PLANT RESEARCH

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 173, 23 June 1936, Page 2

PLANT RESEARCH

REORGANISATION OF BUREAU. INCREASED CO-OPERATION. Reorganisation of the Plant Research Station, . which will now be known as the Plant Research Bureau, at Palmerston North is at present being carried out. Toward the end of 1935, following tho cessation of the grant from the Empire Marketing Board, the decision was reached by the Government to reorganise the station through the transfer of the plant staff of the station to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The title was changed and the organisation altered so that it would function more closely with the agricultural colleges of the Dominion. The personnel of the Plant Research Bureau committee ensures close cooperation. The chairman is Air A. H. Cockayne, Director-General of Agriculture, and the personnel comprises Professor G. S. Peren, principal of Alassey College; Dr. F. W. Hilgendorf, acting-director, Lincoln College; Air T. Rigg, director, Cawthron Institute; Dr. E. Alarsden, secretary, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research; and Air R. B. Tennent, Director of the Fields Division of the Department of Agriculture. The secretary. of the committee and chief .executive officer of tlie bureau is Air.l*. R. Callaghan, late assistant secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The composition of the committee and the location of the various divisions in close proximity to the agricultural colleges and to Cawthron Institute indicate the extent to which close association of effort between all those engaged in agricultural research and extension work is being envisaged. The wider vision, and the greater scope of the bureau arises from the experience gained in past years through the Plant Research Station. To meet the new developments, the station is being reorganised into divisions. The plant disease division -will be under the direction of Dr. G. H. Cunningham, the grassland division will be directed by Mr E. Bruce Levy at Palmerston North, in close association with the Alassey Agricultural College, the fiel’cls crop division is being transferred to Lincoln, and under the direction of Air J. W. Hadfield, will work with Lincoln College, and the entomological division is intended to be placed in Nelson and linked up with the Cawthron Institute. All the divisions will he housed m buildings design for laboratory and office purposes, and the locations have been determined with a view to placing the headquarters of each division in the district most appropriate for the class of work which it will he called upon to do. At the same tune, provision is made for close co-operation between the different divisions of the bureau, and at each headquarters work will also be proceeding continuously for those other divisions which are located elsewhere in the Dominion.

FIELD CROPS

CO-ORDINATING OF RESEARCH

CHRISTCHURCH, June 22. The transfer of Air J. AV. Hadfield from Palmerston North to Lincoln, Canterbury, where he will take charge of the new field crops division of the Plant Research Bureau, marked another stage in the scheme designed by the Government to co-ordinate the agricultural research forces of the Dominion. said the Alinister for Industries and Commerce (Hon. D. G. Sullivan) to a representative of the Christchurch Press. The Alinister went on to say that the field crops division will replace the pure seed station at Lincoln, the functions of the latter being, however, continued and extended*. For some time past dose association with Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, had'been a feature of tlie work of this station, and the present move was designed to implement this still further.