Physicists’ Contribution Against Food Shortage

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31161, 10 September 1966, Page 23

Physicists’ Contribution Against Food Shortage

Physicists were making their contribution to the battle against the growing world food shortage by. studying how plants could most efficiently use light, Dr. K. McCree, of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, said when delivering the tenth Chaikin memorial lecture to the Canterbury branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand. The study was a new one, but it had captured the attention of physicists in many parts of the world. “Our preliminary results indicate that the efficiency of light utilisation by plants does not diminish as they grow bigger,” he said. Dr. McCree is the first former student of the late Professor Chalklin to deliver the memorial lecture. In Copenhagen last year he presented two papers on light and plant

growth to an international congress of scientists. Dr. McCree graduated as a master of science from Canterbury University and obtained his doctorate at London University. He has been engaged in scientific research with the D.S.I.R. for 15 years and is an international authority in biophysics. His investigations now being made at the Lower Hutt research centre are all being conducted in artificial conditions necessary to control all factors affecting plant growth. Eventually they will be correlated with observations of experiments carried out under natural conditions.

Dr. McCree said that scientists would be able to say in time how much of any pasture or crop could be most effectively produced on any given piece of ground. It would be possible to dispel incorrect beliefs about the size of crops in relation to the amount of light they took in.