Replacement For Arawa?

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31101, 2 July 1966, Page 8

Replacement For Arawa?

The cereal breeding section of the Crop Research Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at Lincoln has a line of wheat that looks as though it might be a replacement for Arawa wheat, which is disliked by millers and bakers. Mr L. G. Copp, senior cereal breeder, said this week that the line had, however, as yet been tested for only one year. In places where Arawa was grown—at Seadown, Fairview, Makikihi, Waimate, Waitaki and Tokarahi in North Otago —it had outyielded Aotea last harvest, but more tests were needed. The parents of the cross

were Aotea by Gabo by Aotea by Hilgendorf. It had good baking quality and good milling quality. One of the difficulties of replacing Arawa was that it was not possible to just cross Arawa with something else and select from the progeny. That had been done many times but somehow the poor milling quality of Arawa seemed to remain in the progeny. Thus it was probable that a replacement for Arawa would be provided by the release of a variety which did not have Arawa in its parentage. Arawa had a good characteristic that would probably be difficult to replace, said Mr Copp. That was the resistance of the mature plant to mildew. This characteristic was, of course, a definite advantage in the areas where Arawa was normally grown.

The millers, Mr Copp said, had to buy their wheat at a fixed price a bushel and also had to sell their flour at a fixed price, and in view of the fact that they obtained 4 per cent less flour a ton from milled Arawa than from Aotea or Hilgendorf their reluctance to buy too much Arawa was quite justified. At present, a certain amount of Arawa could always be grown for poultry feed, but there was a limit to the amount required for this purpose. Therefore it would be better for farmers, except those on low-lying poorlydrained areas where Arawa was satisfactory, to cut down their sowings of Arawa. Mr Copp said that normally a new line of wheat had to undergo five years of trials before it was released. They were not interested in releasing varieties that had not had a fair test However if a variety showed particular promise, production of nucleus seed, which took three or four years, would be started well beforehand, so that when the variety was released there was a sufficient quantity to enable commercial crops to be grown straight away. In the case of the variety being considered now production of nucleus seed would probably be started next year.