GRAIN SEED SELECTION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1029, 19 January 1911, Page 8

GRAIN SEED SELECTION.

' INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS.(By Telegraph—Press Association.)Christchurch, January 18. \n important addition'to. the work.car-, tied on at Canterbury Agricultural College is the experiments in seed selection conducted by Dr. Hilgendorf. , At preterit in,tho plot devoted to wheat there are nius varieties growing.. The method of selection was conducted as follows:—Last -hamsfc' a careful inspection of tho different/crops was made, and a few selected heads of each variety were pick-, ed out of each crop. No head was taken that was: not growing on a sturdy well6fcooled plant, or that had ltss .than sixty kernels of grain.in it, or that was not free from any trace of disease, or . departure from type. The best seed from these heads were carefully planted nine inches apart in row.v eacli variety, of course, having a row to itself. When, thev came up any plans, that failed to stool out well were pulled; up and destroyed, and only the. best allowed to come to maturity. The seed from ,thc best plantsof those allowed-to grow to. a finish will be-planted nest seed time, and tho best from that' again selected. It mav be mentioned that, from one seed of bordier wheat, a plant has grown with 23 good stalks to it, and one small stalk that was cut away. If each 'head-on. that plant has fifty grains of wheat in it, it means that the plant has yielded UOO grains for the one seed grain planted. ' Experiments in the selection, "of seed oats ate also being carried-oxit at Lin•coin'College. Tho seed planted last year was, in this casts obtained from a dealer. As the plants canie up they wero very carefully culled,' all 1 those' "showing the slightest" departure fronv the true typo being pulled up. The rows of the differing varieties were cut with the sickle. The" grain will be threshed .by flail, and it' is hoped that enough seed, true to type, will !:e obtained, to sow- plots of about one acre. As no farmers in the district seem to agree as to v.-hat arc the. best all round oats to grow, experiments will be carTied out next season on these plots to find out which variety of . oats gives the best results for sheep' ' feeding, which sort the-sheep like best,..and which kind (after feeding off) gives, the -.heaviest yield. • Another series of experiments-wr.s car-* Tied out at the college with over forty varieties.of turnips and .swedes. It was intended -to test th? ; ; sorts#or■.'resistance against blight, but 'unfortunately for the success of the experiment •(though fortunately from ; another point 'of'"view) the blight was conspicuous:,by its. absence this year, which rendered the experiment abortive. ~ •