Regional Breeding Of Wheat Discussed

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31239, 10 December 1966, Page 9

Regional Breeding Of Wheat Discussed

The question of breeding wheats for specific regions in those regions rather than having all the wheat-breeding work based on one centre— Lincoln—as has been the case until recently was raised when members of the Wheat Research Committee visited the Crop Research Division at Lincoln this week. Dr. J. M. McEwan, who is in charge of the new substation in the Manawatu established primarily for wheat breeding, said that his feeling was that breeding should be done in the area for which it was wanted to produce a wheat. If it was wanted to produce a wheat for Southland conditions then breeding facilities should be established there. Mr L. G. Copp, senior cereal breeder at the division, said that in the past they had been very successful in breeding in one place. Dr. H. C. Smith, director of the division, noted that where a very successful variety was produced it had a wide degree of adaptation. Cross 7 and Aotea had been produced in the one place and had gone all over the country, said Mr Copp, but it was possible that if there had been regional breeding stations they might have been even more successful in their breeding. Dr. Smith said that there was strong pressure from Southland for a regional crop research station and he had told them that he hoped that the work at the Manawatu sub-station would be of help to them. They wanted an early spring variety that would be resistant to both sprout and mildew. “And will yield 120 bushels to the acre like they get with Aotea,” added Mr Copp. The conditions were a little different in the two areas he felt Dr. McEwan said he would hope that the work in the Manawatu would be helpful to Southland, but he did not

foresee much enthusiasm among southern fanners for a variety like Gabo. Dr. Smith said that some Gamenya (an Australian wheat) had been sown in Southland this season. Mr Copp said that Dr. McEwan had a red grained Gamenya-type wheat that they hoped might be tried out in Southland next year—red grained wheats tend to be resistant to sprouting. They had sprout resistant varieties from overseas, Mr Copp said, but most European wheats were late maturing and farmers in this county would not grow a late maturing wheat When they had first worked with Hilgendorf most of the plots of it had been affected by bird damage bufnow Hilgendorf was not much affected because of the amount of the variety grown. Now it was the Gabo-type wheat that received bird damage. In their plots at Lincoln they sowed a buffer strip around them of a mixture of Hilgendorf, Gabo and Aotea "just as bird tucker.” Rust Discussing work being done at the new Manawatu sub-sta-tion, Dr. McEwan said that they were hoping that disease susceptibility would show up to stem and leaf rust so that something could be done in selecting for resistance to these. He said that a lot of overseas material was under test, they were also trying to enhance the disease resistance of Aotea and he thought that there'was sufficient interest for some work to be done in selection- for quality. They had used Hilgendorf in some of their breeding work. Mr S. H. Manning, a scientific officer of the division, outlined two projects being undertaken at Lincoln. One of these is of an agronomic nature and involves a comparison of Hilgendorf, Aotea and Arawa for such characters as tiller survival, head size, grain weight and susceptibility to disease—yellow dwarf virus. Sowings have been made at four different dates—at about three-week intervals from May to July—■ and the relative disease susceptibility in relation to these sowing dates will be noted. On the question of tiller survival and yield, Mr Copp said that the old Tuscan variety had produced a large number of tillers but relatively few of these produced heads. On the other hand Cross 7 did not produce as many tillers but more of those produced formed heads. Theoretically, he said, Tuscan should have been a much higher yielding wheat than it was. Aotea In the early diys of Aotea, he said, Department of Agriculture officers had urged its scrapping because of the rather scruffy appearance of the crop in the early stages of growth, but it had seemed to produce more grain which went to show that it was not possible to judge a wheat on the first two or three months of growth. Mr Manning is also embarking on a project to incorporate eyespot resistance in wheat varieties. This was generally a fairly serious problem in wheat in Southland, he said. Overseas wheats are being used to impart the resistance. Mr Manning said that a small laboratory had been set up to breed eyespot and he was in the process of isolating a Southland strain for their work. He was also working on a method of testing for the disease, based on

one developed in Britain. He said that they would probably try to incorporate eyespot in Hilgendorf and Aotea and one or two new hybrids. Mr Copp said that eyespot caused lodging and the straw to lean over. The grain did not fill well and there was a reduction in yield. Discussing its incidence, he said that wheat was being grown further south, which made a difference, it was also being grown in the same ground for two or three seasons in succession and grass was being grown with wheat. Farmers should either grow wheat or grass but not the two together. Eye-spot lesions could stay on stubble and unless stubbles were burnt or ploughed in the disease could be spread around the farm. In the course of a brief inspection of the plots before there was a downpour of rain, Mr Copp showed members of the committee some of the dwarf varieties growing at the division. He said that wherever the dwarf varieties came from it was found that they had originally come from Japan. The world record yielding variety was a shortstrawed wheat In such varieties the food taken up by the plant was not put into straw and flag, but most of the shortstraw material was unfortunately poor in baking quality. These short wheats would not do for country such as Darfield but in Southland they could be well worthwhile. Some were very susceptible to barley yellow dwarf virus, he noted.

Mr Cropp said that they had been crossed with Cross 7, Aotea and Arawa and some had Hilgendorf in them.