Hagberg Test Helped Place More Wheat

Press, Volume C, Issue 29488, 14 April 1961, Page 18

Hagberg Test Helped Place More Wheat

THOUGH he recognised that it was disappointing for farmers who had had their lines of wheat turned down for milling, the Director of the Wheat Research Institute, Mr E. W. Hullett, told farmers at the farm conference at Waimate this week that use of the Hagberg test for sprouting in wheat had enabled millers to take very much more New Zealand wheat this season than would otherwise have been possible. Had millers not had information about each line of wheat offered they would have tended to, err on the safe side. In faet, said Mr Hullett, he felt that in their advice to millers they had gone almost a bit too far. “We are knocking on the door of trouble in the bakeries.” This year, he said, it had not been possible to repeat Hagberg tests and secure similar results so well as in the previous two years—the tests were not so reproducable—but they were still considered very satisfactory. Mr Hullett said that where a mill had tested 300 samples taken from sacks in the mill there were only two serious differences between their results and those furnished by the institute when merchants’ samples were tested: One mill had bought a large line of wheat in the belief that it had a Hagberg test of 27 when in fact it proved to be 30, but mills would have been a great deal worse off if they had had to guess themselves, he said. In Canterbury millers had taken quite a lot of wheat with tests of 28 and 28| but further south millers had not had to go up very high to secure their requirements, he said. Many Tests More than 12,000 samples had been tested this year by the institute and no-one would believe him if he claimed that his staff had not made some mistakes, but mistakes had also been made be other people such as interchanging of samples. Mr W. G. Sutton, president of the Waimate branch of Federated Farmers, said that they had heard from Mr Hullett of his troubles in keep- . ing the bakers satisfied, but wheat growers were producing a product to the best of their ability and then were ' finding that their customers were refusing to take it. Many of the farmers’ requirements were on the list of prohibited imports and . they had to take inferior . locally made products. They were inclined to think that the miller and baker should be in the same position. Mr Sutton said that in surmounting the tests that were being applied to wheats, farmers were having to overcome a hurdle as difficult as the troubles of bakers and millers. Mr Hullett said that there was no sense in a miller taking wheat and making a flour that the baker would not use. He would simply go out of business. The situation that had risen this year with sprouting was a seasonal risk of the type that was not unknown to farmers. Up till recently, Mr Hul-

lett said, difficulties in the wheat industry locally had been covered up because large quantities of wheat were being imported. Mr Hullett said he doubted whether the wheat turned down this year was more than what was really surplus to requirements of millers. It appeared as though more than enough wheat had been produced for South Island needs this season so millers would not have taken it all in any case. For quite a long time now it had been a growers’ market and it was unfortunate that when this position was changing sprouting should have arisen.

Poultry keepers were also now not prepared to take any sort of wheat, but Mr Hullett told a- questioner that it was his belief that a high Hagberg test had no

bearing on the suitability of a wheat for poultry. While there had been some opinion that sprouted wheat had been responsible for X disease in poultry, he, and he thought .the Department of Agriculture shared his view, that the evidence of this was shaky. It might well have been caused by wet wheat which had heated up. A mild level of sprouting as shown by even a fairly high level of Hagberg was no disadvantage, he thought. While a loss of vitamin E had been attributed to sprouted wheat, there was no scientific evidence of this in mild sprouting. Mr Hullett said that the institute would be preparing whatever test would be needed for next season’s wheat, but it would like a quick baking test that would cover all eventualities.