A Rapid Method of Dating Tags for Bloom Studies in Cotton

Figure 2—One side of the bud opened artificially, showing stamens and pistil. A RAPID METHOD OF DATING TAGS FOR BLOOM STUDIES IN COTTON D tags are often used to record the occurrence of certain biological events that take place in cotton plants growing in the field or greenhouse. As long as only a few tags are needed, dating individual tags by hand will suffice; but when a large number of tags are required for a given date or series of dates, a method for mass production is desirable. For example, as many as 8,000 dated tags per day were needed in a study of boll periods (days from bloom to open boll) at 'Lubbock, Texas. In order to rapidly "date" the tags the following "punch card" method was devised. The first day that a flower appeared in the plots was considered "day 1". All subsequent days were numbered in sequence. Instead of writing the day-number on each tag, this information was supplied by drilling holes in appropriate pkces on the tags; i.e. the position of the holes determines the date. The jigs for holding the tags during the drilling process and the drill-guide template used are shown in figure 1. Each of the 6 jigs will hold about 20 tags. The dimensions of the tags were if by ll/2 inches, but the jigs and templates can be constructed to accommodate tags of any size. Only one template is necessary, but the drilling procedure can be speeded up by providing a template for each jig. Also, if two men are available, time can be saved by constructing two sets of jigs. This will allow one man to unload a set of drilled tags and then reload with undrilled tags while the other man is drilling the tags in the alternate set of jigs. Drilling of the tags