WHEAT RESEARCH.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20729, 14 December 1932, Page 6

WHEAT RESEARCH.

EXPERIMENTS AT LINCOLN COLLEGE. PROGRESS DURING WINTER. The spirit of co-operation between I tho Canterbury Agricultural College, ! tho Wheat Research Institute, and the Pure Seed Station is commented on in tho report *on the research work conducted at Lincoln College during the six months ended September 30th last, which was presented at yesterday's meeting of the College Board. 1 The report describes the work carried out as follows: "Tho seed from last harvest was all pure enougli to sell under the pure seed certification scheme, but in tho endeavour to reduce loose smut in Tuscan throughout tho country, all Tuscan that was more than twice removed, from hot water treatment was withheld from tho seed trade, and only smut free s,eed was sold. College Hunters is, of course, immune from this disease. All seed of both varieties was dressed on tho College machines and pickled with copper carbonate, and round a. ready sale, especially in South Canterbury. "About 100 acres have been sown for the coming harvest, all this being from hand rogued seed, so that we may con r tinue to supply pure seed to farmers and merchants. "The crossbred Tuscan by White Fife made by the College eight vears ago and handed over to the Wheat Research Institute, has again proved about equal to Tuscan in yield. At the College it failed to maintain its superority to Tuscan in milling and baking quality, but in three other localities it pave satisfactory evidence of an improved quality. Five of the families of this cross have been sown in some dozen districts of Canterbury for renewed trial during the coming harvest. Canadian Crosses. "Tho fiold lent to tho Wheat Research Institute has been sown with aoout 13,400 plots, chiefly of cross breeds between New Zealand and Canadian varieties. Most of these direct crosses have inherited the low yield of the Canadian parents to a disappointing extent and so a programme of back crossing the hybrids with the New Zealand parent has been started. Of the later crosses made by the College and handed on to the W 7 heat Research. Institute one, Tuscan by a Marquis hybrid, is showing some promise, and 160 lines of the fifth generation of this cross havo been sown in a yield trial "The collection of about 2000 wheats from all parts of the world is being carried on for instructional purposes "In one of tho College fields seed supplied by the Pure Seed Station has been sown, for the purpose of providing seed, all grown and harvested uiider the same conditions, to use next year in all the variety trials to be laid down by the Department of Agriculture "The Wheat Research. Institute originates new varieties; the Pure, Seed Station maintains their purity until they reach a commercial quantity and the College grows the seed on a'commercial scale a"nd maintains its purity for distribution to farmers. The organisation by which the three institutions all work on one farm, and draw on the College for extra land, labour and equipment makes for a quite exceptional degree of efficiency, and all the, bodies are working together in the spirit of complete co-operation." EGG EXPORT INDUSTRY. AN OPTIMISTIC OPINION. Some of the critics '.of the wheat duties make a great song about what could bo done in New Zealand in the way of an egg export industry if wheat were allowed in free of duty, says "Tuscan" in the November issue of the "Wkeatgrower." One correspondent in an Auckland paper stated that while wheat in the world's market was costing Is Cd a bushel fowl wheat in New Zealand was costing throe or four times as much. "If we had free wheat we could develop an egg and poultry export industry worth £4,000,000 annually," this correspondent declared in a burst of enthusiasm. The figures of tho export of eggs for tho season from the whole of Australia have just been published, and the total was 11 million dozen eggs, or three million more than the preceding year. The most that these eggs could possibly net would be 9d a dozen, so that the total return would be slightly over £400,000. Yet New Zeat land, iifter paying freight on wheat across the Tasman, could export ten times as much as Australial It is remarkable how this sort of nonsense is absorbed by anti-wheat protectionist*.