BEST IN THE WORLD

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 29, 3 August 1933, Page 6

BEST IN THE WORLD

NEW ZEALAND-GROWN .LUCERNE

(Special to the Post.") -„,,. PALMERSTO?T,N., This Day. ■ New; Zealand;1: ha^j sprnething more to boast about. It is that "its home-grown lucerne, under ./.Dominion conditions, is superior tovanyttiing else that the' world .can; produce.; ■•„ Tfiis- important discovery is the: result 'of tpqro yeais' investigation at the Plant Station, Palmerston NortU, and in an interview yesterday, accompanie'dby an inspection of the experimental ;aroto at Fitzherbert, a- "Post" reporter gleaned quito .a fund of valuable information on. the work that has been ciirried out and that will be put in hand in the coming years, for it is estimated that it will be from seven to ten years before anything like finality will bo reached in the experiments that are being undertaken. .J.v. -..■'„. The ,first question .''investigated was whether the Marlborough strain was the best in' New Zealand. The answer is that although varieties from, all parts of the worldliave been growny.nothing has been found,superior to Marlborough. „ Tho., other ■ varieties included Grimms, South ' Dakota, Nortli Dakota, , Ontario variegated, Michigan commercial, Cossack, Turkestan, Chilian,.. Ladak, Medicago falcata, Hardigan ? Utah, Kansas commercial, Hairy Peruvian/Anatolian (Russian), Baltic, Thuringian, Franconian, and others, Grimms and Ontario variegated (a selection from ■Grimms) 'out-yielded Marlborough at the peak of the summer, but proved '.slow in the spring and in the winter we're dormant. Marlborough lucerne has.,proved best over the twenty-four months that the ;ti'ials have been running.' ■■ ■■ -. ■:<:■■■ y- . The Jiext step was to discover if Marl- i borough lucerne could be- improved, and the evidence is that it can be. Work is now being undertaken1 along those lines.