THE WEEK

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27664, 21 May 1955, Page 5

THE WEEK

ARAWA WHEAT About 300 acres of the new wheat, Arawa, produced by the Wheat Research Institute as a replacement for Dreadnought, will be grown by farmers this year. Last year there were 19 crops of the new wheat, and of the 19 growers, 18 want to grow it again. Arawa yields about two bushels to the acre below Dreadnought, and does not give quite the grazing that Dreadnought will give, though it stands grazing well, but it has a number of advantages over Dreadnought. It matures about three weeks earlier, and, as it has a short straw and does not lodge or shake, it is a very good heading wheat. It will remove the need for windrowing, which is an expensive and usually messy proceeding needed with Dreadnought. The Arawa to be grown this coming season will not be available for general distribution. It is what the Wheat Research Committee scientists know as an impure line, in one cross, xmxmcszxon ox xne yanecr five years. HIGH COUNTRY RESEARCH “We know on the low country that if we do a certain job in a certain way we will get a certain result, and we know how to get high producing permanent pasture on to second-class browntop foothill country, but in the high country research is lagging very far behind." said Mr J. S. Hunt, of Wanaka, president of the Lincoln Farmers* Conference, in opening the conference at the college this -week. Low country research had reached a stage where It was beginning to show a diminishing return, he said, but high country research had just started. About 30 per cent of the occupied land of New Zealand was high country, most of it in the South Island, but so far all that had been done was to try to control grazing on tussock grassland. The income from the high country was about £9,000,000 a year. “It is being found that the returns from aerial topdressing of the high country are not always just what they might be,” he said. “It has been suggested that all land above about 2500 feet should be unstocked. That to me sounds a very defeatist suggestion. If this country is abandoned, we will have to abandon all the tussock grassland. because the higher country has to carry the sheep in the summer to rest the country on the lower slopes which will be required to cany them for the winter.” INCREASING COSTS The drive for increased production to meet the increase to 3,000,000 in .the population of New Zealand in the next 20 years had generally been well carried out, said Mr J. S. Hunt, of Wanaka, president of the Lincoln Farmers- Conference, in opening the conference at the college this week. In the future a serious problem might arise through increasing costs. The costs of farming and the list of nondeductable items already left very little margin for those who had bought into farming recently. “Men who have gone into farming since 1948 or 1949 will need to watch with great care the rising costs ot their operations.’* he said. .

Messrs H. J. Hurford and SonsClover Nook Dora, which produced 7411 b of fat in 305 days, won the butterfat competition conducted by the Midland Canterbury Jersey Cattle Club. Second place was taken by D. H. Jones’s Rongamai Nola with 811 lb of fat, and Messrs Portis Bros*