THE WEEK

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24547, 21 April 1945, Page 3

THE WEEK

HIGH PRELIMINARY ' WHEAT YIELD The first wheat threshing returns for the 1944-45 season, representing the returns in the hands of the Government statistician for the months of January and February, give an idea of what the average yield would have been this season had it not been for the storms and floods that caused damage in many of the later harvested acreage. The statistician states that the high average yields so far recorded cannot be taken as indicative. of the general results of the season, because of the small areas covered. The returns received up to March 15, representing the first two months, are 13.497 acres, which returned 566,721 bushels, or an average of 40.63 bushels an acre. This record preliminary return of 40.63 bushels exceeds the average preliminary return by approximately six bushels an acre, and confirms the preharvest forecast of a record return this year. It is substantially the highest on record. Most of it doubtless represents ’ight land crops, which were harvested and got away before the floods, and as a good deal of this quality of land had to be brought into production because of the cropoed-out condition of the heavier lands, there is reason to believe that high yields will continue in the next few returns. Heavy yields will also be experienced from lands that escaped the bad weather and the floods; but as against this there must be a substantial set-off for crops that were completely destroyed and others that were seriously damaged. Estimates of such areas are generally excessive, and have rarely coloured the final average of the season's vield by more than a bushel an acre. The urgent need for wheat has caused some of these unpayable areas to be harvested, which will reduce the average more than usual. It is certain that had the season remained a normal one throughout the harvest the forecasts of a record yield would have been realised. The record average yield was in 1903, when 194,355 acres returned 38.37 bushels an acre. SOUTHERN POTATO CROP A North Canterbury farmer, who has just returned from a visit to South Canterbury, where he devoted some time to an inspection of the potato crops, and to discussing with farmers the incidence of blight and the extent of the flood damage, said ill a talk with "Straggler” yesterday that he had found little agreement with the official declaration that blight and flood damage in South Canterbury would be from 40 to 50 per cent. The general opinion, supported by the visitor’s own observations, was that the loss would be much greater. In some places there was a complete loss, and in the southern end of the district the opinion was that the loss would be quite 70 per cent. However, the acreage was much larger than usual, which to a considerable extent would compensate for the heavy losses, and many growers were of the opinion that there would be sufficient potatoes for home consumption if waste were eliminated. They thought consumers should be warned of the position in this respect without delay. It was bad policy to allow them to use potatoes wastefully in the belief that there would be plenty available later on. One of the virtues of high prices was that there was less waste. The supply of seed potatoes was causing anxiety in some quarters where blight had been general, but the experience of some growers indicates that these fears may be unwarranted. One grower whose crop was unaffected by the floods but was touched with blight, and the growing period shortened thereby, lifted his potatoes and secured only one ton an acre of table potatoes but four tons of seed size, the latter with very little sign of blight damage. A heavy seed crop is naturally secured at the expense of the table proportion, and anything like a general condition such as quoted might mean the diversion of seed to table. Without this factor the belief is general that there will be no shortage of seed. . „ The visitor in his investigations gained the idea that the wheat outlook had deteriorated. At the beginning of December there appeared to be a fair prospect of a substantial increase in the area intended to be sown; but the wet month and a later harvest, followed by the floods, had completely altered the position. On top of these disabilities doubts had arisen about the labour supply. The combination of these circumstances is tending to divert farmers from wheat growing. Growers spoken to by the visitor appeared anxious to sow the maximum acreage possible, but not under the present price and the increasing difficulties of labour. There was plenty of opinion that if the price was fixed at 7s Id a bushel, irrespective of the area sown, and an immediate pronouncement made in this direction, the position would be vastly improved. With the Relayed harvest, there is little time left for the preparation of land for autumn sowing. Wheat can be sown safely in much of South Canterbury as late as the end of July, but a prompt announcement as to price and the withholding of tractor drivers and other skilled farm hands from going into camp until August is necessary if this is to be done. CHOU MOELLIER Though chou moellier has been grown for a number of years in the South Island, it has not yet attained an importance sufficient to suggest its separate inclusion in - the statistical acreage of crops. In the returns it is included with Hale. The acreage of kale'has declined—in Canterbury at all events—in the last decade, and it may be presumed that chou moellier has taken its place to an extent that has made the acreage under the joint headings a substantial one. In the last statistical details available—l 943 the area for the Dominion was 64,427 acres. Canterbury was substantially the largest grower, its total being 21 475 acres. Hawke’s Bay Province with 11,526 acres and Wellington with 11,486 acres followed, and Southland was a close fourth in the provincial lists with 10,258 acres. The whole of the Auckland Province accounted for only 1930 acres of the two crops. Chou moellier is mainly a dairy cow feed, and it is worth noting as indicative of the cost of milk production in Canterbury compared with that of Auckland, that Auckland, with 16 times as many dairy cows -as Canterbury, should grow no more than a tenth of the Canterbury area of this valuable crop. These figures were to January, 1943, but it is undoubted that there has been a big increase in the acreage of chou moellier since then in Canterbury and Southland. Land which was entirely given over to turnips and other winter crops is now growing chou moellier. Numerous farms on the dairying country in Eastern Southland are now growing a few acres of the plant It is a less exacting crop than mangolds, not so uncertain as to results, requires less preparatory tillage, aftd generally is one of the most useful stock feeds that can be grown on a mixed farm. The numerous patches of exceptionally heavy crops in the dairying districts surrounding Christchurch indicate that its popularity is “Spreading in this province. The preliminary threshing returns for the months of January and February cover only a very small proportion of the oats acreage, and the figures are released not as an indication of the probable results, but only as information. The 3069 acres threshed yielded 129,804 acres, the average an acre being 35.97 bushels. This is far below the first return average in the normal season, probably the result of the delay in the southern harvesting.