Baking Quality Of Wheat

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31345, 15 April 1967, Page 10

Baking Quality Of Wheat

'■''HERE have been some slight variations in the level of baking scores of the various wheat varieties in the harvest season which is now virtually over. The director of tiie Wheat Research Institutes Mr R. W. Cawley, said this week that the numbers of samples coming to hand for testing had now fallen right away. Hilgendorf has more or less held its ground. Mr Cawley said that in this case the avenge baking score was 37.5 compared with 37.2 last year. (The 2s per bushel premium on this wheat is incidentally to be continued next season). In genend, he said, bakers were not satisfied with a flour that sewed less than 34.

Aotea has, however, slipped a little and the latest figure for this variety Is 33.7 compared with 34.8 last year, but Arawa has improved from 30.8 last year tn 32.2 on this occasion.

But even if its quality was up a little, Arawa remained Inferior from a milling point of view, said Mr Cawley. It would still be unattractive to millers and it was unlikely that much of it would he used in millers’ grists. With 11,000 samples received by the institute the average score for samples from Nelson-Marlborough was 36.6 North Canterbury 34.9,

Christchurch 35.1, Ashburton 34.5 and Timaru 34.8. Mr Cawley said that seven lines damaged by bug had been detected in samples from Central Otago, three from the Dunedin area, two from Mid-Canterbury, two from North Canterbury and one from the Manawatu. Bug damage had also been found in a Department of Agriculture trial in Southland.

Sprout had been confined to only a few samples, he said, a total of 340 affected lines

having been detected. It was not anticipated that there would be any problems in bakeries.

In Southland, where there were almost always some trouble in this respect, he had been told that there had been the best harvest in 30 years. Except for one small period there, the harvest had proceeded smoothly and this accounted for a dramatic reduction in sprout damage. There had been some sprouting in the. North Island but this was not unusual with the well distributed rainfall experienced there. Although the institute does not receive a high proporison of the North Island crop for testing, it is felt that the average for such samples which

has fallen from 34.7 last year to 32.2 for this season is nevertheless significant. With the harvest now drawing to a close, the Wheat Research Institute has advised merchants that after April 30 the testing of the few samples of wheat coming in will no longer be treated as a matter of urgency. They will be dealt with as convenient and the results reported by mail. From that date, too, the sender will be charged for the test at the rate of 5s a sample. The general manager of the New Zealand Wheat Board, Mr L. C. Dunshea, said this week that by the end of April slightly more than Im bushels of wheat would have been shipped odt of the South Island.