THE NEW HARVESTING METHODS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19854, 15 February 1930, Page 10

THE NEW HARVESTING METHODS.

POSSIBILITIES IN CANTERBURY. REDUCTION OF PRODUCTION COSTS.

(Contributed, i

It would seem that we are on the pve of big changes in harvesting methods. To those of us who can go back 3 few decades ■ the ©volution in harvesting machinery has been remarkable. The old wire binder was received with suspicion when it came to New Zealand, and its improvement, the twine machine, with , only a degree less. The tractor had to pass through a similar stage of '' passivo resistance.'' Now comes perhaps the most revolutionary of all the modern labour-saving machines. Few of us would accept the fact that wheat in New Zealand could be harvested as it has been for years in Australia, and more recently in Canada and America. "The header-harvester or the harvester-thresher,'' we said, as we buried our heads in the sand, "would not do in this climate." For the last two years one or more of the former type of machine has been operating and successfully. But the seasons were exceptionally favourable, and our prejudice against the new ideai answered "wait till w<3 have had a wet season." We have had it—more rain this January than for years—and the new machines have come through with every promise made on their behalf fulfilled.

With perhaps an element of that conservatism remaining in his make-up the writer would not like to say how the new idea would behave in heavy, or tangled crops, but 90 . per cent, of our crops are not tangled, and 75 per cent. . are not particularly heavy, as we know heavy crops in New Zealand. What the tractor would fail to do on a sidling or steep face formed in its early days the text of much criticism, but such an environment does not. concern much more than a tenth of cropping country. . Th e foregoing is a very plain impression made on the writer in a close-up observation last week of the various new machines at work. Tho crops averaged up to 50 bushels to the acre. This weight embraces the big percentage of our wheat lands. What the machines could do with the few heavier than that does not require discussing at the moment.

The Moisture in Wheat. An aspect that has been productive of more doubt is the capacity of the header-harvester to turn out a sample sufficiently free of excess moisture to make it fit for milking. Expert tests have shown that this problem is not a difficult, or even a serious one. Most of our stack threshed gram averages at the mill mouth from 15 to 15$ per cent, of moisture and stack-threshed from 16 to 17 per cent, and frequently more. The tests a en with the new machines have s own as favourable. a moisture content as stack-threshed wheat from most of our average land. It has be<m maimed m order to secure such a result that the crop had to be left dangercuttfnJ°p g 6r . npe and rea<J y for thn y m the case of some of a w>7i r , rled varieti es this danger is larlv the experience, particunnt o , season > has shown that it is non Rifnir l ble with Tuscan, the knowS » ln # \ u . alities of which are weilpresentJ Ik vari ety, moreover, reBoHi iu of t^le wheat crop, to? ® achines —the harvester-thresher—pro-a S9°d hard sample in the instances. that came under notice. in™ a crop is ready for harvestnew method is a matter nat the farmer- himself has to decide. r o ,i , lte guide can be laid down. Undue hurry is sure to cause a bad sample and consequent rejection. Such an experience will make him more careful in future. If the moisture content Jm only a diegre* too high, he can con-

dition his wheat in the bag. Fortunately he now has a moisture testing service provided by the Wheat Research Institute to help him in this matter. If the new processes justify the claims made for them, the bugbear of the cost of production should be definitely influenced. Careful estimates made by those who have used the machines put the saving down at up to 9d a bushel. This saving would bring down production costs to near the level of those ruling in Australia, and so remove the danger of free exportation that will continue to exist whilst tana* matters are made the plaything of political expediency.