N.Z. need not be ashamed

Press, 15 May 1981, Page 15

N.Z. need not be ashamed

When it comes to producing wheat of reasonable quality New Zealand has nothing to be ashamed of in comparison with its big wheat producing neighbour, Australia, according to the chairman of the wheatgrowers’ sub-section of Federated Farmers, Mr AL. Mulholland.

At a meeting of the Wheat Research Committee last week he quoted figures from the fourteenth annual report of the Wheat Board, which he said showed that New Zealand’s wheat growing industry was producing wheat of a quality reasonably similar to Australia — “as good if not a little better.” The Wheat Board report showed that in 1979 wheat from the Australian port of Wallaroo had an average baking score under the old testing system of 35.13, from Port Giles 40 and from Port Pirie 36.85.

At the same time Hilgendorf wheat from the 1979 New Zealand harvest averaged 40.2, Aotea 36.1, Arawa 37, Kopara 36.9, Takahe 38.3 and Karamu 34. The overall average was 36.8. But a miller representative on the committee, Mr J.

K. Ireland, said that what the country wanted was a really good baking quality wheat.

He said that he appreciated that a wheat had to be high yielding to be grown. Breeding programmes had produced some remarkable wheats in terms of yield, and the problem now was that yields had been taken so high without much improvement in quality that it would be difficult to get high quality into a new cultivar and still maintain yield. Mr G. M. Wright, a cereal breeder with the Crop Research Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, recalled, however, that with the exception of Karamu every new wheat released since Aotea had had a higher baking quality than Aotea. Reporting on advanced selections in the breeding programme the director of the Crop Research Division, Dr H. C. Smith, said that a high baking testing line that had given a baking score of 26, under the new testing system, but which had a yield 21 per cent below Kopara, would be included in breeders’ trials.