bollplant anatomy
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cotton cultivation
( in cotton: Cultivation of the cotton plant )
...80–100 days after planting, the plant develops white blossoms, which change to a reddish colour. The blossoms fall off after a few days and are replaced by small green triangular pods, called bolls, that mature after a period of 55–80 days. During this period the seeds and their attached hairs develop within the boll, which increases considerably in size. The seed hair, or cotton...
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flax
( in flax )
...alternating on the stalk, are small and lance-shaped. The flowers, borne on stems growing from the branch tips, have five petals, usually blue in colour but sometimes white or pink. Small globular bolls, composed of five lobes, contain the seeds.
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discussed in biography Böll, Heinrich
...um halb zehn (1959; Billiards at Half-Past Nine), which, with its interior monologues and flashbacks, is his most complex novel. In the popular Ansichten eines Clowns (1963; The Clown), the protagonist deteriorates through drinking from being a well-paid entertainer to a begging street musician.
(Anthonomus grandis), the most serious cotton pest in North America, a beetle of the insect family Curculionidae (order Coleoptera). The size of the adult boll weevil varies according to the amount of food it receives during its larval stage, but it averages about 6 mm (1/4 inch), including the long, curved snout, which is about one-half the body length. The light yellow of the newly emerged adult boll weevil changes to gray or black in several weeks.
In the spring, adult boll weevils emerge from a partly dormant state and deposit between about 100 and 300 eggs in cotton buds or fruit. The females do not deposit their eggs in cotton bolls already visited by another female at least until most of the bolls are infested. An average of two or three weeks is required for an egg to develop into an adult; thus, there may be from two to ten generations each year.
The larvae live entirely within the cotton boll, destroying not only the seeds but also the surrounding fibres. Because the larvae and pupae remain inside the cotton bolls for their entire period of development, the application of insecticides at this time is useless.
The boll weevil occurs in North America in almost every area where cotton is cultivated. It entered the United States from Mexico in the 1890s, causing much damage. It is estimated that between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000 bales of cotton are destroyed annually by this pest. It has been said that the boll weevil infestation caused many farmers to realize that they should diversify their crops rather than be totally dependent on cotton. Control programs include early destruction of cotton stalks, cleanup of hibernating areas, seed treatments, early planting, and the development of early maturing and rapid fruiting varieties of cotton.
- damage to cotton crop cotton
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cotton cultivation cotton
...80–100 days after planting, the plant develops white blossoms, which change to a reddish colour. The blossoms fall off after a few days and are replaced by small green triangular pods, called bolls, that mature after a period of 55–80 days. During this period the seeds and their attached hairs develop within the boll, which increases considerably in size. The seed hair, or cotton...
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flax flax
...alternating on the stalk, are small and lance-shaped. The flowers, borne on stems growing from the branch tips, have five petals, usually blue in colour but sometimes white or pink. Small globular bolls, composed of five lobes, contain the seeds.
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discussed in biography Böll, Heinrich
...published in 1947; these were later collected in Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa (1950; Traveller, If You Come to Spa). In his early novels Der Zug war pünktlich (1949; The Train Was on Time) and Wo warst du Adam? (1951; Adam, Where Art Thou?), he describes the grimness and despair of soldiers’ lives. The uneasiness of reality is explored in the...
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German literature German literature
...others took stock of the postwar situation in a straightforward, realistic style, and early novels, such as Böll’s Und sagte kein einziges Wort (1953; And Never Said a Word, also translated in English as Acquainted with the Night), depicted the misery of family life among the ruins. Though maligned as...
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