NEW U.S.A. GRAIN

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 November 1936, Page 4

NEW U.S.A. GRAIN

DEFIES SUN, DROUGHT, PESTS. SPRINGFIELD, 111., Sept. 26. Ellsbery O’Hair, employee in the State Department of Agriculture, today claimed he and his’ father, H. Z. O’Hair of Bushton, 111., have succeeded’in growing a grain and forage crop which defies drought, heat, an£ insects. , > . .

He said jt was the first-time the crop, a hybrid of three cross pollinations of varieties of kaffir corn and ribbon cane, had been grown in the mid-western corn belt. >Tlie test was conducted in ( co-operation with Fred

Groff, Oklahoma experimental farmer, who supplied the seed. “It was a complete success,” Mr O’Hair said. “We secured 75 bushels to an acre on a 10-acre field, which received only eight inches of rainfall from May 1 to Aug. 31., and was so seared that the ground cracked sufficiently to run an ordinary ruler a foot down. “The grain is heavy in protein’and fat. Cattle ate it readily. In addition, the fodder,, sweet and moist, amounted to 13 tons to an acre.” Some of the values claimed for the new corn <werc: Production of 75 bushels to an acre during four months when tho moisture deficiency was 6.57 inches. Corn production in the Bushton area this summer* was esti-

I mated by the Department of Agriculture at 25 bushels to an acre. The protein in the fodder was said to bo 4.36 per cent., about half as much as shelled corn. The gain protein value was 12 per cent., the same as the average for wheat.. Fat content of the grain was 4.35 per cent for Indian corn, the common variety of the farmbelt. Grasshoppers and chinchbugs did not touch it.