WORLD SEARCH

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 166, 15 June 1936, Page 5

WORLD SEARCH

FOR DROUGHT-RESISTING PLANTS. It is probable that inquiries will be made in every continent in the world to discover plants that would maintain or increase the pastoral value of the arid and semi-arid regions of Australia.

Approval was given by the Australian Agricultural Council recently to a suggestion that officers should he sent abroad to discover such plants, and plans for the project a.re now being prepared by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Scientists contend that unless steps are taken to conserve natural pastures in Australia, and new plants specially suited for semi-arid areas are introduced, the carrying capacity' of vast areas of the Commonwealth will be destroyed. The first area to which Australian scientists may he sent is that part of Asia which includes Georgia. Azerbaijan, northern Persia, and the Caucasus, with Tiflis in Georgia as headquarters. The second would probably Im> Spain, Morocco, and Algeria, with Gibraltar as headquarters. The third would probably be South America, and later visits would be made to Kenya.. Tanganyika, Rhodesia and central and northern India.

It has been proposed tentatively that two experts should be sent to Tiflis tor research work, to be begun over a period of about five years. Imported pasture plants would afterwards be tested in Australia. It is considered that the cost of maintaining the two officers abroad would be about £IOOO a year each.