Horticulture

Another disadvantage of growing table grapes in subtropical areas is that high temperatures during ripening can inhibit anthocyanin biosynthesis in the berries from V. labrusca and hybrid cultivars . This results in inadequate fruit color, and thereby a decrease in market acceptance and the potential economic value of the commodity . The seedless table grape Selection 21, a new hybrid of V. vinifera × V. labrusca recently developed by the Grape Genetic Breeding Program of Embrapa Grape and Wine, Brazil, obtained from the cross of [Arkansas 1976 × ] × “BRS Linda,” is a clear example of a cultivar that lacks red color development when grown in subtropical regions. The plant growth regulator ethephon, an ethylene-releasing agent, has long been known to improve berry color when applied at véraison . More recently, the application of –cis-abscisic acid has also been shown to stimulate anthocyanin accumulation and thereby improve berry color . S-ABA appears to be more effective than ethephon in enhancing grape color and it has other potential benefits compared to ethephon,large pot with drainage including a shorter postharvest interval, and an exemption from tolerance in most countries.

The introduction of S-ABA as an active ingredient in a commercial plant growth regulator prompted many studies on V. vinifera cultivars under temperate climate conditions. Such studies have shown that the efficacy of S-ABA varies with the cultivar , the S-ABA concentration , the time of application and the environmental conditions . Abscisic acid is an important regulator of ripening and anthocyanin biosynthesis in grape berries . Studies have shown that exogenous application of S-ABA can significantly increase the activity of a wide range of genes involved in anthocyanin biosynthesis . Most of these studies tested the effects of a single application of S-ABA before or during véraison. However, studies of the effects of S-ABA several applications at different concentrations and timings following véraison are still needed to optimize the use of this plant growth regulator in table grape cultivation . In grapes, the anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway involves multiple steps that are controlled by MYB transcription factors, such as VvMYBA1 and VvMYBA2 . In red varieties, the VvMYBA1 gene is only expressed after véraison. Both VvMYBA1 and VvMYBA2 regulate anthocyanin biosynthesis during ripening by strictly controlling the expression of the canonical UDP-glucose:flavonoid 3-Oglucosyltransferase gene . Determining how long grape berries are competent to induce the expression of anthocyanin biosynthetic genes may help determine the optimal time, number, and frequency of S-ABA applications. Currently, little is known about the potential benefits of multiple applications, which may be desirable if a single application results in an insufficient response.

The aim of the present study was to determine the effects of S-ABA applications at different concentrations and times on the quality and biochemical properties of berries from the seedless grape Selection 21 hybrid during three growing seasons in the region of Paraná, Brazil. We evaluated a variety of parameters including: grape color development, berry phenolic profiles, and gene expression of transcriptional regulators and biosynthetic enzymes of the anthocyanin pathway after treatments with S-ABA. The results of this report indicate that two S-ABA applications during and after véraison extend the competency of grape berries to respond to ABA and induce the accumulation of anthocyanins, resulting in higher grape berry coloration. The study was conducted during three consecutive seasons in a commercial vineyard located in Marialva, state of Paraná , Brazil , using 4-year-old vines of hybrid seedless grape Selection 21 grafted onto IAC 766 Campinas root stock. According to the Köppen classification, the climate of the region is Cfa , with an average temperature below 18◦C in the coldest month and above 22◦C in the hottest month and an average annual rainfall of 1,596 mm. The region’s soil is classified as dystroferric red latosol . The vines were trained using a bilateral overhead trellis system, where vines were spaced at 2.5 m × 2.5 m , and each vine had 6.25 m2 total canopy area. Cane pruning was performed during the 2013, 2014, and 2015 seasons and was followed by application of 3% hydrogenated cyanamide to the two apical buds to induce and standardize sprouting. The number of canes per vine was evenly adjusted to 40 and the number of shoots per vine was also established to 40 .

Considering that a grape bunch of the Selection 21 weighs on average 460 g, the load per vine is 18.40 kg, which represents an estimated yield of 29.44 tons/ha. Furthermore, to avoid drifting, a non-treated vine was left as side border between two treated vines, which almost duplicated the experimental area. In each plot, all grape bunches were treated , and the bunch samples were collected from random positions at each side of the canopy to account for intracanopy variability. Control plants were not subjected to any treatment, instead, they were sprayedwith water at the same time and following the same procedures as the S-ABA treatments. The effects of applying S-ABA isomer at different concentrations and times were evaluated in terms of berry quality traits. ProTone R, the commercial growth regulator used in this study, has an active ingredient concentration of 100 g/L S-ABA. As shown in Figure 1, the initial treatments tested in the 2013 and 2014 seasons corresponded to: control or water spray, 200 mg/L S-ABA application at 7 days after véraison , 400 mg/L S-ABA application at 7 DAV, 200 mg/L S-ABA application at 7 DAV plus an additional application at 21 DAV, and 400 mg/L S-ABA at 7 DAV plus an additional application at 21 DAV. In the 2015 season, only the control and treatments of 400 mg/L S-ABA with one or two applications were performed and analyzed. Berry samples from the 2015 season were collected from each treatment at four different times: 7 DAV , 14 DAV, 28 DAV, and 35 DAV for further targeted analyses . For all seasons, a randomized complete block experimental design was used, with five treatments and three to four replicates, and with each plot consisting of one vine . Véraison was determined by measuring soluble solid content and firmness of grape berries randomly sampled in the experimental vineyard. At véraison, the mean grape SSC concentration was 9◦Bx, and 20% of the berries in more than 50% of the grape clusters presented softening . The berries presented a mean of 11◦Bx at 7 DAV, the time of the first S-ABA application, and a mean of 13◦Bx at 21 DAV, the time of the second S-ABA application. Ten grape clusters representative of each plot were marked prior to treatment application. For treatment applications, grape clusters were sprayed in the morning using a knapsack sprayer at a pressure of 568.93 psi with JA1 hollow cone nozzle tips at a volume of 800 L/ha to provide complete and uniform coverage. In addition, 0.3 mL/L of Break-Thru R a non-ionic surfactant was added to all treatments. During the trials, the standard regional cultivation practices with regard to nutrition, weed control,drainage collection pot and pest and disease management were used. Clusters of each plot were manually harvested when SSC stabilized . The clusters were cleaned, and damaged berries were discarded. Color coverage of the bunches was determined using 10 grape clusters per plot by visually rating the clusters on a scale of 1–5 using the following scale: 0–20%, 21–40%, 41–60%, 61–80%, and 81–100% coverage . The same grape clusters used for evaluating color coverage measurements were used for berry sampling. For physicochemical analyses, two berries were collected from the upper, middle, and lower portion of each grape bunch, yielding a total of 70 berries per plot. Total anthocyanins and color index of red grapes were determined in berry samples from all seasons. The following variables were analyzed only for the 2013 and 2014 seasons: color coverage, total polyphenols, and berry firmness. All physiological analyzes were performed in the Laboratory of Fruit Analysis of the Agricultural Research Center, Londrina State University, Brazil.

The total anthocyanin concentration of the berries was determined using 30 berries per plot, which were frozen and stored at −20◦C. The berry skins were removed using tweezers, taking care to remove only the skin, without pulp. The skins were washed once with water, followed by washing in deionized water and drying with absorbent paper. A 5-g skin sample was then placed in a polystyrene tube containing 50 mL of acidified methanol and stored in the dark for 48 h at room temperature. The tubes were then removed from the dark and stirred manually for 5 s. Absorbance was determined using a Genesys 10S spectrophotometer at 520 nm with the solvent as blank. In the 2015 season, three grape clusters of uniform size and at the same phenological stage were identified in each plot, and two berries were collected randomly from each bunch at each sampling time. The berry skins were removed, frozen, kept at −80◦C, and transferred to the Department of Viticulture and Enology of the University of California, Davis, CA, United States, for further analyses. The skins were then placed in liquid nitrogen and ground using a TissueLyser II . RNA was extracted using 0.5 g of ground tissue based on the protocol described by Blanco-Ulate et al. . RNA concentration and purity were determined using a NanoDrop 2000c Spectrophotometer , and RNA integrity was checked by electrophoresis on 1.5% agarose gel. Reverse transcription was performed using 1 µg of RNA and M-MLV Reverse Transcriptase according to the manufacturer’s instructions. qRT-PCRs were performed using the SYBRRGreen PCR Master Mix kit . The PCR program consisted of 70◦C for 10 min, 36 cycles at 42◦C for 2 s, and 37◦C for 50 min. VvActin was used as the reference gene and processed in parallel with the genes of interest. Gene sequences used for primer design were obtained from the GenBank of the National Center for Biotechnology Information using Primer-BLAST software . The relative levels of target gene expression were calculated using the formula 2 . The linearized values correspond to the relative gene expression within a given sample and are comparable across genes. Four biological replicates of S-ABA treated and control grape berries were used to obtain the relative gene expression data. Application of abscisic acid increased the total anthocyanin concentration in berry skins of the seedless grapeSelection 21 during the 2013 and 2014 seasons, regardless of the S-ABA concentration and time of application . However, berries that received 400 mg/L of S-ABA at 7 and 21 DAV had significantly higher, almost two to three times more, anthocyanin concentrations than other treatments. According to the CIRG, berries from control treatments had a green to a yellow color in both seasons . In 2013, berries treated with one or two applications of 200 mg/L S-ABA or one application of 400 mg/L S-ABA at 7 DAV, and those in the 2014 season that were treated with one application of 200 mg/L S-ABA developed a pink color . Remarkably, berries of the 2013 season treated with two applications of 400 mg/L S-ABA and berries of the 2014 season treated with one or two 400 mg/L S-ABA applications, developed a stronger red color . For both the 2013 and 2014 seasons, color coverage was lowest in control grapes and highest in grapes treated with two applications of 400 mg/L S-ABA. Increase in total polyphenols was evident in grapes subjected to two 400 mg/L S-ABA applications during the 2013 and 2014 seasons. These berries also presented the lowest mean berry firmness . Importantly, the increased softening due to S-ABA application did not result in higher frequency of cracked berries in any of the studied seasons. Qualitative assessment of berry cracking was performed visually. Further analyses of the effect of 400 mg/L S-ABA treatments on CIRG, total and individual anthocyanins concentrations, and gene expression of transcription factors and biosynthetic enzymes were performed with grape berries collected from the 2015 trial. Measurements of CIRG confirmed previous results obtained during the 2013 and 2014 seasons, at the time of harvest , grapes treated with two S-ABA applications had the highest CIRG values . Grape bunches from the control treatment presented pink berries , whereas those treated with one or two applications of S-ABA had red berries . As determined in the previous seasons, berries treated with 400 mg/L S-ABA also presented higher total anthocyanin content than the control at 14 and 28 DAV .

While traditional biparental populations have been effective for QTL discovery, pedigree-based analysis in multi-parental populations using FlexQTL™ has been increasingly applied, as pedigree breeding and maintenance of clones across generations are common in strawberry. Pedigree-based analysis in complex family structures has allowed the simultaneous detection of multiple QTL alleles and the quantification of their phenotypic effects across diverse genetic backgrounds, as demonstrated for the FaRPc2 locus. The use of DNA tests in breeding has been greatly enhanced by RosBREED efforts in marker development and validation. Assays for SNP detection such as kompetitive allele-specific polymerase chain reaction and high-resolution melting have become the tests of choice for breeding applications due to an abundance of SNP information from array genotyping, accuracy and ease of scoring, and resilience to crude strawberry DNA extracts. The Strawberry DNA Testing Handbook was recently developed to assist breeders in identifying published DNA tests and understanding how to apply them. This community resource is available at the Genome Database for Rosaceae and will be continually updated as existing tests are improved and new tests are published .

While locus-specific DNA tests are highly useful in parent and seedling selection for traits with simple genetics,drainage collection pot genome-wide prediction has become the strategy of choice for improving genetically complex traits in crop species. The goal is predictive, and the utility of this strategy has been demonstrated in strawberry for parent selection for yield and quality traits where it was shown that: markers are more effective than pedigrees for estimating breeding values, even when phenotypic information is present; phenotyping effort can be reduced by using trials of advanced selections as training populations; and individuals with high predicted performance can be used as parents one year early in the breeding cycle. The future of strawberry breeding research is rife with opportunities in the genomics era. In particular, candidate-gene approaches will be dramatically enhanced by the “Camarosa” reference and other octoploid genomic resources, given the ability to pinpoint sequence variations among sub-genomes and thus distinguish among homoeologous alleles. Genes involved in fruit volatile compound biosynthesis are particularly attractive targets given the importance of aroma to flavor and sweetness perception. Gene identification will, in turn, fuel the development of new DNA tests and enhance existing tests.

