SEED-TESTING STATION

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24983, 18 September 1946, Page 6

SEED-TESTING STATION

INSPECTION OF SITE AT RICCARTON FORMER DEHYDRATION FACTORY “Something like 90 per cent, of the seeds that require to be tested are grown in the South Island. At present they all have to be sent to Palmerston North and then sent back to the South Island. At one time there might have been difficulties in the way of providing buildings for a seed-test-ing station where it is needed —in the South Island—but that certainly is not true now. The buildings are available here and they are not being used. To me, and I think to any person of ordinary common sense, the answer is so obvious as to make it seem absurd to have to argue the case.” In these words Mr T. H. Langford, public relations officer of the Christchurch City Council, summed up the case yesterday for the establishment of a seed-testing station in the premises of the Internal Marketing Division’s dehydration factory at Riccarton. By courtesy of officers of the department Mr Langford and a reporter of “The Press” inspected the huge, well-ap-pointed buildings, which, with their expensive and modern equipment, are now being put to only a small fraction of the use for which they were designed during the war. Up to the end of last year a staff of 300, working in three shifts, was engaged continuously in the output of dehydrated vegetables for New Zealand and Allied forces overseas. The factory was built for .war purposes, and it is. conceded generally that it fulfilled its function well. Since the end of last year the factory has been used for a variety of purposes, all of which have had considerable value in the difficult post-war economy of the Dominion. Present Uses Limited The buildings provided valuable produce storage at a time when storage was desperately difficult to obtain. More recently the buildings and equipment have been used for the reconditioning of grain and peas, which, because of too high a moisture content, could not have been safely stored, and for seed •cleaning. The reconditioning work, for which the drying equipment of the dehydration plant Was readily adaptable, has saved the farmers of Canterbury, it is stated, many thousands of pounds.

Now the staff of the factory and store numbers about 40, the greater part of the big building area is unused, and the splendidly-equipped cafeteria and staff rooms are used but little. Apart from the use of the buildings as a store and assembling and packing depot, the only prospective use of the dehydration facilities appears to be the production of stock-food constituents from low-grade potatoes and other vegetables. This may prove a valuable and economic use of the plant, and costing investigations are now being carried out, but even if it is successful beyond the most optimistic expectations.it appears certain that it can utilise onlv a small part of the facilities available at Riccarton. Making Use of Facilities It is with the idea of ensuring that the remainder of those facilities are put to good use. and in a way that will remove some of the disabilities under which the producers of seeds in the South Island are labouring, that Mr Langford is taking steps to interest South Island members of Parliament in the proposal to establish a seedtesting station there. Already seed-testing is being carried out at Riccarton in a small way in connexion with the grain reconditioning work. All those who have inspected the Riccarton buildings, said Mr Langford, have been impressed with the obvious ease with which they could be converted—and extended if necessary—to deal with the entire seed-testing requirements of the South Island or of the whole of New Zealand. In addition to the huge storage rooms, which could readily be partitioned if necessary, there are four lone locker rooms, each more than 50ft long by 20ft wide, and a laboratory. with the establishment of a seedtesting station at Riccarton there would be need for some working arrangement between the Department of Agriculture and the Internal MarketDivision regarding the division of the available buildings and the use of the equipment, some of which would be valuable to both organisations. “It should be an ideal arrangement, and one that will ensure the most economic use being made of the facilities available” concluded Mr Langford. ■Certainly it would be depressing to be told that two Government departments could not achieve co-operation to that extent.”