BETTER QUALITY FLOUR

Press, 24 February 1978, Page 10

BETTER QUALITY FLOUR

The indications are that flour made from wheat harvested this year should be of better quality. The results of tests on 2160 lines handled by the Wheat Research Institute up to February 7 showed that the average baking score was 37.2 compared with 36.3 last season. The director of the institute, Mr R. W. Cawley, said this week that the improvement in quality was a result of the better performance of Karamu this year and also the lower proportion of the variety in the crop. Where the sam,e number of samples had been handled this season and last season Mr Cawley said that the proportion of Karamu in the crop had declined from 30 per cent to 15 per cent.

At the same time on the basis .of the latest report on test results the average baking score for the variety has improved from 28.5 a year ago to 33.9. But it is still well behind Aotea and the other established varieties. The other varieties are giving similar results to last season. The average for Hilgendorf is 39.9 (39.8 last season), Aotea 36.2 (36.4), Arawa 39.1 (38.5), Kopara 36.8 (37) and Takahe 38.2 (38.3). This year although only about 20 lines have been detected with the trouble bug damage is apparently quite widespread having been seen in samples from North, Mid and South Canterbury and also North and Central Otago. Mr Cawley said that this spread was unusually wide. It was an important part of the testing service at the

institute to detect bugdamaged lines, he said, as the inclusion of even a small amount of bugdamaged wheat in grain for milling would have disastrous effects in the baking process. Bug damage is not new and readers of these pages will recall that the “bugs” in question are sap-sucking insects which attack the grain in the milk stage leaving behind some saliva, which contains enzymes that destroy the gluten when the flour is made into a dough and as the bread making process depends on gluten the flour is unusable. Up till the middle of this week the institute had received a total of 5500 samples from the current harvest for testing. This represents an estimated half of the expected harvest.