Questions for the future include the following: What level of genetic gains can be achieved simply by developing markers in causal genes, eliminating problems of recombination between marker and gene? Will functional characterization of genes lead to gene edited strawberries in the commercial realm? A tool that may help to uncover gene/trait associations in strawberry and help identify “missing heritability” is expression QTL . In essence, eQTL are segregating genomic regions influencing differential gene expression. With RNAseq alone, it is often difficult to discern whether changes in transcript accumulation are due to genetics, environment or stochastic effects. A recent eQTL analysis identified a subset of strawberry fruit genes whose differential expression is determined by genotype, the extent of that genetic influence, and markers that can be used for selection of desired gene-expression ranges. Thus, eQTL analyses may reveal marker/trait associations in cases where strawberry phenotypes are influenced by transcript abundance. In other cases, eQTL controlling transcripts of undetermined function can support candidate-gene discovery and trait-based gene cloning. In a recent example, simple cross-referencing of trait-QTL and eQTL markers identified a causal aroma biosynthesis gene in melon. For complex traits controlled by many loci, the area of genome-wide prediction presents a number of practically important research questions for the future. Will the newest SNP array, with its whole-genome coverage and wealth of subgenome-specific markers, help increase prediction accuracies? How large should training populations be to achieve maximum predictive power, and how many breeding cycles can be included?

Given that the vast majority of octoploid strawberry cultivars are asexually propagated, can non-additive effects be modeled to enhance predictions of clonal performance? When will low-density genotyping be affordable enough to select for complex traits in seedling populations, as opposed to selection only among parents? These questions are important and yet are very practical and applied in nature. They have been answered in other crop species, and we expect that they will soon be answered in strawberry as well.Strawberries are perennial rosette plants that form a determinate inflorescence from the apical meristem of the crown. Their axillary meristems can differentiate into either branch crowns, that are able to bear additional inflorescences, or runners. Because of these alternative fates of axillary meristems, there is a strong trade-off between flowering and runnering. Seasonal flowering strawberries produce flower initials under day lengths below a critical limit , whereas perpetual flowering strawberries produce new inflorescences continuously once induced to flower. In the diploid woodland strawberry F. vesca, the dominant progenitor of the octoploid cultivated strawberry, two classical mutants affecting flowering and runnering are known. Recessive mutations in the SF Locus and Runnering locus cause PF and runnerless phenotypes, respectively. The F. vesca homolog of TERMINAL FLOWER1 was found as a candidate gene for SFL independently by two groups, and Koskela et al. demonstrated the function of FvTFL1 as a major floral repressor that causes the seasonal flowering habit. The R locus was also recently mapped, and a mutation in a gene encoding gibberellin biosynthetic enzyme GA20-oxidase was found. This gene is highly expressed in axillary buds, and the mutated enzyme is not able to convert GA12 to GA20, a precursor of bio-active GA1. Studies in cultivated strawberry indicate at least partial conservation of the genetic pathway in woodland strawberry. Based on available data in woodland strawberry, a genetic model can be proposed . In SF genotypes, FvTFL1 integrates environmental signals to control flowering, and flower induction only occurs after the down regulation of this gene by cool temperatures below 13 °C or by short days at temperatures of 13–20 °C, whereas higher temperatures prevent flower induction by activating FvTFL.

Genes involved in the temperature regulation of FvTFL1 await elucidation, but the photoperiodic pathway is quite well understood. Under long days, the woodland strawberry homolog of CONSTANS activates FLOWERING LOCUS T1 in leaves, which leads to the upregulation of SUPPRESSOR OF THE OVEREXPRESSION OF CONSTANS1 in the shoot apex. In PF woodland strawberries that are lacking a functional FvTFL1, this FvCOFvFT1-FvSOC1 pathway promotes flowering, whereas in SF genotypes upregulation of FvTFL1 by FvSOC1 reverses the outcome of the pathway. Actual flower induction is poorly understood, but the role of FvFT3, APETALA1 , and FRUITFULL genes that are activated in the shoot apex after the down regulation of FvTFL1 by short days or cool temperature should be further explored. Another important challenge is to understand the flowering process in the context of the yearly growth cycle and to identify allelic variation that can be used for breeding new cultivars better adapted to diverse climates. Open questions include, for example, how is flower initiation and differentiation regulated? How is floral development connected to dormancy? PF cultivars are commercially quite important, but the genetic control of the trait clearly differs from PF in woodland strawberry. A major locus controlling PF was identified,10 liter pot named perpetual flowering and runnering because the PF allele also reduced runnering. Several additional studies in different crossing populations have confirmed PFRU and narrowed the chromosome region. The causal gene is not known, but several candidate genes have been suggested. Interestingly, a QTL controlling flowering time in woodland strawberry was mapped to the same region of chromosome four. These data suggest the presence of either two important flowering genes in this region or different alleles of the same gene that control PF and flowering time. Identification of the PF gene or genes in cultivated strawberry is obviously a research question of high importance both scientifically and commercially. Better understanding the trade-off between flowering and runnering is also an important area of inquiry, because it might assist plant breeders and growers in controlling the balance between vegetative and sexual reproduction. Several lines of evidence suggest that GA controls the fate of axillary meristems in strawberries. Guttridge and Thompson found that runnerless woodland strawberry mutants began to form runners after GA treatment, and similar reversion was observed in a recent mutant screen that led to the identification of suppressor of runnerless, a gene that encodes a DELLA growth repressor of the GA signaling pathway. Inhibitors of GA biosynthesis, in contrast, enhance crown branching and yield in cultivated strawberry. Furthermore, FvSOC1 was found to control runner formation and regulate the expression of several GA biosynthetic genes, including the recently identified FvGA20ox4, which likely encodes a rate limiting enzyme of the GA biosynthetic pathway in axillary buds.

These data suggest a model in which FvSOC1 activates FvGA20ox4 and possibly other GA biosynthetic genes in axillary buds, leading to high bioactive GA1 levels, degradation of SLR proteins, and runner formation .In contrast to most fruits, the fleshy tissue of Fragaria is a modified stem tip called the receptacle. The true fruits of Fragaria are dried ovaries called achenes, each of which contains a single seed. The receptacle together with attached achenes are what is typically refered to as the “fruit”. Although connected by fibrovascular strands, molecular analysis using microarrays and RNA-seq show that the achenes and receptacle exhibit asynchronous transcriptional programs that reflect differences in timing of maturation of the two tissues. Fruit set requires a sufficient percentage of fertilized achenes due to their production of auxin. Early studies showed that strawberry is non-climacteric, not appearing to respond to exogenous ethylene. However, the role of ethylene in strawberry maturation is reassessed later in this section in light of more recent data. The control of fruit set and development by plant hormones that interact and synchronize signals between the developing seed and surrounding tissues is graphically described in McAtee et al., and a comprehensive discussion of hormonal regulation of fruit ripening in non-climacteric as compared to climacteric fruit can be found in Cherian et al.. Although a complete picture of how hormonal regulation and crosstalk underlie the molecular mechanisms of development and ripening has not yet emerged in either diploid or octoploid strawberry, considerable progress has been achieved due to gene expression analyses using microarrays, RNAseq, agroinfiltration for transient gene silencing, stable transformation with reporter genes or altered expression, and virus-induced gene silencing. The high-quality diploid and octoploid strawberry genomes and associated resources now available will greatly accelerate discovery. There is still much to learn from the diploid model, and fruit development in the octoploid is likely to involve a more complex interplay of homoeologous genes. In addition, due to potential for interactions among products of homoeologs in the octoploid, careful holistic analysis of octoploid fruit development in achenes and during development remains to be accomplished by combining highly sensitive and accurate transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic methods. That auxin and GAs are primary hormonal players during early development of both the receptacle and achenes is well supported by hormonal analyses of F. × ananassa and transcriptome data from F. vesca. F. vesca transcriptome data from fertilization to the large green fruit stage , were analyzed for evidence of biosynthesis and activity of most of the major hormones, as well as for IAA transport. Genes in the IAA biosynthesis pathway are actively expressed by the endosperm, and perhaps integuments, of the newly fertilized ovary, closely followed by expression of GA biosynthesis genes. This transcriptome foundation now needs to be expanded with detailed hormone metabolic and transport studies, perhaps more easily accomplished by feeding studies with the correct reference compounds and mass spectrometric analyses using larger octoploid fruit. As illustrated in Fig. 3, there are many steps in the process of fruit set and early development that still require direct study. We know that IAA levels in intact F. × ananassa fruit rise rapidly following fertilization and peak at the small green fruit stage, thereafter decreasing to low levels at the white stage and to very low, but homeostatically regulated, levels in red ripe fruit. Interestingly, separate analysis of white fruits and achenes showed that almost all the IAA measured in the intact fruit is in the achenes, with barely detectable levels in the receptacle. It has been suggested that low receptacle IAA levels are required for ABA biosynthesis to start and ripening to commence. GA1, likely the only bio-active GA in fruit, also increased after fertilization, reaching a peak in the large green stage.

Center researcher Jan Perez worked with members of the campus’s Food Systems Working Group, including UCSC Dining Services, Community Agroecology Network, and Students for Organic Solutions to develop a web-based survey designed to find out what the UCSC community thinks about food system issues. Survey results will help the groups find potential support for their work, tailor education efforts, and determine campus attitudes toward the future of sustainably produced food at UCSC. The UCSC Office of Budget and Planning implemented the survey. Asked to identify food issues and other current issues that were important to them, survey respondents ranked protecting the environment, food access for low-income people, improving food safety, improving job conditions of workers in the food system, and reducing the use of pesticides in the food system highest. The food issues that were the least important to people were limiting genetic engineering, and developing local food systems. In fact, 8% of the respondents were “unsure” about the importance of local food systems—the most people to pick that category. Food safety and nutrition were the primary interests people have in their food,container vertical farming followed by topics that encompass the impact of food production on others and the environment.

The topics garnering the least interest were the distance food travels, and the influence of large corporations. Other questions addressed interest in various “eco-labels” that represent qualities such as organic, humane treatment of animals, water quality, locally produced, and Fair Trade; whether respondents were willing to pay more for food produced with social justice criteria ; and how often people purchased Fair Trade, organic, or locally produced food. Detailed results of the survey will be presented in the next issue of The Cultivar and in a future Center Research Brief.A recent grant from PG&E’s Non-point Source Pollution Projects Fund will expand the Center’s efforts to analyze the impact of alfalfa trap crops in controlling strawberry crop damage by the western tarnished plant bug . The study also entails water quality monitoring to determine whether the use of trap crops can decrease the amount of pesticide sprays needed to control lygus populations when compared with more conventional management techniques. Center researchers Sean L. Swezey, Janet Bryer, and Diego Nieto have established the efficacy of using strips of alfalfa planted in strawberry fields to “trap” lygus, which are attracted to the alfalfa as a source of food and breeding sites . On organic farms, the strips of alfalfa are then vacuumed with a tractor-mounted “bug vac” to physically remove lygus. The new grant will expand the study of alfalfa trap crops to strawberry operations using conventional sprays to control lygus.

The study’s goal is to see whether the trap crop plantings reduce the abundance of lygus bugs and berry damage in the associated strawberry crop; reduce the number and concentration of insecticide applications made for lygus bug control; and reduce the costs of controlling lygus bugs in conventional and IPM operations.In addition, the researchers will provide growers with weekly lygus population level and crop damage estimates from the treatment plots, to use in conjunction with estimates and recommendations made by pest control advisors. This 2-year study will also include analysis of insecticide levels in runoff from strawberry farms to see whether a combination of trap cropping and potentially fewer sprays based on weekly monitoring of lygus population levels can reduce pesticide pollution originating from strawberry operations.A study on the impact of natural enemies on cabbage aphids , a significant pest of broccoli in Monterey County, appears in the February 2006 issue of Environmental Entomology . Center researcher Diego Nieto, the paper’s primary author, conducted the study on 4 organic farms in Monterey County during the summers of 2002 and 2003. He examined such factors as how the arrival date of the aphids and where on the plant they became established affected whether the broccoli head was eventually harvested . He also examined the impact of syrphid larvae , a natural enemy of aphids, on aphid abundance. Co-authors on the paper include Center director Carol Shennan, William Settle, Rachel O’Malley, Shannon Bros, and Jeffrey Honda.

