Institute expects busier season

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32797, 23 December 1971, Page 10

Institute expects busier season

The Wheat Research Institute in Christchurch will again be testing samples of wheat from crops harvested this summer to help millers in their purchases of wheat.

Last harvest the institute handled 11,750 samples but in the coming harvest with

the greater area in the crop the director of the institute, Mr R. W. Cawley, expects that there will be a substantial increase in the number of samples received. The institute receives samples from merchants, mills each sample into flour,

bakes the flour into a small loaf and finally reports the results of the baking test to the merchant, from whom the sample came, by telephone. Mr Cawley expects that . the fact that there will be a lot of Arawa in this season’s crop will involve the institute in extra work. It is the institute’s practice to repeat its test on all low scoring lines of wheat just to confirm the result before reporting to the merchants concerned, and because samples of Arawa often fall into this category the institute, as a matter of course, repeats tests on al! Arawa samples. Last harvest was about an average one for baking quality. Then the high baking quality wheat Hilgendorf averaged 39, Aotea 35.7 and Arawa 34.1. According to the Wheat Board regulations to qualify as milling grade wheat a wheat, among other things, must score not less than 30 and also have a sprout index not greater than SI. But Mr Cawley says that millers require a substantial part of their purchases to have a baking score “in the high thirties” if they are to produce flour which will satisfy the bakers. The institute will resume operations after the holidays on January 5, but it is not■ usual for much wheat to be awaiting testing at that stage. The institute will again be taking on about 12 students to help with the testing and most of these will take up their duties on j January 10. The institute will have an ■ additional responsibility in ' the coming harvest. That is i making sure that samples submitted as Hilgendorf are I in fact of this variety. This has become necessary as the new wheat, Kopara, has now made its appearance, and a red grained wheat like Hilgendorf it is very similar in appearance to Hilgendorf. And while Hilgendorf carries a premium of 25c per bushel over Aotea, Kopara will be discounted by 10c per bushel compared with Aotea, so that there is a difference of 35c per bushel between the two wheats. Mr Cawley said that they would not be reporting on a sample of Hilgendorf until they were sure that it was Hilgendorf. ■ There was, he said, a whole range of tests that could be applied ranging

from the appearance of the beard of the grain, milling and baking behaviour to a phenol test developed by Professor R. H. M. Langer, of Lincoln College, the particle size of the flour and the appearance of young plants on germination. Some samples, he said, might be quite-readily identified by the application of the first one or two tests, but in other cases further testing might be necessary. They were confident, however, that they would be able to reach a firm conclusion on all samples, although in some instances there could be a slight delay in reporting results. In the last harvest the institute handled about 1000 samples of Hilgendorf and Mr Cawley says that there could be a few more this season.