Results With Spring Wheats

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31862, 14 December 1968, Page 9

Results With Spring Wheats

Special attention was given to spring wheats during a field day held last week by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at Lincoln.

Mr L. G. Copp, senior cereal breeder at the Crop Research Division, said that over the years many lines with great potential for spring wheats had been found but it had been only in the

last two or three years, with farmers growing more spring wheat in Canterbury, that test work on these wheats could be done. Over the last two years, Mr Copp said, co-operative trials had been held over an area ’from Oxford in North Canterbury to Hinds in MitCanterbury, and down through South Canterbury to Studholme near the coast. In giving the following results of the trials in 1966-67 and 1967-68, with sowings being made on September 6 and 27. Mr Copp emphasised that

| they were for only a two-year | period:—

It should be noted that Carlsberg barley has been in-' eluded for comparative pur-j poses. On the basis of these re-i suits, Mr Copp said, average gross returns per acre would be: Aotea. §84.10: Arawa, 887.23; Hilgendorf, §84.15: 946,01 (a new variety under development by the Crop Research Division) §92.80: 1020,01 (also a new Crop Reserach Division variety), : §94.25; Gamenya (an Australian variety), §102.95: Raven an Australian variety), §91.35: and Carlsberg barley 1 §94.05.

In a report to the Wheat Research Committee this week, Mr Copp said that last harvest 92,000 bushels of Gamenya had been produced in the North Island, which was only 2000 bushels more than in the previous season, while the quantity of the variety grown in the South Island had increased from only 2000 bushels to 75.000 bushels. Another Australian wheat, Triple Dirk, was also grown more widely last season. It had increased from 4000 bushels in the North Island in 1967 to 27,000 bushels at the most recent harvest and from 1000 bushels in the South Island to 14,000. Mengavi, still another variety from across the Tasman, had been grown to the extent of 12.000 bushels in Canterbury last season and 5000 bushels in the North Island.

Forming 2.05 per cent of all wheat grown for milling purposes last season, Gamenya was still a small proportion of the total crop but it was now more important than the old standard variety, Cross 7, which constituted only 0.85 per cent of production for milling.

Mr Copp said a small quantity of seed of still another Australian wheat, Raven, which had been developed for rust resistance, had been imported by the Department of Agriculture, hot-water treated at the Crop Research Division for control of loose smut infection, and grown last season. The produce had been sown in a few commercial crops in the North Island this season.- Apart from rust, Mr Copp said, it had proved superior to Triple Dirk and trial results had shown it was a suitable variety for spring sowing. On the baking quality of spring varieties, Mr R. W. Cawley, director of the Wheat Research Institute, said the Indications were that as with autumn-sown wheats Hilgendorf was superior, followed by Aotea, with Arawa running a pretty poor third, and the Australian varieties slightly inferior to Aotea as far as could be told. While farmers would obtain, milling price for wheat that scored over 28, Mr Cawley said, they faced the risk of not being able to quit it quickly unless the score was 34 or more.

At present it was difficult to give farmers advice about how to raise baking score. If nitrogen was used on wheat it had to be used late, as if it was used early yield might be increased but not quality.

Quite a lot of things could effect quality, he said, and the best thing that a farmer could do was to grow an appropriate variety for quality. Another plant breeder, Mr G. M. Wright, said sprout damage was a problem even in autumn-sown wheat in some years. White-grained varieties, he said, had a short period of dormancy while redgrained wheats had a longer period. Gamenya, for instance, had a short period, while both Aotea and Arawa had a somewhat longer period. and Hilgendorf was very resistant to sprouting.

No. Trials Av. Yield Above Aotea Aotea 8 38 Arawa 61 6 Hllgendorf 8 51 -11 946,01 7 64 11 1020,01 3 65 13 Gamenya 8 71 23 Raven 5 63 10 Carlsberg 8 99 43