Nieto’s work found aphids were most abundant on the outer leaves of most broccoli plants; these colonies did not affect infestation at harvest. This suggests that spray policies in conventionally managed systems should be adjusted to recognize aphid location as an important contributor to broccoli harvest, rather than using a zero-tolerance threshold for the presence of aphids once the broccoli head begins to form. He also found that aphid populations that became established early in the season were more likely to be suppressed by syrphid larvae and other natural enemies; hence, techniques to enhance the early establishment of natural enemy populations, such as insectary plantings, could help control aphid infestations. Social issues researcher Phil Howard’s work on Central Coast consumer preferences and concerns appears in the January–March 2006 issue of California Agriculture . Howard discusses results of focus group discussions and written surveys on consumer concerns about how their food is produced, processed, transported, and sold, and how they would prefer to get this information. The study indicates that food safety and nutrition generate the most interest, with ethical concerns and social justice issues also of interest. The majority of survey respondents indicated that food labels are their preferred source for information on these topics. Blueberries offer a potentially lucrative niche crop for organic growers that can be adapted to wholesale, retail, direct marketing, and U-pick operations. However, growing blueberries on California’s Central Coast presents challenges: most soils aren’t naturally acidic enough for blueberries to thrive, and winters don’t get cold enough to provide the chill hours that many varieties need to set a good fruit crop. To find out how blueberries can be managed in an organic Central Coast system, the Center initiated a trial of 15 high bush blueberry varieties in cooperation with Aziz Baameur, Small Farm Program Advisor for Santa Clara County’s UC Cooperative Extension office, and Mark Bolda, UCCE’s Central Coast Strawberry and Caneberry Advisor. Planted out in January 2004, the blueberries were stripped of fruit for two seasons in order to let the plants develop. This spring they’re being allowed to bear for the first time, providing the research team with an initial look at which varieties are responding best to Central Coast conditions. “It’s pretty clear that some of the more popular commercial varieties, including Jubilee, Duke, Millenia, and Ozark Blue are so far the most productive,” says Center farm manager Jim Leap, who oversees the trial. South moon is also producing well, and all of the plants are thriving even with the soil pH at 5.6—slightly more basic than is considered ideal. Leap notes that as the fruit ripens, bird predation has become an issue. He plans to install bird netting to protect the plants by early summer. The research team will also initiate a trial of a foliar iron spray this summer to see how the plants respond. “One reason you need to keep the soil’s pH low [ideally at a pH of 5] is so the plants take up iron efficiently,” explains Leap. “Testing the foliar spray will give us a good idea of the effectiveness of our current pH management strategy.”After many years of important contributions, three Center staff members are moving on to new jobs. Thomas Wittman, assistant operations manager,hydroponic vertical garden retired from the University this winter and is pursuing his own business, “Gophers Limited,” which helps gardeners and farmers control vertebrate pest damage using organic techniques. Thomas will also continue to edit a GMO news service that keeps list serve members up to date on the latest developments in the controversy over genetically modified organisms , as well as continue to serve on the Ecological Farming Association’s Board of Directors.

Marc Los Huertos, who has managed the Center’s water quality monitoring work since 1999, has accepted a tenure track faculty position at California State University Monterey Bay, where he’ll be part of the Division of Science and Environmental Policy. Marc’s teaching will focus on watershed science; he’s particularly interested in the role of nutrients in surface waters. He’ll continue to manage several water quality assessment grants for the Center over the next two years. Phil Howard, a member of the Center’s social issues research group, has accepted a position as assistant professor in the Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies at Michigan State University, where he’ll be teaching in a new graduate concentration in Community Food and Agricultural Systems. His research will involve the community in addressing questions related to the sustainability and democratization of food and agricultural systems; some topics this work will focus on include consumer interests, health impacts, and corporate consolidation. We wish Thomas, Marc and Phil all the best in their new pursuits.The Center and Global Exchange invite you to join us on a 10-day research delegation November 25 – December 4, 2006 to Havana to learn about how Cuba has become a leader in organic and urban agriculture. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the island nation of Cuba found itself cut off from the chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides on which its farms had long depended. To feed its people, the Cuban government undertook an unprecedented conversion to organic and local food production. Today, much of the country’s fertilizer comes from some 175 vermicompost centers that produce more than 90,000 tons of compost annually. Thousands of urban gardens across the country help feed the island’s population, and an estimated one-third of Havana’s arable land is under cultivation. As other countries pursue conversions to more local and organic agricultural systems, many are looking toward Cuba as a model. During the 10-day delegation you will get the chance to talk with Cubans you would otherwise never meet—agronomists, government officials, community leaders, and ordinary Havana residents who are growing their own food. This is a unique opportunity to see an internationally recognized example of how to grow closer connections to our food. There was a mix of pride and apprehension as the Portuguese farmer opened his diverse enlarged home garden to a busload of foreigners. Our group was full of questions as we walked among the chickens, the regionally famous black pigs, and the early winter remains of greens, cabbage, squash, and senescing beans. Urbanites from the nearby town of Odemira recognized this small valley of Old World farmers as a place to build new relationships, or “Reciproco”—more akin to the original Japanese version of Community Supported Agriculture known as “Teikei,” where a number of farmers pool harvests to fill the weekly crate of produce for consumers. These nascent partnerships, where commitment to one another was still forming, mirrored the budding relationships of the members of the second International Symposium on Community Supported Agriculture. CSA projects are collaborations between the local community and the farmers. The community members support the farm directly for an entire season and in return receive a share in the weekly harvest. This partnership increases community involvement in food production and in the health of the local economy and environment.Our group included another Portuguese farmer who had learned about CSA for the first time when we met in Southern France almost two years ago. Now he was six months into creating a CSA project. The tour included a stop at a Lisbon storefront where Carlos’s crates of vegetables are distributed weekly. It was meaningful to see those crates—we took lots of pictures of them because they were so much like our CSA crates at home. No supermarket shelf. A simple box of mixed vegetables produced and enjoyed by people getting to know each other. The box of food, with its heads of lettuce, leeks, lemons, and rutabagas, was the common thread amongst the diverse cultures of the symposium’s attendees. What surfaced as a unique aspect of the Reciproco system, was the farmers’ reluctance to ask for a commitment from members in advance. Rather than pay for a season’s worth of food “up front,” as many CSA projects require, Reciprico members pay weekly when they pick up their crate. The farmers expressed trepidation over not being able to provide for their members, and the members might have been afraid of not getting what they paid for. However, for the attendees at the symposium, supporting the transition to a more conscious relationship between urban and rural was the bottom line.

The column used was a PLRP-S 100A 3 µm 150 x 4.6 mm at 35 °C, and the injection volume was 10.0 µl. Mobile phase A was water with 1.5 % phosphoric acid, while mobile phase B was 80%/20% acetonitrile/ mobile phase A. The gradient used was 0 min 6% B, 73 to 83 min 31% B, 90 to 105 min 6% B. The DAD was used to monitor hydroxybenzoic acids at 280 nm, hydroxycinnamic acids at 320 nm, flavonols at 360 nm, and anthocyanins at 520 nm. The FLD was used to monitor flavan-3-ols, with excitation at 230 nm and emission at 321 nm. External calibration curves were prepared using chlorogenic acid for phenolic acids, rutin for flavonols, and cyanidin-3-glucoside for anthocyanins , at the following concentrations: 200, 150, 100, 75, 50, 25, 10, 5, and 2.5 mg/L. Catechin was used to quantify flavan-3-ols and standards were run at 150, 100, 75, 50, 25, 10, 5, 2.5, and 1 mg/L. Compounds were identified based on retention time and spectral comparisons with standards. Information about the linear equations and lower limits of detection and quantitation can be found in Table S1 in the supplementary material. The LLOD was calculated as 3.3 times the standard deviation of the y-intercept of the curve divided the slope, while the LLOQ was calculated as 10 times those values.

Several peaks appeared in the HPLC chromatograms that could not be identified using the above parameters. Chromatographic eluents of these peaks were collected individually and dried under vacuum. These extracts were reconstituted with mobile phase A,round plastic pots and 5 µL were injected into the HPLC- QTOF-MS/MS for accurate mass analysis . A Poroshell 120 EC-C18 column was used at 35 °C. Mobile phase A was 1% formic acid in distilled water, and mobile phase B was 1% formic acid in acetonitrile. The gradient used was 0 min 3% B, 30 min 50% B, 31-32 min 95% B, 33-38 min 3% B. The mass spectrometer was used in negative mode, and the mass range for MS was 100 to 1000 m/z while the range for MS/MS was 20-700 m/z. Collision energies at 10, 20, and 40 V were applied. The drying gas was set to a flow of 12 L/min at 250 °C, while the sheath gas was set to 11 L/min at 350 °C. The nebulizer was set to 40 psig, the capillary voltage was 3500 V, the nozzle was set to 500 V, and the fragmentor was set to 100 V. Data was analyzed using Agilent MassHunter Workstation Qualitative Analysis 10.0 . Tentative identification was achieved by comparing the mass to charge ratio of the precursor and fragment ions to online libraries of compounds as well as using formula generation for the peaks in the spectra. In addition to anthocyanins, elderberries contain other phenolic compounds, such as flavonols and phenolic acids, which also contribute to the health promoting properties of elderberry. Phenolic compounds are responsible for organoleptic properties and can help protect foods against lipid oxidation.

Therefore, TPC can be useful for making approximate comparisons, for example, between varieties of the same fruit, between similar fruits or in the evaluation of a processing step . It is important to note that the TPC assay is a non-selective assay and is easily impacted by extraction conditions and interfering substances, such as ascorbic acid and reducing sugars. Although there is no evidence that the beneficial effects of polyphenol-rich foods can be attributed to the TPC of a food, it can be a useful measure for making general comparisons with other studies in the literature which reported these values but should be supported by quantitative HPLC data. Herein, the range of TPC measured in the blue elderberries was from 514 ± 41 to 791 ± 34 mg GAE per 100 g FW in 2018 and from 459 ± 50 to 695 ± 41 mg GAE per 100 g FW in 2019 . TPC in the blue elderberries was significantly higher in 2018 than in 2019 . While there were significant differences found between the farms in both years , most hedgerows were not significantly different than most other hedgerows in the given year when evaluated together . Although the farms in this study were near each other and experience similar climates, there can still be differences in growing conditions for each hedgerow, such as water availability, which has been shown to influence the levels of phenolics in blueberries 101 and strawberries 102 . Hedgerows 2 and 14 were not significantly different from other hedgerows in 2019, indicating that the blue elderberries can be harvested earlyin the plant’s lifetime, which allows farmers to earn an early return on the investment of establishing hedgerows. The TPC in blue elderberry is similar to those found in other elderberry species.

These comparisons show that blue elderberries from hedgerows are a rich source of phenolic compounds. Phenolic compounds were identified and quantified in the blue elderberry based upon retention time, absorbance spectra and authentic standards when available. Concentrations for samples from 2018 are presented in Table 4, while samples from 2019 are presented in Table 5. Two peaks with significant area were observed in the HPLC chromatograms at 6.96 min and 11.70 min that did not correlate to standards or library matching. Both compounds eluted between the retention time of gallic acid and protocatechuic acid. The first eluting compound had a maximum absorbance at 300 nm while the second compound had a maximum absorbance at 280 nm. These peaks were collected individually and further evaluated by accurate mass quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry . TOF acquires mass spectral data by pulsing ions entering the flight tube in an orthogonal beam, therefore full spectra are collected. The data captured is accurate enough to determine the elemental composition therefore allowing identification without standards . The two compounds were tentatively identified using high mass accuracy as 5-hydroxypyrogallol hexoside, a tetrahydroxybenzene , and protocatechuic acid dihexoside . Accurate mass was especially helpful since commercial standards for these compounds are not available. 5- HPG hexoside was identified by its fragmentation pattern , showing a precursor ion [MH]- at m/z 303.0723 and product ion [M-hexose-H]- at m/z 141.0186 . This compound was one of the most abundant phenolic compounds in the blue elderberry. While no evidence of 5-HPG glycoside was found in the literature, the aglycone has shown to have a high radical scavenging activity compared to other simple phenols. The elderberry is a deciduous, multi-stemmed shrub or small tree. It can grow several meters high and in diameter and produces hundreds of clusters of aromatic flowers in the spring, that mature into small berries in summer. The plant grows well in a variety of soils and climates, and is a native of Northern America, Europe, and parts of Asia.While there are many subspecies within Sambucus nigra, the primary subspecies widely grown and commercially cultivated include S. nigra ssp. nigra found across Europe, and the “American” subspecies S. nigra ssp. canadensis, which is native to the eastern regions of North America.The blue elderberry , is a drought-tolerant subspecies native to the western region of North America. The blue elderberry grows in riparian ecosystems from southern British Columbia, Canada to northwest Mexico.In California, there have been efforts for more than a decade to increase the levels of blue elderberry planted in hedgerows on farms because of its environmental benefits, such as improving the air, water, and soil quality,hydroponic bucket as well as providing food and shelter for pollinators.It is now recognized that these mature hedgerow plants can be a source of locally grown elderberries and elder flowers to increase income and sustainability for the farm. However, to date there is no data on the concentration of the aroma or phenolic compounds in the flowers from this hardy heat-tolerant subspecies. The berries, flowers and bark of the elderberry plant have a long history of use by humans as both food and traditional medicine. Seeds have been found in archeological sites that date to the late stone age and their medicinal use is documented in the writings of Theophrastus , Pedanius Dioscorides and Gaius Plinius Secundus .

