Nelson Evening Mail FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1911. THE DOOM OF THE POTATO.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 23 June 1911, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1911. THE DOOM OF THE POTATO.

IS ITS CULTURE THREATENED ? WHILE New Zeailand by 110 means has bee n free form the dreaded Irish blight and; other diseases of the potato, its condition has been almost clean compared with many districts in Australia, where the potato is practically threatened with -extinction. This danger (in view of the fact that potato-culture has become an industry extremely important to sucli a country as New South Wales, for inista.nce, and profitable even .with the heavy handicap of the blight) ris very insistent. Naturally, therefore, it causes the greatest alarm > and Denartments of Agriculture and' other biologists. are warning growers that the outlook not distant is either abandonment of crops or perpetual vigilance and spraying, ihe disastrous experience of the growers, in Victoria, New South Wales, am! las mania aliike. last season militates against expansion of crops, however profitable, and the important point demonstrated is that the blight has come to stay. Ilie New South Wales Minister for Agricuituire, by cancelling all quarantine' of potato districts, says, in effect, that tho blight ha.s spread throughout the State, and l that fhi'.ro is nothing to bo gained in attempting to control it. by restrictions on the interchaiiigc of consignments between any one district and another. The results of spraying in Australia and New Zealand this year encouiago the conclusions that by this means Irish blight can, be shorn of its worst terrors, audi good, payable crops produced in

spile of the disease. Bui in Che grow

ing of good, healthy crops there is- one vital poijit that is not receiving due recognition. Tliat it the value of wellfii'owii, selected' seed. With the average farmor, a potato is a 'potato s« long as iu outward appearance it meets the requirements of the market. But every farmer should go in, for raising his own seed onco be ha.s acquired satisfactory foundation! stock to work upon. Then he can. by a process of .selection or pedi-

gree breeding, improve it and work up a strain of greater vigour and prolificness. This is to bo done by 'the systematic ■selection of the best tubers from the best hill* of the healthiest and strongest portion of the crop. This process should; be going on all the time potatoes are being dug. Nothing will tend more to increase the yields of a good marketable product-

Tlie question uppermost in the minds of intelligent potato-growers the world over .is of blight resistance; but the data available is '.neither reliable nor abundant. A writer on the subject of potato disease, deaung with the problem of blight-resisting .varieties says that where experts recommend a variety as being less susceptible to blight than others, it is a comparatively new potato. Some high authorities have recommend ed that farmers, should keen on taking up new varieties as they come along. Better advice still would be to nrgo the farmer to keep his potatoes up to the mark by selection. The same natural laws operate in the aniimal anKl vegetable kingdoms. The stock-b-oeed'er who keeps on breeding .haphazardly always finds that it ileads to deterioration. The same with the artificially-improved potato : it has to be kept up to the standard' by selection, or in time it retrogrades, even tfaoug-h it is not actually .raised from, the seed of the pliant. The new variety is probably more resistant of disease, beca/use it is more apt, as a result of selec lion, to fix are superior to those it is to supersede. Therefore, it appears to be an axiom that variety is not th© prime factor in blight resistance. Both experience and experiment in New South Wales, continues the writer quoted, have shown that tin's year in New South Wales Brownells have shown more blight than other sorts ivearlv all over the State. This may be .due more than anything else to the fact that the Bro-w----nell ranks among the oldest main orop. ping varieties grown there, andi unquestionably the seed in most cases has so rim, out, as to be constitutionally weak. But on the othea- hand such-varieties as CozxMiation>, Queen of the Valley, and Satisfaction, which have been less affected' by the blight, have been in the hands of farmers only of comparatively recent years, and? better-grown seed has been obtainable.

In the variety trials of potatoes con ducted on the farmers' experiment plots by the New South WaJ.es- Depa.rtmie.nt of Agriculture in 1909-10, two varietias stood out as superior to all others in the 21 dista-icts participating. These were Coronation and Irvine. Ruby. The significant, feature was that the seed of both was specially well grown, and was from one farm. Accordingly j\Lr Valder, Chief Inspector of Agriculture, reported : "That fact is, I believe, due more to the quality of the seed than to the apcparent superiority of the varieties. When aaii inspection was made, before pllanting, of the whole of the seed of the eight vairieties tested, it was at once apparent that the Irvine Ruby and Coronation.' potatoes were better-grown samples than any of the others." During the past season, the variety that lias given the besit .results on these plots, and proved mot blight resistant, is Queen of the Valley. In this instance the seed was of distinctly better quality than that of any of the other saints planted, ■and, as it wore, "blood" lias told again in the plots in various parts of New South Wales. The lesson to the New Zealand potato-grower is obvious, and it sliould' be talcen to 'heart ere it is too late.