RAINFALL AND WHEAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18553, 10 November 1923, Page 11

RAINFALL AND WHEAT.

BENEFIT OF AUTUMN FALL.

RESEARCH IN ENGLAND. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Reed. 5.5 p.m.) LONDON. Nov. 8. A problem of importance to the proposal to push wheat-growing in Australia beyond the lOin. rain belt was discussed to-day by the Royal Society, before which Sir John Russell, head of the Rothamstead agricultural research station, read a paper on the influence of rainfall on wheat, yields. Sir John Russell stated that while Sir Napier Shaw in . 1906 and Hooker in 1907 found correlation between the yield of wheat and the previous autumnal rainfall, especially during October, he had' found, on studying critically the Rothamstcad results, extending over 70 years, that autumn rain was beneficial to certain crops and less deleterious to other plots than rain at other times. The differing results were due to the difference between experimental and commercial growing, because in wet autumns farmers put in crops other than wheat. On large proportions of the holdings it was not impossible for farmers to adapt their manurial treatment to wet or dry seasons.

In conversation fellows of the society acquainted with Australian conditions emphasised the importance of the Rothamstead researches to Australian ■ -wheatgrowing, and urged their continuance.