Elder flowers are frequently used in medicinal and herbal teas, tonics, liqueurs, lemonades, and sparkling waters for their subtle and unique floral, fruity, and green aromas and medicinal properties. Infusions of elder flowers have been used in many cultures for the treatment of inflammation, colds, fever, and respiratory illness and for their diuretic and anti-diabetic effects.Some studies have found evidence to support their use, such as antimicrobial activity of elder flower extract against Gram-positive bacteria and high vitro antioxidant activity.Much of the interest for using elder flower in health-promoting applications is based on the high content of biologically active phenolic compounds in the flowers. European and American elder flowers contain an array of phenolic compounds, such as phenolic acids , flavonols , flavonol glycosides [isorhamnetin-3-O-rutinoside , rutin ], flavan-3-ols [-catechin, -epicatechin], and flavanones. In European-grown elder flowers, the dominant phenolic acid and flavonol glycoside include chlorogenic acid and rutin, although isoquercetin, isorhamnetin-3-rutinoside and kaempferol-3-rutinoside are also present.For example, in a study of European elder flowers grown in different locations and altitudes, the dominant class of phenolic compounds were the flavonols, namely rutin , whereas chlorogenic acid levels were lower .This study also found that the flowers contain four times more chlorogenic acid than the leaves or berries. The predominant phenolic compounds identified in elder flower syrup, a traditional herbal beverage, include chlorogenic acid and rutin . There has been only one study on the phenolic profile of the flowers of S. nigra ssp. canadensis which appears to be similar to the European subspecies, in that rutin and chlorogenic acid are the primary flavonol and phenolic acid identified, respectively.The aroma of the elder flower is derived from the volatile organic compounds in the flower and is an important characteristic to understand for consumer acceptance in applications. To date, only the VOCs of elder flowers from the European subspecies have been studied. The American subspecies S. nigra ssp. canadensis has not yet been investigated. As fresh flowers are highly perishable, many commercial products rely on dry, and in some cases, frozen flowers. Thus, it is important to understand how the organoleptic properties of elder flowers change in response to processing. The VOC profile of tea made with elder flowers of three European cultivars using dynamic headspace sampling revealed compounds important to the characteristic aroma to be linalool, hotrienol, and cis– and trans-rose oxide.Similarly, studies indicate that in fresh and dried flowers analyzed by head space solid phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography mass spectrometry , linalool oxides are the main aroma compounds.Linalool oxide has a floral, herbal, earthy, green odor.In hexane extracts of dry elder flowers analyzed via HS-SPME/GC-MS, cis-linalool oxide and 2-hexanone were the primary volatiles.The compound 2-hexanone has a fruity, fungal, meaty, and buttery odor.In syrups made from elder flowers, terpene alcohols and oxides were identified as the primary aroma compounds.Studies of the impact of drying on volatiles in the flowers demonstrate that nearly all types of drying change the volatile profile significantly. The aim of this study was to characterize the composition of phenolic compounds and VOCs in flowers of the blue elderberry , and to determine how these compounds change in response to drying and in the preparation of teas. Understanding how the aroma and phenolic compounds compare with current commercially available European and American subspecies will help to establish a role for blue elder flowers in commercial applications such as herbal teas and as a flavoring for beverages, as well as identify unique compositional qualities of this native and underutilized flower. LC/MS-grade acetonitrile and HPLC-grade hydrochloric acid were purchased from Fisher Scientific . Purissimum grade phosphoric acid was purchased from Sigma Aldrich and filtered through 0.45 µm polypropylene filters under vacuum. Ascorbic acid was obtained from Acros Organics . Ultrafiltered water was obtained by a Milli-Q system . Analytical standards of rutin, quercetin, chlorogenic acid, and -catechin were purchased from Sigma Aldrich . A standard of n-butyl-d9 was purchased from CDN Isotopes . Kaempferol-3-O-rutinoside, isorhamnetin-3-O-glucoside, IR, and isoquercetin were purchased from ExtraSynthese . Elderflowers were harvested from hedgerows on a farm in Winters, CA in May and June 2021. The latitude and longitude coordinates of the hedgerow are 38.634884, -122.007502. Flowers were harvested between 8 and 10 am and were picked from all sides of the shrub.

The percentage of eggs that developed to adults decreased with the increasing egg density per gram of fruit probably due to intra-specific competition, and this was further confirmed by manipulating the egg density and using the same ‘Bing’ cherry cultivar as the tested host. Females preferred larger fruit for oviposition, which is consistent with the density-dependent survival as the large fruit support higher numbers of fly larvae per fruit. It is well known that many fruit flies employ a variety of fruit characters to assess host quality and tend to be more attracted to larger fruits. Female D. suzukii appears to be able to assess host quality based on fruit size, and this behavior would likely increase foraging efficiency per unit time. Though we recovered very low numbers of D. suzukii from damaged citrus fruits, our laboratory study showed the fly can oviposit into and develop from freshly damaged or rotting navel oranges. Kaçar et al. showed that D. suzukii overwinter in citrus, surviving 3–4 months when fresh oranges were provided as adult food or ovipositional medium,stackable planters and field-emerged adults from soil-buried pupae could produce and oviposit viable eggs on halved mandarin fruit.

Thus, citrus fruit likely play an important role as reservoirs in sustaining the fly populations during San Joaquin Valley winter seasons, and in the spring, those populations may migrate into early season crops, such as cherries. We did not observe grape infestation in our field collections, and our laboratory trials showed a low survival rate of D. suzukii offspring on grapes when compared to other fruits . The oviposition susceptibility and offspring survival could vary among varieties or cultivars due to the variations in skin hardness and chemical properties. For example, Ioriatti et al. demonstrated that oviposition increased consistently as the skin hardness of the grape decreased. Chemical properties, such as sugar content and acidity levels, may play a role in host susceptibility. In the current study, we found that although table grapes had a tougher skin than raisin or wine grape cultivars tested , females were able to lay eggs into all three types of grapes, often through the fruit surface or near the petiole . We also found that tartaric acid concentration negatively affected the fly’s developmental performance. Still, about 20% eggs successfully developed to adults in the diet mixed with the highest tartaric acid, whereas only 4.5% eggs developed from the wine grape cultivar tested.

It is thus possible that other unknown chemical traits might also affect larval performance. Overall, our results are consistent with other reported studies that grapes are not good reproductive hosts for D. suzukii.California’s San Joaquin Valley is one of the world’s most important fruit production regions, with a diverse agricultural landscape that can consist of a mosaic of cultivated and unmanaged host fruit crops. Such diverse landscapes result in the inevitable presence of D. suzukii populations that represent a difficult challenge for the management of this polyphagous pest. We showed that only the early seasonal fruits, such as cherries, seem to be at greatest risk to D. suzukii Many of other later seasonal fruits are not as vulnerable to this pest, because either their intact skin reduces oviposition, they ripen during a period of low D. suzukii abundance, or their flesh has chemical attributes that retard survival. However, some of these alternative hosts—such as citrus and damaged, unharvested stone fruit—may act as shelters for overwintering populations and provide sources for early populations moving into the more susceptible crops. Consequently, area-wide management strategies may need to consider fruit sanitation to lessen overwintering populations, suppressing fall and winter populations by releasing natural enemies, and reducing pest pressure in susceptible crops through ‘border-sprays’ and/or ‘mass trapping’ to kill adults before they move into the vulnerable crop.

Alternative and sustainable area-wide management strategies such as biological control are highly desirable to naturally regulate the fly population, especially in uncultivated habitats. An understanding of the temporal and spatial dynamics of the fly populations would be of aid in the optimal timing of the future release of biological control agents to reduce the source populations in the agricultural landscape. Many development programs are initiated as pilots with the intent of scaling if the trial shows success. High-quality implementation at the pilot stage is necessary to ensure a program remains faithful to its intended design. As a result, pilots are commonly run by organizations with strong institutional capacity enabled by a history of local expertise and involvement. However, the intensive community engagement and oversight brought to bear at the pilot stage often cannot be replicated as a program expands in scope. There is growing concern that demonstrations of large program impacts at small scale may have limited external validity as expansion brings in new levels of management and administration. In this paper, we illustrate how the same features that constrain implementation quality at scale may also bias pilot evaluation, threatening internal validity by overstating true program impacts. Our study takes place in the context of an unsuccessful agricultural intervention to promote smallholder cultivation of pulses in Bihar, India. The policy was piloted in a two-year randomized evaluation by four non-governmental organizations selected for their extensive history of local rural development work in the study area. We uncover evidence that farmers involved in program evaluation take costly actions that make the evaluation appear more favorable to the implementing organizations. The primary data for this study come from an incentive-compatible elicitation of demand for seeds of the target pulse crops at endline. Actual seed purchases were based on elicited responses, ensuring the decision had real stakes. This exercise was intended to measure farmers’ sustained intention to produce pulses after program activities concluded, an explicit goal of the program at the outset. Implementers defined success as an increase in treated farmers’ preference for pulse cultivation, resulting in greater seed demand. To evaluate how implementers’ desires affect participant behavior, we experimentally varied the salience of program evaluation during demand elicitation. Specifically, enumerators introduced the elicitation either as an explicit evaluation of the implementer’s efforts or more generally as a study of regional attitudes toward pulse cultivation. After this manipulation, elicitation proceeded identically for all participants. Importantly,stacking pots we ensure the introductory language does not communicate information about product quality by offering a consistent product explicitly sourced and delivered by the local implementer. We interpret differences in participants’ willingness-to-pay for pulse seeds by evaluation salience as a reflection of participants’ implicit preferences over the outcome of the evaluation itself. Increasing the salience of evaluation skews the estimated treatment effect in favor of the implementers.

Overall, the two-year intervention actually discouraged pulse cultivation among treated farmers by con- firming their belief that growing pulses was not worth the opportunity cost of displacing more lucrative alternatives . This belief manifested as 25% lower demand for pulse seeds on average in the incentive-compatible elicitation. However, the negative treatment effect was only observed in elicitations with low evaluation salience, where treated farmers purchased less than half the quantity of their untreated counterparts. By contrast, there was no distinguishable difference in elicitations with high evaluation salience. Making the evaluation salient during data collection obscured evidence of a negative treatment effect. This shift in seed demand represents costly action taken by study participants. Treated farmers spent an average of Rs. 70 more on pulse seeds in high-salience elicitations. More importantly, seed purchases reflected real cultivation choices over the following crop season. We find a strong, positive correlation between seeds purchased and area planted, with no systematic deviation by salience status. On average, farmers who were reminded of their participation in a program evaluation subsequently altered cultivation on 2% of their cropland in the following season. This reallocation of real on-farm resources, while modest, indicates this bias extends beyond simple survey misreporting or other forms of cheap talk. Responsiveness to implementer desire can be thought of as a form of Hawthorne effect. Past work has established that subjects in an experiment may alter their behavior when they know they are being monitored or evaluated . Most relevant to our study, de Quidt et al. investigate experimenter desirability, whereby participants act in response to researcher objectives, as a possible source of bias. The authors intentionally manipulate beliefs about the experimenter’s desires and find the resulting distortions to be modest. We extend this type of work to introduce the possibility that the relevant pressure in program evaluation comes not from the experimenter conducting the evaluation, but rather the implementer being evaluated. Implementer desirability may influence any participant survey response, but it is especially concerning for complex elicitation methods introduced exclusively to generate evaluation data. In particular, Becker-DeGroot-Marschack elicitation is common in field experiments—including our own study—because it reveals respondents’ full demand curve in an incentive-compatible manner . This mechanism has been criticized due to concerns about misunderstanding of the dominant strategy , weak incentives for accuracy , decision fatigue , and price anchoring . Nevertheless, it empirically performs well relative to other measures of willingness-to-pay . We show that even if an elicitation accurately reveals demand, the demand itself may be influenced by participants’ preferences over the outcome of evaluation. This bias is more likely to arise in unnatural exercises that call attention to the research in progress—such as BDM elicitation—that in recall questions about participants’ regular endeavors—such as self-reported market purchases. Our findings more generally contribute to the large literature on reproducibility and policy scaling . Across many sectors, programs implemented by NGOs systematically generate greater impact than those run by governments . In a study closely related to ours, Usmani et al. highlight the particular importance of prior community engagement in NGO effectiveness. This feature is difficult to replicate at scale , and may therefore threaten the external validity of evaluation results generated from an NGO implemented pilot. Our research establishes how these factors can also undermine the internal validity of evaluation independent of their role in implementation effectiveness, presenting a new reason why pilot results may not be recreated at scale. Implementer desirability bias can create issues of endogenous participant effort similar to those proposed by Chassang et al. . Many development programs rely on complementary investments from program beneficiaries, and beliefs about implementation quality can alter participants’ incentives to invest. For instance, in two field evaluations, Bulte et al. and Bulte et al. show how the returns to improved seeds in Tanzania depend crucially on farm labor choices, which are in turn a function of participants’ perception of the quality of the seeds being evaluated. We find that participant behavior responds not only to beliefs about implementation quality, but also preferences over evaluation outcomes. Heterogeneity in responsiveness to implementer desire would also exacerbate external validity concerns regarding favorable selection of sites or indicators if NGOs strategically seek out communities where evaluation is likely to show positive impact. This could contribute to the relationship between prior NGO activity and current program effectiveness reported by Usmani et al. , though we find no evidence of such selectivity in our setting. The state of Bihar is among the poorest in India with over a third of households below the national poverty line. The population is also predominantly agrarian with just 12 percent residing in urban centers. As a result, Bihar has been a region of focus for rural development programs by both the Government of India and the NGO sector, frequently funded by external donors. There are currently 4,255 registered NGOs and volunteer organizations in the state,1 the majority of which operate at small scale and rely on heavy engagement with beneficiary communities. We investigate how to translate experience from this type of localized development work into guidance for policy design. Our study is tied to an agricultural development venture initiated by the Government of India and managed by an international NGO. In 2016, the managing organization enlisted four local Bihari NGOs to implement a pilot intervention aimed at increasing the production of pulses by farm households. Many households in this region grow small amounts of pulses—primarily pigeon pea—on crop borders or other marginal land for home consumption. The partnership designed and administered a two-year package of input subsidies, agricultural extension services, and marketing support to modernize cropping practices and boost output. This package was piloted in five districts to test whether intensive short-term investment could shift the long-term crop portfolio of participating households. Implementing partners for this project were selected because of their track record with local development.

