COCKSFOOT IN WALES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 112, 8 November 1930, Page 14

COCKSFOOT IN WALES

HARVESTING THE SEED

PLANT BREEDING STATION

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 28th August. Fine crops of cocksfoot, so well ' known to the thousands of men who i in their day have wielded their'reap--1 ing hooks on the hills of Banks. Penin- \ sula, are appearing on a group of re- ' mote farms in Wales. These are the ' first standing crop of grasses scientifle- ; ally bred and selected' with the iinan- ; cial backing of the Empire Marketing 1 Board at the Welsh Plant Breeding Station, to We grown'in Great Britain. Scientists are hoping great things from 'an exceptionally high-yielding and 1 hardy pedigree strain "1163" of cocks- ' foot. . . . British farmers import 85 per cent. ' of their cocksfoot seed from Denmark, for instance, and So per cent, of their | Timothy from the United States. Al--1 together this country, imports about 1 12,000 tons of seed, worth: well over a ! million sterling., British farmers fcould ' easily supply the market themselves, ' and the Welsh Plant Breeding Station ' hopes to put into their hands pedigree grasses which are very much superior 1 in yield, length of life, and leaiincss 1 to the foreign, strains they now buy. This should give them a' big start if ' they decide to capture this profitable) • trade. . ! The cocksfoot harvest, in Wales is ' now in full swing, writes a correspond- ' ent of the "Morning Post." The J scientists iv charge have designed a ' travelling grass thresher, which tours • the country in a.big green lorry built ' for the purpose. The thresher is speci--1 ally constructed to deal with all sizes 1 of grass seeds, down to those smaller ' than pins'heads. The lorry also .ear-1 ' ries a little 2A h.p. engine, which works the thresher at sufficient speed to turn 1 out a bag of seed every quarter of an 1 hour. The crop is threshed as it is 1 cut, and then rushed back to the ' Welsh-Plant Breeding Station, perched >on a hijl behind Aberystwyth. Here ! the bags are speedily unloaded —even 1 though they arrive in the middle of ! the night—and the seed is spread iv \ bins in a special three-story building ■ containing a maximum of drying space, i The seed must not bo left in, the sacks • for fear of "sweating," and consequent \ injury. j ; POLLEN-PKOOr GREENHOUSES. Grass is pollinated by the wind, and the wind has no respect for plantbreeders. At Aberystwyth this has been countered by the erection, with I funds from the Empire Marketiug ' Board, of about 30 pollen-proof green- ' houses in which the purity, of special ' hand-pollinated families is guarded ' with unrelaxing vigilance. The auccs--1 tors of these -secluded plants have been ' collected from all over the world. When ; the families are established they are grown in small experimental' plots. Particular interest is being taken in | tTTese grasses by New Zealand, 94 per I ceut. of whose exports consist of I "manufactured grass"—meat, wool, and dairy produce (adds the'"Morning Post" correspondent). A special plantbreeding station has been established 'in the Dominion to co-operate with 1 Aberyswtyth and improve local pas- '. tures, and quantities of the seed now ' being harvested are to be' sent out [ there. Other Dominions are almost aa interested, for grass is the Empire's biggest crop. The United Kingdom imports annually £325,000,000 worth of grassland products, so that any improvement in this great crop is to be ' valued in terms of millions.