MORE WHEAT NEEDED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 101, 29 March 1939, Page 10

MORE WHEAT NEEDED.

DOMINION YIELD LOW. SHORT OF ESTIMATES. Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH. March 29. Although estimates of the Dominions average wheat yield this season range from as low as 24 bushels to the acre to 32 bushels, the general opinion in the country is that the. crop will not greatly exceed 29 bushels. The Government Statistician, in the January Abstract of Statistics, made an estimate of 32 bushels to the acre, but during January there was considerable deterioration in the crops. In most cases the farmers’ estimates had been proved on threshing to be on the generous side. Some consider that the Canterbury average will lie perhaps a bushel under the Dominion average, and at that the worst for many seasons. Last year’s average was 32.0 bushels to the acre and was not sufficient to meet the Dominion’s requirements. This season, with the lower yield and lower acreage, fairly substantial shipments will have to he brought from overseas. Competent observers consider that the Dominion's wheat sowing next year should total something like a quarter of a million acres as against this season's 180,000 acres. The uncertainty of t.he mutton, lamb and wool markets contrasts unfavourably with the fixed price for wheat. The amount of work preparatory to wheat sowing that has been done recently in Canterbury is sufficient indication of an increase.