The membrane electrode assembly is made up of anode and cathode electrodes and an electrolyte which is sandwiched between the two electrodes. The electrodes are permeable to gas so that the gases can make contact with the electrolyte. Points at which the gas, electrode, and electrolyte meet are points where an electrochemical reaction can occur which liberates an electron into or out of the electrode as an ion is transferred through the electrolyte. These points are called triple-phase boundaries . For example, with hydrogen electrochemistry and with proton-conducting electrolytes, the hydrogen splits, releasing two electrons into the anode while the hydrogen ions travel through the electrolyte. The ions then react with oxygen atoms and electrons at TPB locations in the cathode compartment to form water. A voltage difference between the anode and cathode is produced by the electrochemical reactions, which drives an electric currentthrough the external circuit. While the Nernst voltage can be realized when a fuel cell does no net work ,nft channel once electric current flows, additional voltage losses are realized. Figure 7 displays the ideal and actual responses of a fuel cell to increasing current demands.

Electrical energy is obtained from a fuel cell when a current is drawn, but the actual cell potential is lowered from its equilibrium potential because of irreversible losses due to various reasons. Several factors contribute to the irreversible losses in a practical fuel cell. The losses, which are generally called polarization or over potential, originate primarily from activation polarization, ohmic polarization, and gas concentration polarization. These losses result in a cell potential for a fuel cell that is less than its ideal potential.SOFC usually operate at high temperatures in the range of about 600-1000℃, which temperature range is well-suited to integrating bottoming cycles for additional power, heating or cooling production, which results in improved overall system efficiency when compared to an individual stand-alone system. An analysis of a hybrid system of microturbine and fuel cell as a prime mover of Combined Cooling, Heating, and Power plants was carried out by Saito et al.. They carried out electricity demand and consumption analyses of apartments, offices and hotels in Japan with the use of the hybrid system. They found that the annual fuel consumption dropped by 32%, 36% and 42% for the apartments, offices and hotels, respectively. One general method to recover the waste heat from the SOFC is the SOFC-GT system, in which SOFC is coupled with a Gas Turbine as the bottom cycle to increase the overall efficiency by recovering waste heat from SOFC exhaust.

The concept of SOFC-GT hybrid system was proposed for decades, and many researchers have studied the theoretical analysis of this hybrid system. Siemens Westinghouse Power Corporation developed the first hybrid power system, which integrated an SOFC stack with a gas turbine engine. The pressurized system generated 220kW of electrical power at a net electrical efficiency of 53.5% . Mueller et al. designed a theoretical solid oxide fuel cell-gas turbine hybrid system using a 60kW micro-gas turbine. Although using a gas turbine can recover waste heat from an SOFC, the exhaust gas from the gas turbine still has relatively high temperature that could be used in other bottoming cycles. If the waste heat from gas turbine can also be recovered by some method, then the energy conversion efficiency can increase further. Another method to recover the waste heat from the SOFC is the SOFC- Organic Rankine Cycle combined system. Using ORC as a bottoming cycle of the SOFC, the system can fully recover the waste heat from the SOFC. Some research has been conducted on the waste heat recovery of the exhaust from the SOFC by ORC. Akkaya and Sahin presented an energetic analysis for a combined power generation system consisting of an SOFC and an ORC. The results showed that the efficiency was increased by about 14-25% by recovering SOFC waste heat through ORC based on investigated design parameter conditions. And there existed an optimum value of fuel utilization factor maximizing the efficiency. Al-Sulaiman et al. proposed a cooling, heating and power production system based on the SOFC and ORC.

The energy analysis showed that at least a 22% gain in efficiency was achieved compared with the stand-alone SOFC system. Ghirardo et al. conducted a study on heat recovery for a 250kW SOFC onboard a ship. Using ORC could produce 35kW of electricity from the waste heat of 181 kW. The overall efficiency increased from 44% to 49% and the cost of energy dropped from 0.25$/kWh to 0.22$/kWh. In another study, Al-Sulaiman et al. analyzed CO2 emissions from the CCHP system. The study showed that the CO2 emissions per MWh are significantly less than that of the CO2 emissions per MWh of the electricity produced by the SOFC alone or the net electrical power of the system. In another study, Al-Sulaiman et al. studied the feasibility of using a CCHP plant based on ORC and solid oxide fuel cells. In their study, it was shown that there is 3–25% gain on exergy efficiency when compared with the power cycle only. In a different study, Al-Sulaiman et al. examined a CCHP system using a biomass combustor and an ORC. In their study, it was shown that the exergy efficiency of the CCHP system increases significantly to 27% as compared with the exergy efficiency of the electrical power case, which is around 11%. In SOFC-ORC combined systems, it is a novel idea to use the ORC waste heat for cooling purposes. Several studies were conducted in using absorption chiller as a bottoming cycle of the SOFC for cooling. Margalef and Samuelsen studied an integrated molten carbonate fuel cell and absorption chiller cogeneration system, showing that the overall electrical and cooling efficiency can achieve 71.7%. Furthermore, Silveira et al. examined a molten carbonate fuel cell cogeneration system integrated with absorption refrigeration which was applied to a dairy for electricity and cold water production. The results showed that the electrical efficiency of the system and the second law efficiency of the fuel cell unit were 49%and 46%, respectively. Leong analyzed an integrated natural gas fed solid oxide fuel cell with a zeolite/water adsorption chiller. The results show that the proposed cogeneration system can achieve a total efficiency of more than 77%. A steady state mathematical model was developed to simulate the effects of different SOFC operating conditions on an energy system incorporating SOFC and exhaust gas driven absorption chiller. The effect of fuel utilization factor on electrical, cooling, and total efficiency was investigated. Zink et al. studied an integrated solid oxide fuel cell absorption heating and cooling system for buildings, concluding that the combined system demonstrated great advantages in both technical and environmental aspects. An integrated SOFC and a double effect water/Lithium Bromide absorption chiller were presented by Yu et al.. The system performance was analyzed under different fuel utilization ratio, fuel flow ratio, and air inlet temperature.

Al-Sulaiman et al. studied the use of an SOFC integrated with both ORC and absorption chiller. In this study,hydroponic nft the waste heat from the ORC is used to produce cooling using a single-effect absorption chiller. The study shows that the maximum efficiency of the trigeneration plant is 74%, heating cogeneration is 71%, cooling cogeneration is 57% and net electricity is 46%. Asghari et al. studied dynamic integration of SOFC with AC and ORC. Figure 8 shows the schematic of configuration of this study. Results showed that the SOFC was capable of following the highly dynamic load with an average electrical efficiency of 46%. An average of 7% more power was produced through the ORC cycle with an average efficiency of 10%. The AC generated an average 125kW of cooling with an average Coefficient of Performance of 1.08. Mehpoya et al. investigated optimal design of solid oxide fuel cell-gas turbine power plant, Rankine steam cycle and ammonia-water absorption refrigeration. Results indicate that electrical efficiency of the combined system is 62.4% Lower Heating Value . Produced refrigeration and heat recovery are 101kW and 22.1kW respectively.The proposal system is based on the idea of gasifying the municipal waste, producing syngas serving as fuel for the trigeneration system. It is shown that the energy efficiency of such small tri-generation system is more than 83% with net power of 170kW and district energy of about 250W. Tian et al. proposed and investigated an integrated SOFC system, an ORC, and an ammonia water absorption chiller with a CO2 capture system is proposed and investigated. The results show that the net electrical efficiency and the exergy efficiency of the integrated system can reach 52.83% and 59.96%, respectively. The trigeneration efficiencies of the combined system without and with CO2 capture are 74.28% and 72.23%, respectively. During recent years there have been some research on integration of SOFC with adsorption technologies.The authors dynamically simulated the integrated system. Simulation results show the proposed system produces 4.35kW of electrical power, 2.448kW of exhaust heat power, and 1.348kW of cooling power. The energy efficiency of the system is 64.9% and the COP of the refrigeration system is 0.32. The implementation of SOFC technology in data centers has many advantages including fuel flexibility, lower emissions, higher production efficiency, and the production of high-quality exhaust heat for co-generation applications. These advantages could reduce the data center’s footprint through the synergistic integration of power and cooling to supply the data center. eBay installed 6MW of fuel cell from Bloom Energy as the primary power source for their data center in Utah while using the local utility grid for backup. In 2013, Apple installed 10MW capacity high temperature fuel cells to power their entire data center. Equinix started a project in 2017 to power 12 data centers in US with a total capacity of more than 37MW of Bloom fuel cell. Microsoft in collaboration with the National Fuel Cell Research Center demonstrated the concept of a rack of data center servers powered directly by the DC output of a fuel cell stack for the first time at the NFCRC in University of California, Irvine. Later, Microsoft started a new Advanced Energy Lab in Seattle, Washington to power 20 data center racks directly from DC power of SOFC systems. Direct highly efficient power generation at the rack level removes the need for complex power distribution systems, reduces costs significantly, and allows decentralized architecture. Having shown that the desired reliability is achievable through well-designed distributed fuel cell power systems, backup power sources are no longer required. National Renewable Energy Laboratory recently have started looking at rack level powered data centers using PEM fuel cells while producing hydrogen fuel for fuel cells by on site electrolysis using renewable resources. SOFCs are promising technology that can directly operate on variety of fuels and the high temperature operation allows internal reforming of carbonated gas. As an alternate to carbonated fuel and due to high pressure required for storage of H2, ammonia is getting more attention as a potential fuel for SOFC. Ammonia is carbon free, widely available, and has comparative price as hydrocarbons. Is it easily liquified and volumetric energy density of liquefied ammonia is higher than that of liquid hydrogen, which is useful in transport and storage. Anode and cathode half reactions of ammonia fed SOFC are presented by Equation 11to Equation 14 . The route of utilization of ammonia on SOFC is a two-step process . The ammonia first decomposes to hydrogen on the anode side , followed by electrochemical oxidation of generated hydrogen to form water . A few groups have reported the promising performance of ammonia-fueled SOFCs, however, there are very few studies looking into long term degradation effect of SOFC fueled by ammonia. Bernhard et al. tested the performance of ammonia as fuel for SOFC, their results showed that ammonia exhibits excellent performance as fuel for SOFC however, in their EIS measurements they observed significant increase in ohmic resistance. They found that operating at counter flow is more favorable to co-flow as less ohmic and diffusion resistance was measured. Occurrence of nickel nitrite, microscopic pores and particle enlargement and agglomerations was observed in micro-structure imaging. Hung et al. studied the effect of pressurized ammonia fed on anode supported SOFC. Their finding showed that pressurizing and increasing temperature enhances the performance of ammonia fed SOFC.

Increasing the frequency of raspberry harvests means that fruit is harvested sooner, thus reducing the availability of ripe fruit in the field. SWD primarily targets red fruit that is fully ripened or overripe.While SWD also infest fruit before they ripen, this damage is less pervasive. Even if SWD infestations are present in less ripe fruit, the damage is less likely to be visible if the fruit is quickly harvested and cooled. Once fruit enters the cold chain, SWD development slows dramatically. As a result, a common practice among raspberry growers facing SWD damage has been to harvest a day sooner.Prior to the SWD invasion, raspberries were typically harvested every two to six days depending on the time of the season.Decreasing this interval to every one to five days implies a potential 20% to 100% increase in the frequency of harvests due to SWD, depending on the time of the season. Labor-intensive field sanitation efforts, which include pickers removing fallen and damaged fruit, is another means of reducing the availability of fruit for SWD to infest. Fallen and damaged fruit are a breeding ground for SWD and other Drosophila species alike. Removal of such unmarketable fruit from the field eliminates one potential source of SWD population growth, though external SWD populations can still be a significant source of damage.

Field sanitation is a recommended practice for all raspberry production even in the absence of SWD,nft system but extensive field sanitation efforts are more likely to be observed with organic producers due to their greater damage rates and the costliness of such activities. Field sanitation is costly because pickers must be compensated. A common practice is to pay pickers a secondary, lower piece-rate for harvesting and disposing damaged fruit. Pickers performing field sanitation have been observed allocating as much as a quarter of their harvesting time to removing unmarketable fruit.For example, Rogers, Burkness, and Hutchison 34 examined SWD infestations in Minnesota raspberries and found that the average percentage of unmarketable fruit in untreated open plots was 29%. SWD infestations were found in 81% of sampled berries in these untreated open plots. Similarly, De Ros et al.observed Italian berry growers allocating approximately a labor-hour per hectare each harvest day for sanitation efforts intended to control SWD. Growers who don’t remove fallen and damaged fruit have been observed to sustain increased damage rates as well as a higher probability of rejection of the whole shipment. A final labor-intensive management practice performed by many growers is the construction and maintenance of attractant-based traps.

