SPROUT DANGER IN WHEAT

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33453, 7 February 1974, Page 16

SPROUT DANGER IN WHEAT

When there is weather like that of yesterday and Monday at harvest time, the thoughts of people associated with the wheat industry turn to the possibility of the grain beginning to sprout in the head.

n baked in the oven, giving fl bread with a sticky crumb, e The bread is not tasty, and s[ cannot be sliced in the bakery. In extreme cases, the t loaf collapses. ’. More than 2000 samples of t wheat from the present har e vest have been received by r the institute for testing, but n a big part of the harvest has 1 obviously yet to be handled. 31 Last season in the harvest y period, 12,000 samples were r I tested, but this season with I the reduced acreage a r smaller number of samples - is expected. So far. there - has been no sign of sprouting in the samples tested. •1.

This a possibility when [there is a combination of •dampness, high temperature • and high humidity, such as •in the last two day's. The director of the Wheat Research Institute (Mr R. W. Cawley) said yesterday that it might take only a little [more of this weather for • some of the crop to begin sprouting, and he suggested • that growers with access to grain driers should seriously i consider harvesting their crops as soon a.s possible and having the grain dried rather • than waiting for natural drying of the crop before harvesting. Sprouting can make grain unsuitable for milling. Where • grain has sprouted the germination process has begun, and at an early part of the process, often before roots or shoots appear, there is a rapid increase in the amount of the enzyme, alphaamylases. This breaks down starch when the loaf is being