at that a hammock near Brooksville to make room season, and he told me that not many were for it, we began to experiment with the being grown around New Orleans. They chayote in earnest. were usually known as "Merlitons" or To begin with, there was the question of "Vegetable Pears." whether we had the best varieties. The I saw them again when we got to Jamaica chayote, Sechinm edule, belongs to what is and became fond of them and sent some known as a monotypic genus; that is, a home. genus with only one species in it, so that Mrs. Fairchild and I spent several weeks there were no close relatives. But were in Maderia some years later and saw them there not perhaps many different varieties? grown to perfection. In this tiny island in Two, a white and a green more or less mid-Atlantic it seemed to play a really im spiney form were all that had been tried portant role in the dietary of the people. in America or in North Africa, where it There was a fine large arbor near the hotel was grown for the French market, or in where we stopped that furnished fruits for the West Indies or Madeira so far as we the table. There seemed to be but one va knew. riety grown; an ivory-white kind. We We ransacked the world for other sorts bought dozens of them and photographed and discovered that the ones we already them in fancy baskets. had were the usual types. However, from We got to like them very much and I sent Costa Rica a keen observer named Carlos some to the office for we were convinced Werckle sent, among others, a kind that that the chayotes deserved to become a reg had no fibers around the seed and William ular vegetable on the American market. Harris of Kingston, Jamaica, sent five va Our first efforts to grow them had al rieties. The J. Steckler Seed Co. of New ready been made, at Cat Island, on the estate Orleans supplied us with their green, spiney of General Alexander, a remarkable soldier sort; a large green and a large white we of the Confederacy and one of the witnesses obtained from Puerto Rico; from Guada- of Pickett's famous Charge. They were loupe came five kinds we had already seen; carried on by John Tull, who was experi Dr. Trabut contributed the white spiney menting with the General's wild rushes. one grown in Algiers for the Paris markets. For two seasons Tull grew chayotes and But it was not until Wilson Popenoe, rushes in the abandoned rice fields on the then our Agricultural Explorer in Central old plantation with "encouraging results'' America, made a study of the Gautemalan so far as the chayotes were concerned. A chayote and wrote them up with his usual two year old vine together with a three care that we felt we had our hands on some year old one produced 250 fruits in 1905. thing more than merely a few slightly dif We also subsidized a cucumber grower in ferent varieties of the fruit. the outskirts of Jacksonville, thinking he He distinguished between the common might. take up their culture, but we soon "guisquiles" as they are called in Guate saw that there was too much yet to learn mala, which were what we had been experi about the plant and how it could be made menting with, and the Peruvian guisquiles a commercial success. It is surprising to called commonly "peruleros." The guis find how many problems arise when you quiles were furrowed, with more or less try to introduce and popularize a new vege deep sutures and might be either spiney or table like the chayote smooth and in color' either light green, 174 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 1947 deep green or white, and in form either tivity of the chayote. Not until we had the pyriform or round, but the peruleros were authenticated account of one vine that devoid of spines, round, without sutures, climbed, in twelve months from seed, up and were either green or white. They var over a porch, half way round the house ied in size, weighing from three to nine and over some telegraph wires into two oak ounces. They were most attractive and trees and, beginning to bear in August, pro • their smoothness made them easy to pre duced before frost cut it down in December, pare. They also had a superior flavor. over four hundred fruits, did we believe This careful work of Wilson Popenoe any of them. was done in the autumn of 1916. When his Later on, Mr. Pierpont of Savannah, shipment arrived it showed us that we were Georgia, topped all the other records witb just beginning the study of this new vege two plants which,- in the rich alluvial soil table. The collection was carefully planted, of the Isle of Hope, covered trellises nearly on well-made trellises, but as often happens an acre in extent and bore over 1500 fruits when species from the high mountains—in in one season. this case from an altitude of 5,000 feet- One of the curious complications, which are transplanted to sea level, even though I believe is rather a unique one, in growing it is farther north, they grew poorly, pro the chayote, comes from the fact that its duced only a very few fruits and gradually fruits have only a single large seed and that disappeared. this seed is imbedded in the flesh of the There was something peculiarly exciting fruit in such a way that you have to plant to me in walking under an arbor of chay- the whole thing—fruit and all.
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