The materials required to produce these traps are inexpensive, but the construction and placement of the traps can be a labor-intensive activity.Growers utilize these traps to detect the presence of significant SWD populations in the fields they manage. However, available traps and attractants are nonspecific and capture many species of vinegar flies. In general, fly captures are a weak predictor of fruit losses.Producers often respond with more frequent insecticide applications and more intensive field sanitation when trap captures indicate the presence of large vinegar fly populations. Overall, the primary benefit of trapping programs has been to alert producers to the presence of SWD in areas where SWD had never been detected before. Regional trapping programs implemented by SWD researchers have also provided a rough measure of adult SWD activity at a given time of the year. Sampling fruit directly provides a more accurate estimate of damage because virtually all fruit fly infestations in commercially viable California raspberries are SWD. However, direct sampling of fruit for infestations is time consuming for raspberry growers, who must transport their highly perishable product to a shipper within hours of a harvest.It is also a post facto measure since the fruit infestation measured has already occurred, so control at that time is of no value.

In addition to growers implementing these labor-intensive SWD management practices, more frequent harvesting and fruit losses due to SWD limit how efficiently a grower can utilize labor. More frequent harvesting and fruit losses reduce fruit density in a field. Workers’ harvesting productivity is negatively impacted when they must spend additional time searching for marketable fruit that is less densely available.The harvest rate per raspberry picker can vary from one to five trays per hour depending on worker skill and fruit availability.An experienced picker can harvest up to 2.5 times more quickly than a novice, and yield alone can cause worker productivity to vary by a factor of two.SWD damage has the potential to reduce raspberry yields by up to 50% over a season and up to 100% in a specific harvest; therefore, it is clear that SWD damage can significantly affect workers’ productivity. Further compounding these labor-utilization issues, growers must offer a higher piece rate when productivity is low in order to retain their labor force and increased variability in available yield for harvest makes it more difficult for managers to allocate labor appropriately. The market for raspberry pickers is highly competitive. Workers who believe they can earn more money elsewhere, because less fruit is damaged, may leave during a harvest or not return for a subsequent harvest. The potential resulting labor shortage in fields with significant SWD damage could further exacerbate fruit losses due to SWD as unharvested fruit become overripe and act as a SWD breeding ground. Further, agricultural labor costs are also rising over time as the supply of labor from Mexico is shrinking due to improving economic conditions. It is difficult to observe these increased labor costs directly, but it is clear that they are not negligible. In 2015, a tray of 12 six ounce clam shells of conventional raspberries sold at an average price of $15.98 per tray based on Salinas-Watsonville and Oxnard district shipping point prices. According to a 2012 UC Davis study of raspberry production costs and returns, production costs were estimated to be $10 per tray of raspberries.

Labor costs accounted for approximately half of these production costs, and the study did not report any SWD-targeting activities. The piece-rate alone averaged $4 per tray in a season.If one were to assume, conservatively, that these additional labor costs associated with managing SWD increased total labor costs by as little as 2% and 4% for conventional and organic raspberry producers, respectively, then these activities would account for a 1% and 2% increase in total production costs. Thus, a 1% increase is production costs would reduce a conventional raspberry grower’s profit margin by approximately 1.67%. If a similar cost structure is assumed for organic raspberry producers, then one would expect approximately a 3.34% reduction in profit margin resulting from the additional labor costs associated with managing SWD. Labor costs are assumed to increase by a greater percentage for organic producers because they are more reliant on labor-intensive SWD control methods.SWD’s invasion into North America has significantly harmed the California raspberry industry. We examined revenue losses and management costs associated with this invasive pest. Using a combination of field trial data and expert observations,hydroponic gutter we calculated that SWD has accounted for approximately $39.8 million in revenue losses, equivalent to 2.19% of realized revenues, for the California raspberry industry between 2009 and 2014. Conventional producers accounted for $36.4 million of these losses, equivalent to 2.07% of their realized revenues. Organic producers accounted for $3.43 million of these losses, equivalent to 5.74% of their realized revenues. SWD management activities have also significantly increased production costs for raspberry growers. We calculated that the cost of chemical purchases increased annual per hectare production costs for conventional and organic producers by $1,161.28 and $2,933.01, respectively. We also calculated that the cost of labor-intensive SWD management activities decreased conventional and organic raspberry producers’ profits by 1.67% and 3.34%, respectively. Even though the industry has managed to adapt to the pest, these revenue losses and management costs have significantly reduced the profitability of the commercial production of fresh raspberries. Looking into the future, it is unclear whether SWD will remain a threat to California’s raspberry producers. On one hand, the primary biological reason that SWD has become such an economically damaging pest in both North America and Europe following its invasion is the absence of an effective natural enemy. In Asia, where SWD originates, the presence of effective natural enemies greatly reduces damages associated with the pest. Thus, the introduction of an effective biological control agent could dramatically reduce these estimated losses in the future. On the other hand, California’s raspberry producers rely heavily on chemical management options to reduce yield losses associated with SWD infestations.

If SWD populations were to develop significant resistance to these chemicals over time or restrictions were placed on their use, then these estimated losses could increase dramatically. Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally . Major risk factors for developing CVDs include age, biological sex , high blood pressure, smoking, dyslipidemia, and impaired fasting glucose among others . Because these risk factors cluster and interact multiplicatively, the term cardiometabolic disease is often used to describe a grouping of disorders including hypertension, dyslipidemia, impaired glucose and insulin dynamics, and abdominal adiposity that together increase the risk for CVDs as well as type 2 diabetes . Acknowledging that diet quality plays a major role in cardiometabolic disease-free life expectancy , the American Heart Association published Strategic Impact Goals designed to improve cardiometabolic health and reduce related deaths through promotion of healthy behaviors including improvements in diet quality . Whereas exclusive adherence to a healthy diet is ideal for optimizing disease risk and reducing disability-adjusted life years, the potential impact of migrating dietary patterns toward inclusion of key foods containing bioactive compounds should not be underestimated. A large and constantly evolving body of research suggests that dietary bioactives play a key role in human health maintenance as well as disease prevention and mitigation, particularly during the aging process. As such, the US NIH Office of Dietary Supplements has proposed the term bioactives or bioactivefood compounds for use in referring to constituents in foods or dietary supplements other than those needed to meet basic human nutritional needs yet responsible for changes in health status. Among the more commonly studied bioactives is the family of secondary plant metabolites known as flavonoids. In recent years, the nutrition science community has provided evidence elucidating the effects of flavonoids on cardiometabolic health . Such research reports that the health-promoting properties of flavonoids are likely due to a synergistic combination of their antioxidant, antiinflammatory, antimutagenic, and anticarcinogenic properties along with their modulating effects on cellular enzyme functionality . Although there are many subclasses of flavonoids grouped according to chemical structure, flavan- 3-ols—abundantly present in tea, apples, pears, berries, and chocolate/cocoa products—are the most highly consumed flavonoid subclass according to data from the NHANES . As such, the objective of this Expert Panel was to review the available evidence assessing flavan-3-ol intake and cardiometabolic health for development of an intake guideline.The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics , who were consulted to lead this project, led the process of Expert Panel recruitment. An independent Work Group Selection Subcommittee from the Council of Research led the selection process to ensure appropriate expertise and limit selection bias. An open recruitment message with a link to online application was circulated via stakeholders for experts in the topic area via the Academy and related scientific societies in the field of nutrition . Interested candidates provided conflict-of-interest forms, curriculum vitae, and personal statements indicating interest and qualifications related to the topic. Each candidate was evaluated based on a set of standard predetermined criteria , and candidates with the highest scores were selected for the Expert Panel, with the highest scoring candidate selected for the chair position. A total of 6 members were appointed to develop the guideline. The Expert Panel participated in all steps of the guideline development process, which included reviewing and evaluating the evidence, developing a recommendation statement based on the EtD framework, and writing a manuscript. The Expert Panel and members of the guideline development team met via web meetings for the duration of the project. In the interest of full disclosure, the Expert Panel was required to disclose potential conflicts of interest by completing the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Conflict of Interest Form. COIs were updated at the beginning of every meeting.

Whereas we see Agnes and Matilda using several imperatives to command Ambrosio’s attention, contemplation, and compassion, Antonia’s quoted imperatives are few and usually physical, and rather than commanding Ambrosio’s body alone , Antonia’s physical imperatives generally make herself the object of the demand, as she tells him, “Let me go!”; “take me from hence!”; “Unhand me”; “Convey me from hence”; “Let me return to the house.”This difference in imperatives is understandable, considering that in the previous scenes the threat to the women was that Ambrosio would leave to report them and here it is that he would stay; even so, this verbal acknowledgment of his power over her own body detracts from the authority of her commands. She further diminishes her importance by demanding mercy “for God’s sake” rather than for her own.Though she asserts a certain future when she informs him, “[S]tay here one moment longer, I neither will nor ought,” this claim is so uncharacteristic that “[t]hough the monk was somewhat startled by the resolute tone in which this speech was delivered, it produced upon him no other effect than surprise.”After Lewis has established that Antonia possesses no control over the narrative,hydroponic dutch buckets he becomes as inattentive to her words as Ambrosio is.

He merely references her attempts to prevent Ambrosio from raping her: she “once more had recourse to prayers and supplications. This attempt had no better success than the former”; Ambrosio is “[h]eedless of her tears, cries and entreaties.”Even after the rape, when she nearly convinces Ambrosio to set her free with her persuasive description of a future that would spare him punishment, Lewis uses only indirect speech: “she besought his compassion in terms the most pathetic and urgent . . . she offered to quit Madrid immediately. Her entreaties were so urgent as to make a considerable impression upon the monk.”In what is potentially Antonia’s most powerful moment in the novel, in which she convincingly narrates a future for herself that does not end in murder, Lewis uses his own narrative control to suppress hers. Meanwhile, Ambrosio’s speech illustrates his transformation from a holy man to a libertine, but it also reveals the continuity in his character. Whereas previously he used the modal auxiliary must to defer to the rules of Catholicism, now he uses it to defer instead to the rules of lust. He defends his intention to deflower Antonia by claiming, “I burn with desires which I must either gratify or die,” and commands her, “let me . . . teach you to feel those pleasures in my arms, which I must soon enjoy in yours.”Just as he previously represented his future actions as being predetermined by religious mandates in order to avoid owning his choices to expose Agnes and Matilda, now he depicts the inevitability of his choice to rape Antonia, as if his only real choice was to rape or to die.

To argue, as Brooks does, “that Ambrosio’s drama is in fact the story of his relationship to the imperatives of desire” seems to be endorsing Ambrosio’s own rhetoric of necessity, which has been proven false before.And just as Ambrosio previously used his narrative power to distort others’ visions of the future into what sound like impossible and unacceptable proposals and to deny responsibility for his destructive choices, he does these things again when refusing to grant Antonia her request to return home after he rapes her. He rages, “What? That you may denounce me to the world? that you may proclaim me a hypocrite, a ravisher, a betrayer, a monster of cruelty, lust, and ingratitude? No, no, no! . . . Wretched girl, you must stay here with me! . . . Have you not plunged my soul into infamy? . . . ’tis you who will cause my eternal anguish!—you, wretched girl! you! you!’ The final scene I will analyze is the climactic interaction between Ambrosio and Lucifer, when Lucifer offers to save Ambrosio from the Inquisition in exchange for his soul but ultimately kills him. Scholars have focused on the gruesomeness and biblical language of Lewis’s description of Ambrosio’s suffering and death, but it is also worthwhile to consider what precedes this horror as the culmination of the novel’s repeated assertions and denials of control. In this scene, Lucifer reveals himself to be the supreme master of Ambrosio’s narrative, but Lewis undermines Ambrosio’s claims that he has had no choice in his actions.

Lucifer deploys Ambrosio’s own preferred style of accusatory rhetorical questions and statements of inevitability: “Are you not guilty? Can such enormous sins be forgiven? Hope you to escape my power? Your fate is already pronounced . . . mine you must and shall be.”He revises Ambrosio’s understanding of what he has done by disclosing that it was his mother whom he murdered and his sister whom he raped, commanding him to “tremble at the extent of your offences!”He even claims authorship of the events that led to Ambrosio’s sins, revealing, “It was I who threw Matilda in your way; it was I who gave you entrance to Antonia’s chamber.”In possession of demonic power, Lucifer can influence the course of Ambrosio’s life and his perception of the past and future, easily achieving the narrative control that the other characters have been vying for. Yet despite Lucifer’s considerable sway over Ambrosio’s fate, Lewis suggests that the idea of inevitability is often fictive. When Lucifer presents Ambrosio with the choice to sign his contract and formally renounce his soul or to wait to be tortured and nonetheless face what Lucifer states is his inescapable spiritual doom, Ambrosio still attempts to control the situation by ordering Lucifer away and insisting that he “will not sign the parchment.”Even as his determination fades when confronted with the same rhetoric of inevitability to which he has subjected others, he still tries to disclaim responsibility for his actions. But even though he attempts to take refuge in terms of necessity, he ends by taking ownership of his decision: “I must—Fate urges me—I accept your conditions.”Once Ambrosio is in his power, Lucifer insists upon Ambrosio’s guilt as he simultaneously takes credit for tempting him, and he even castigates Ambrosio for his mercilessness. Finally, before wrecking Ambrosio’s body and soul, he reveals that right up until the moment Ambrosio signed the document, he had the opportunity to escape his doom, as the Inquisition had pardoned him. He tells Ambrosio, “Had you resisted me one minute longer, you had saved your body and soul,” presenting him with an alternate version of events that is now foreclosed, in the form of a counterfactual conditional, but using the past perfect tense in a way that cruelly evokes the reality of his salvation, as if it had actually happened in some other timeline.The novel ends with the suggestion that even in a narrative full of apparent inevitability, no conclusion is truly foregone. My reading of The Monk above is simply that—my reading. I don’t claim that my way is the only way to interpret these scenes, but I do argue that it offers a perspective that hasn’t been included in the critical conversation so far. The critical conversation about The Monk has been shaped by many competing forces, including its failed presentation as a Radcliffean sentimental gothic novel and its early scandal,bato bucket as well as its competing marketing as a sensational work and an abstracted classic. The work of publishers and scholars that validated The Monk as an object of analysis has often included minimizing the ways the novel is sensational. When scholars have written about its sensational qualities, they have produced readings that are uncomfortably situated within the limited critical approaches to novelistic feeling. Critical objections to The Monk’s sensationalism can overstate its negative consequences and end up implying that Lewis forces all his readers to become voyeurs and dehumanizers. Close readings, on the other hand, can elide appreciation of Lewis’s style and his lustful or brutal subject matter, making these scholars sound startlingly like amateur critics who write about their approval of Antonia’s rape and murder.

