LINCOLN POST

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30847, 4 September 1965, Page 18

LINCOLN POST

Plant Breeder From Wales

An increase in the edible yield of chou moellier will be the aim of one of the projects to be undertaken by Dr. L. E. Watts, a plant breeder who recently took up a position at the Crop Research Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at Lincoln. Dr. Watts was born in Wales, and completed a bachelor of science degree in agriculture at the University of Wales. While working at the National Vegetable Research Station, the only centre of its kind in the United Kingdom, he ' completed a doctor of science degree. His work at the research station was on lettuces, cauliflowers, beans, and radishes. He said yesterday that two varieties of lettuce which had been under trials for some time in the United Kingdom could be profitably grown in New Zealand after they had been released for commercial use in Britain.

Dr. Watts also did some work on the crossing of dwarf French beans with runner beans in an attempt to produce a dwarf runner bean variety. This had been quite successful, he said. Dr. Watts said that one of the reasons he and his wife decided to bring their three children to New Zealand to live was to give them the opportunity of growing up in more natural surroundings. In the United Kingdom, everything was becoming artificial even entertainment. “People do not go walking or climbing now,” he said. “They all go to entertainments like bowling alleys.”