WHEAT RESEARCH

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 49, Issue 67, 29 December 1928, Page 7

WHEAT RESEARCH

WORK OF THE INSTITUTE. PROGRAMME FOR NEXT YEAR

(Special to the “Guardian.”) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. At a meeting of the Wheat Research Institute Committee the director presented a programme of the work it is proposed to undertake during the ensuing year. The programme as approved embraces the following lines of activity:— 1. Variety Trials and Certification of Seed Wheat. —These are being carried out by the Department of Agriculture in co-operatiqp with the institute, it is proposed to carry on and, if possible, extend this work, and to maintain or produce pure lines of seed in conjunction with Lincoln College. This work will ensure wheat-growers being able to secure seed wheat of definitely known varieties.

2. Wheat Breeding.—lt is proposed to continue the breeding now being done at Lincoln by further cross-fer-tilisation of New Zealand and foreign wheats, with the object of producing a wheat as suitable to the country as Tuscan, but with improved milling quality. About 1260 trials in various stages, necessitating the separate harvesting and threshing of over 3000 plots, are in hand this year. An attempt will also be made to analyse what effect each factor in the growth of wheat has on its final yield, so as to be able to make selections with more certainty. The analysis will be made by the method of partial correlations, which, although involving the use of somewhat advanced mathematics, gives very helpful results. This is a fundamental investigation in wheat breeding, and is likely to lead to much more satisfactory results than the hit-or-miss method usually employed. 3. Meteorological Investigations As time is available, an attempt will be made to forecast yield from weather. Thirty years of wheat yields and of weather records, including rainfall, evaporation, wind and temperature readings are available at Lincoln. 4. Standardisation • of the Experimental Mill.—The laboratory mill will have its product standardised by milling with it the same blends of wheats as are being used in certain commercial mills and comparing the resultant flour as to quantityi and quality. This will be followed by baking tests to ascertain the quality of the loaf produced. This is preliminary work necessary to measure the reliability of the results obtained from the laboratory mill when its actual testing commences.

5. Wheat Survey.—As soon as harvest commences, it is intended to begin analyses of the gluten content of a large number of wheats from all districts. The survey will last from January to May as threshing progresses from north to south. A very complete apparatus is being installed so that hundreds of samples may bo analysed in a week, and rt is hoped'that sufficient wheats will be tested to give a good idea of the gluten content of the wheat for the year in each locality and in eaoh variety. Millers may thus be given some guidance in distributing their purchases and afterwards in' choosing their blends so as to maintain an even product all the year round. If this plan is successful 1 , it may be of considerable assistance to bakers and of advantage to consumers. At harvest, also, some two or three hundred samples of carefully selected wheats will bo obtained from different districts. These samples will embrace a range of different varieties, wheats which have been subjected to different treatments in cultivation, manuring and harvesting. Such matters as the appropriate degree of ripeness for cutting, stook or stack threshing will be investigated. Wheat from, tliees samples will be milled during the year and loaves baked from the resultant flour, the general method being to add to a standard flour, say, 20 per cent, of tho flour under test, so as to see its effect in the mixture. It is hoped thus to prove clearly the value of each wheat variety, locality and treatment, and, further, to test the value of the gluten analysis mentioned. 6. The problems specially connected with the baking industry have not yet been decided, but will be discussed and determined at the conference of the New Zealand Master Bakers’ Association, to be held in January, 1929.