Even though I found a way to write about The Monk’s emotional scenes without falling into these critical traps, I still found myself limited by critical attitudes. After considering several sentimental illustrations from The Monk, I planned to write about the sentimentality of the novel—the way characters repeatedly find themselves physically incapacitated by emotion. Unlike many scholars, I experience these moments as affecting, even though they are conventional. Yet, I knew that building an argument around this response would mean confronting other scholars’ insistence that these moments are insignificant, false, or parodic, and that sentimentality itself is embarrassing at best and unethical at worst. Deborah Knight provocatively challenges philosophical and critical dismissals of sentimentality by arguing that they actually replicate what they dismiss by being clichéd and reductive and taking pleasure in performing virtue.Of course, there are truly objectionable features of the sentimental mode. Ahern writes that “[t]he tragedy of the sentimental mode of being results from failure to recognize that one’s version of reality is a lie, which if enforced by a bearer of power is done at the expense of others.”104 As bearers of critical power, if we wish to challenge the overreach of sentimentality and other forms that encourage objectification, we should also make sure that we are not actually reinforcing objectification or projecting our own reality onto others. In the same way that Lewis’s characters contest the narratives of reality that others project onto them and recontextualize their situations, we have the ability to contest the critical narratives that we have inherited and attempt to resituate ourselves more comfortably as literary scholars writing about emotion. One way to do this is by stepping outside of our own preferred medium to gain perspective. Approaching The Monk through its images—book covers and illustrations—allowed me to temporarily disentangle myself from my own disciplinary constraints. It also offered a different set of interpretations than the ones I found in scholarly treatments of the novel, as did reading online reviews. Those interpretations were not scholarly, and I don’t mean to claim that that fact makes them somehow purer in their affect, a myth that Deidre Lynch dispels in her study of the historically produced love of literature that has defined the reading practices of scholars and amateurs alike.But non-scholarly interpretations have the benefit of being less limited by the affective norms of criticism. Even Rita Felski offers only a modest remedy for scholarly feeling beyond suspicion in her suggestion that critics approach texts “as energetic coactors and vital partners in an equal encounter.”Felski draws on actor network theory in this formulation, but she acknowledges that her choice to focus on the relationship between readers and texts while excluding the many other coactors involved in this relationship is not in line with ANT’s consideration of multiple mediators.By involving more participants in my discussion of The Monk—advertisements, publishers, newspapers, critics from different eras with different professional statuses, book jackets, illustrations—I am attempting to account for more of the novel’s uncomfortable situation in scholarship today, and to offer more possibilities for us to reorient ourselves with different critical moods. Wildfires can have substantial effects on nutrient cycling and community composition both above- and below ground , making them important drivers of ecosystem processes . Furthermore, wildfires are increasing in frequency and severity in many regions of the world . Independent of soil type, wildfires have been shown to decrease the total amount of carbon in surface soils through combustion, releasing it as carbon dioxide, while much of the remaining carbon is transformed into black carbon or pyrogenic organic matter . PyOM encompasses a heterogeneous spectrum of compounds, but is predominantly composed of aromatic and polyaromatic compounds, depending on the source material, the temperature, and duration of pyrolysis . PyOM is generally thought of as being relatively recalcitrant, with PyOM sometimes persisting for hundreds or thousands of years . During intense wildfires, soil surface temperatures generally reach >500–800°C, and the temperature declines dramatically within the top 5 cm of soil . While organic matter in surface soils may be completely combusted or pyrolyzed during fire, in deeper soil layers, non-pyrolyzed organic carbon is released where the heat from fire was enough to kill cells, but not hot enough for combustion or to catalyze the formation of PyOM. This soil layer defined by a heatinduced release of nutrients has been termed the “necromass zone” . Thus, post-fire soils often contain surface layers infused with PyOM, and necromass zones with abundant organic matter directly below.

Amateur critics now label Parsons’s novel “so bad it’s good” because of its sentimental conventions, but Lewis’s novel has become a “good” bad novel—bold, unruly, and virile, as we might expect from a work that came to be known as the epitome of the “male gothic” subgenre. Online reviews of The Monk praise its sensational sex scenes, murders, and even rape, and academic criticism of the last four decades often discusses control, heterosexual male voyeurism, and violence against women in the novel while minimizing its sentimentality. Though I separate sentimentality and sensationalism in this chapter, I am aware that the historical and textual construction of sentiment and sensation are complex and sometimes intersecting. Eighteenth-century definitions of the terms sentiment and sensation sometimes overlap, especially when they converge in novels of sensibility.Stephen Ahern describes these affective styles as points on the continuum of the rhetoric of sensibility, as repeatedly in early fictional forms “a representational mode preoccupied with pathos moves from sentimentality to increasing sensationalism,” revealing “a drive to represent ever more extreme forms of excess,blueberry packaging containers as if writers of sensibility narratives needed to satisfy their readers’ desire for perpetual novelty.”

For the purposes of this chapter, I am using both terms similarly to how twentieth- and twenty-first-century critics have employed them when dismissing representations of feeling in novels—dismissals informed by not only eighteenth-century works but also nineteenth-century American sentimental novels, Victorian sensation fiction, sentimental soap operas, and sensationalized news media, among many other cultural influences.I will use sentiment when alluding to the conventions of emotional expression that critics have characterized as overblown, false, and clichéd. Philosopher Deborah Knight, in her examination of aesthetic treatments of sentiment, contends that the negative implications of the term itself can lead to “the prejudice of treating everything that could . . . be called sentimental as simply unworthy of further aesthetic consideration.”I will use sensation when referencing plot elements that critics have described as prurient or gratuitously shocking, such as descriptions of sex or violence. Pamela Gilbert writes that Victorian sensation fiction, which inherited many of gothic fiction’s conventions, “was thought to appeal directly to the ‘nerves,’ eliciting a physical sensation with its surprises, plot twists, and startling revelations . . . It was thought to be written and read quickly rather than discerningly; a ‘mass-produced,’ disposable consumer product.”The sensational aspects of the plot, which I will briefly summarize before beginning to sketch the argument of this chapter, are the ones that dominate critical accounts of feeling in the novel and present the most obvious critical challenges.

The Monk features two intertwined plotlines: one that follows the gradual corruption of a holy man and one that narrates the adventures of two young people in love. It is the first of these, the main plot, that I will be concentrating on most in this chapter, since this is the storyline that has garnered the most critical attention. This plot tells the tale of Ambrosio, who begins the novel as a monk with an impeccable reputation who, raised by the Church, has devoted his life to pious pursuits. Early in the novel, Ambrosio reports a pregnant nun, Agnes, which leads to her harsh and gruesome punishment. Soon after condemning Agnes, Ambrosio learns that his friend Rosario is not a fellow monk but a woman named Matilda , who prevents him from reporting her too by threatening to stab herself in the heart. Though Ambrosio attempts to remain virtuous, Matilda soon initiates him into the pleasures of the flesh, a sin that Ambrosio quickly follows with others. Ambrosio, newly awakened to his sexual urges, becomes obsessed with an innocent young woman named Antonia . With Matilda’s encouragement, he makes two unsuccessful attempts to rape her and is prevented both times by Elvira, her mother . After the second attempt, he murders Elvira to keep her from exposing him. As news of Agnes’s fate ignites mob vengeance, Ambrosio retreats into the catacombs with Antonia, whom he has drugged, and eventually rapes and murders her. When he is caught, he faces the judgment of the Inquisition and chooses to escape execution by signing over his soul to Lucifer, whom Matilda has taught him to summon. Lucifer, after transporting Ambrosio to a remote location, leaves him to die a horrible death.

The novel is shocking for many readers even today, as numerous scholars and amateur attest to, and it is the shocking nature of the text that makes it difficult to approach in a scholarly manner—a contention that will be at the heart of my argument. I arrived at my argument for this chapter through a series of personal experiences with The Monk that I later realized illustrate particular scholarly challenges with Lewis’s novel and its present reception. When I first read the novel, I carefully annotated the first several pages before finding myself sucked into the plot, staying up late to learn what happens next. Before reading it a second time, I studied several scholarly analyses of the novel, paying special attention to treatments of its emotional features. On my second attempt with The Monk, I succeeded in reading slowly and thoughtfully, but I came away with only the material to reiterate the arguments that scholars had already made. I found more analytical traction when approaching the novel through its marketing history, online reviews, and illustrations, which allowed me to return to the text with new possibilities for reading the feelings it portrays and evokes. On revisiting the scholarly criticism, I realized that the normative methods of writing about sensation academically produce readings of The Monk that can be profoundly uncomfortable, in which feminist critics claim that no one can sympathize with Lewis’s violated female characters or close readers luxuriate in his portrayals of lust and carnage. Daniel Gross, in his recent book Uncomfortable Situations, emphasizes how responsible considerations of mixed feelings necessitate attention to the broader context, not to individual psychology or a single set of social norms.The mixed feelings to which he refers are the ones within sentimental literature, but his study informs my approach in this chapter. In the case of The Monk, the uncomfortable situation includes the way the novel, its publication history, and its critical history encourage conflicting affective responses and the way conventions of critique limit the acceptable practices for writing about this multiplicity of feelings. For example, in a five-star review on Goodreads, one amateur critic writes, “[T]his book turned out to have EVERYTHING that made a novel awesome : romance, poetry, murder, death, kidnapping, evil schemes, satire, social commentary, rape, incest, ghost, demons, poison, secret underground entrances, a devil that throw a guy off a cliff, and FUCKING great PLOT TWISTS!”Amateur critics have the freedom to express appreciation for The Monk’s most sensational qualities—like its “awesome” kidnapping and rape—without excusing them. This presents a notable contrast to scholars, who may have no way of writing comfortably about the novel’s excess except by claiming that it exists in service of something more literary. Rita Felski describes the emotionally inflected procedures of scholarship thus: “Academic cultures are governed by distinctive protocols and behaviors, including a stance that we might call professional suspicion. That is to say, a detached, dispassionate, and skeptical demeanor that has become a defining stance in modern purveyors of knowledge.”This prevailing “critical mood” that Felski identifies is an attitude that orients scholars toward texts in certain ways that I will explore later in the chapter in order to demonstrate how both suspicion and absorption can operate uncomfortably on scholars who write about sensation in The Monk. In order to explain the particularities of the novel’s vexed reception, I will begin by discussing The Monk’s production history,blueberry packing boxes emphasizing the ways it encourages two very different kinds of readings and leads to a moment where these two approaches intersect with notable awkwardness. Shifting focus to reception, I will analyze patterns in the affective responses of amateur and professional critics, considering especially how amateurs’ candor about the novel’s sensationalism contrasts with scholars’ uneasiness.

After elucidating these responses, I will explore an alternate route to discussing feeling in the novel via a comparison of its illustrations. By this detour, I will finally arrive at the text itself and demonstrate the kind of close reading that had been foreclosed to me when I had tried to read The Monk first like a lay reader and then in the dominant scholarly mode. What I hope to offer is one way in which scholars could open up more options for writing about sensational novels and resisting critical trends that no longer fit in this disciplinary moment.The paratexts of the first edition of The Monk reveal how it was positioned early on as a respectable and even sentimental novel. Literary theorist Gérard Genette defines the paratext as the accompaniments to a text that make it a book. The paratext includes elements that surround and situate the text, like its title, which he calls the peritext, and elements beyond the text, like advertisements, which he calls the epitext. Together, the paratextual elements work as spaces of entrance into the text where the author or publisher tries to influence a reader’s interpretation. These elements carry their own messages and have become objects of study for literary scholars.The first edition of The Monk, published by Joseph Bell, includes several signifiers of sophistication, like a “Table of the Poetry” that lists the page numbers of Lewis’s interpolated poems. Even before encountering the poems listed inside the book, a potential reader might have seen an advertisement printed in one of London’s daily newspapers on the day of the book’s publication highlighting its refined qualities over its sensational ones. The names of the included poems take up most of the advertisement and appear in capital letters, whereas its fantastical conventions appear in regular title caps near the bottom.Even more tellingly, the advertisement prefaces the list of poems with “THE MONK, a ROMANCE, interspersed with the following Pieces of Poetry.” Though the novel’s title in the first edition is simply The Monk: A Romance, the advertisement elides the title with a description of its contents in a way that establishes a connection between the novel and the work of Ann Radcliffe. Radcliffe’s successful 1791 novel was titled The Romance of the Forest, Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry, and the full title of her most popular novel was The Mysteries of Udolpho: A Romance; Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry. As I found no earlier novels with similar titles, I assume that Lewis’s publisher Bell used these words in the advertisement to suggest that the novel is Radcliffean, particularly in the sense of being highly literary for a supernatural romance. It is even possible that inattentive readers could have mistaken the work for one of Radcliffe’s own, since the first edition includes only Lewis’s initials, buried at the end of the preface. The characterization of the novel as one of Radcliffean sophistication may have shaped readers’ focus to some extent, as many early critics praise the poetry, and Sir Walter Scott remembers The Monk’s most appealing literary innovation as its verse, which “captivated” readers.Bell’s subtle alignment of The Monk with Ann Radcliffe’s sentimental gothic novels would soon be overpowered by critical outrage when his October 1796 second edition revealed Matthew Lewis as the author and a member of Parliament.Michael Gamer observes that the reviews following the second edition did not liken it to Radcliffe’s “respectable” gothics but rather to erotic novels like Fanny Hill or German “shudder novels,” both of which supposedly presented dangers to public morality.Despite or more likely because of reviews like this, The Monk went through at least six official editions and many more unauthorized editions and abridged versions between 1796 and 1798 alone.In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there were numerous chapbooks, or bluebooks, that excerpted Lewis’s novel, usually in thirty-six to seventy-two pages and at affordable prices.One of these bluebooks, from around the time of Lewis’s death in 1818, exemplifies how some publishers chose to capitalize on the scandal of The Monk and underscore the novel’s sensationalism. Priced at sixpence , it includes the most appalling scenes from the novel. The frontispiece shows Ambrosio signing a contract with the devil in lurid colors, depicting the sordid ending of the book on the very first page.

The novel’s formula and melodrama are the traits that I see as essential to understanding what this novel can offer readers today: a better understanding of how readers learn to feel categorically according to the dictates of their cultural or critical values, and an option for learning to feel in accordance with other norms. In contrast to the critics above, who show only liminal interest in Wolfenbach, I found the novel profoundly affecting and absorbing, notwithstanding its shortcomings. Like many readers, I became aware of Wolfenbach through its inclusion in a list of “horrid” novels that Jane Austen mentions in her gothic parody Northanger Abbey . Curious about what constitutes a “horrid” novel, I set out to read all seven of the ones that Austen names. Though most of them engaged me, it was Wolfenbach that I found most compelling. Many other professional and nonprofessional readers have taken on the challenge of reading Austen’s horrid book recommendations, and they seem often to begin with Wolfenbach, since it is the first listed and first published of the seven . As I read all the assessments of Wolfenbach I could find, I knew not to expect rapturous praise of the novel from professional critics,wholesale grow bags but I was surprised that few amateur critics showed the kind of engagement that I experienced.

I scanned hundreds of online mentions of Wolfenbach and noticed frequent discussion of the novel’s sanctimoniousness, overuse of conventions, and lack of detail on literature blogs and review sites. The blog Simpler Pastimes articulates all three of these popular concerns, objecting to “the moralizing , became part of a conscious attempt to develop readers’ empathy and thereby encourage benevolent actions.However, critics continued to fear that the wrong kind of novels could corrupt vulnerable readers. As more and more novels were published, periodical reviewers took seriously their role of supervising what fiction taught, castigating immoral portrayals and cautiously praising moral ones. Joseph Bartolomeo observes, “Even novels that promised laudable instruction received careful scrutiny as reviewers searched for moral integrity.”For example, some critics took sentimental novels to task for promoting excessive feeling over good conduct. In 1793, the year Wolfenbach was published, a critic in the influential periodical the Monthly Review wrote of “most novel writers, except those of the very first class”: “They teach us to consider every failure of our wishes as an insupportable misfortune, instead of convincing us that misfortunes are often the creatures of our own fancy; in short, to weep and wail is the morality that such writers teach!”Though this critic was not reviewing Wolfenbach, these complaints could be applied to that work, despite the fact that Parsons herself raises concerns about self-absorption. As a writer of stories of misery who was not considered to be “of the very first class,” she was easily folded into broader critiques of the growing number of emotional novels of middling quality and questionable moral and emotional character.

Eighteenth-century literary critics valued not only fine writing and feeling but also uniqueness, a quality that they emphasized often as the growth in the print market produced an incipient mass culture.In the 1790s, the sheer number of gothic novels being written, published, and borrowed or bought by enthusiastic readers made critics especially skeptical about whether any of them were worthwhile. To be judged positively, a gothic novel needed to distinguish itself from many others of its kind, and Ann Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho was one of few to do so. A periodical critic thought to be Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in defending his previous review of Udolpho from accusations that it denigrated the work, writes that he would in fact call it “[t]he most interesting novel in the English language.”This high praise was not at all typical of reviews of gothic novels. Bartolomeo notes that more often, periodical reviewers judged gothic novels deficient because they lacked innovation. Yet, originality in gothic fiction was an ever-shifting standard that even Radcliffe could not always meet, and it was a quality that could easily become the subject of accusations that inventive gothic novels employed “excess for the sake of novelty and for the sake of pleasing a bloodthirsty readership.”At the time of the publication of The Castle of Wolfenbach, the two journals that reviewed the novel alluded to the villainous extremes it contains, but its scenes of bloody violence did not provoke accusations of “excess for the sake of novelty,” as was the case with Matthew Lewis’s later novel, The Monk, which I will discuss in the following chapter. Though its reviewers did not find Wolfenbach as “interesting” as Radcliffe’s exemplary work, they ranked it somewhere above many works of its type in its capacity to involve readers.

A reviewer in the conservative quarterly the British Critic writes that Wolfenbach is “more interesting than the general run of modern novels” and “abounds with interesting, though improbable situations.”The prominent Critical Review, quoted in the epigraph to this chapter, sums up the novel in 1794 by claiming it “has . . . sufficient interest to be read with pleasure.”Wolfenbach, shortly after its publication, was “interesting” in the sense that the mysteries and adventures of its characters kept readers’ curiosity engaged, but its interest would soon be overshadowed by its affiliation with other works of its type. Parsons’s literary talent merited some amount of distinction from contemporary critics, but her writing was tainted by association with her publisher, Minerva Press. In a very brief review of Parsons’s Woman as She Should Be, a novel she published the same year as Wolfenbach, the Critical Review calls her “a writer of no inferior talents,” but ends the review with the tentative statement, “Upon the whole, we consider this lady’s labours less deserving the severity of critical remark than the general run of publications from the press of Mr. Lane.”In the 1790s, the decade Wolfenbach was published, William Lane’s Minerva Press produced approximately a third of new novels in London,15 many of which were sentimental, gothic, or, like Wolfenbach, both. These novels were widely distributed and read through Lane’s numerous circulating libraries, and the fact that many of their authors were anonymous or pseudonymous did not hinder their popularity, as the Minerva name itself promised similar style and quality that appealed to many readers—what E. J. Clery calls a “unified corporate style.”This brand did not appeal to everyone, however. A 1796 assessment of a Minerva novel in the Critical Review reads, “Since Mrs. Radcliffe’s justly admired and successful romances, the press has teemed with stories of haunted castles and visionary terrors; the incidents of which are so little diversified, that criticism is at a loss to vary its remarks.”This kind of apprehension about the mass production of formulaic gothic novels that Minerva enabled and the threat it presented to the powers of discrimination was coupled in some periodicals with a reignited moral panic over women’s reading. Though Minerva presented its novels as morally edifying and published many Radcliffean works, critics accused the press of spreading corruption with sensationalism and sensuality.18 For example, a 1797 letter in Gentleman’s Magazine argues that young women who read novels from circulating libraries have their imaginations “debauched by licentious description, and lascivious images.”Numerous critic combated the aesthetic and moral menace of popular fiction like Minerva’s with contempt and mockery. By the early nineteenth century, Dorothy Blakey writes, critics were using “Minerva” as a synonym for cheap, poorly written, melodramatic, and formulaic.According to James Watt, these criticisms of Minerva and other similar publishers “were always motivated by much larger concerns about the regulation of cultural production and the disciplining of readers—especially women and the lower classes,” and yet these early objections and “recipe satires” of gothic formula have persisted in scholarly discourse as grounds for dismissing the vast majority of popular gothic novels.

For example, Diane Long Hoeveler in her introduction to the Valancourt edition of Wolfenbach summarizes Parsons’s work as “writing to the gothic formula that had been established already: part sentimental virtue in distress, part novel of manners,grow bags for gardening part melodramatic confrontation between good and evil.”Elizabeth Neiman adds nuance to these sorts of assessments of formulaic fiction by demonstrating Minerva novelists’ communal contributions to Romantic-era ideas of authorship”.Even so, what Blakey wrote in 1935 is equally true today: “Few authors whose reputation has endured until to-day have owned a connexion with the Minerva Press.”Minerva Press and its lingering bad reputation may have influenced the fact that The Castle of Wolfenbach has rarely been treated as worthwhile by professional critics in any era, but an even more powerful contributor to the perception of Wolfenbach has been its status as one of the seven Northanger “horrid” novels, six of which were published by Minerva Press. We can assume that Jane Austen’s parodic Northanger Abbey, begun in 1798 amid the explosion in gothic novels but not published until 1818, deserves most of the credit for the fact that Wolfenbach is in print today, and the fact that readers today tend to express a mixture of disdain and delight when they choose to read it. In Austen’s novel, young Isabella Thorpe passes along book recommendations from her friend Miss Andrews to Catherine Morland, a fellow Radcliffe enthusiast. Isabella lists seven novels “of the same kind” as Radcliffe’s: The Castle of Wolfenbach ; Clermont ; The Mysterious Warning ; The Necromancer ; The Midnight Bell ; The Orphan of the Rhine ; and Horrid Mysteries . Before accepting these recommendations, Catherine demands assurance that these novels are “all horrid.”Several scholars have speculated about why Austen chose these particular novels for her list of horrid works. Bette Roberts suggests that “she regards them in all likelihood as typical of the very worst of the genre.”Natalie Neill characterizes them as “popular and fashionable, yet also shallow, manipulative, mercenary, emotive, and prone to exaggeration.”These scholars and others argue that Austen parodies the Horrid Novels in order to elevate Radcliffe’s better productions and as well as her own realistic work. Many scholars have complicated the popular reading of Northanger as a simple antigothic satire, but the narrator’s mocking tone speaks volumes in the ironic introduction to this scene as one that will demonstrate the young women’s “delicacy, discretion, originality of thought, and literary taste.”Austen finds humor in the contrast between the “sweet” manners of the list maker, Miss Andrews, and her insatiable craving for formulaic, bloody gothic stories. The scene presents these novels as Radcliffe knockoffs and fun, frivolous reading, not novels worthy of serious attention. In explaining Northanger’s usage of the term horrid, Claudia Johnson points out that “horror is a de rigueur affect of gothic fiction” and that Austen employs the term in various contexts to suggest that it is overused.Additionally, the young women’s indiscriminate application of the word and its variants throughout the novel illustrates the ambivalence of this descriptor. Horror, as a feeling, is different from horrid, which is more often a judgment of quality. Though Isabella and Catherine here use it as a positive term that suggests these novels will pleasantly horrify, just after this Isabella uses horrid to mean unreadable when discussing Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison. The word easily slips between referring to sensational content and signifying poor writing, making it ideal for labeling certain gothic novels as thrilling works with no merit and no individuality. It makes sense that several scholars have preferred the term “Northanger Horrid Novels” to simply “Northanger Novels” or “Northanger Canon” when alluding to the seven works, which have become representatives of bad gothic writing. In this way, many scholarly mentions of these books come packaged in condescension. Wolfenbach’s publication history through the twentieth century tended to reinforce the message that it is low-quality genre fiction, even when the novel shared space in a volume with more highly regarded works. Minerva, with its reputation for cheapness, printed the first edition of Wolfenbach in 1793 and the second in 1794.In 1824 it was reprinted with the title Castle of Wolfenbach; or the Horrid Machinations of Count Berniti as one of Fisher’s Editions, which Montague Summers describes as “dumpy little books,” inexpensive engraved editions of gothic favorites.An 1835 edition by J. Pattie was first published weekly as one of Pattie’s Pocket Library of Popular Novels and Romances, at a penny for each sixteen-page packet.In 1839 it was included in volume 1 of The Romancist, and Novelist’s Library: The Best Works of the Best Authors alongside more reputable works, like The Man of Feeling and Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, but in a cheap edition.