WEEVILS IN WHEAT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3339, 13 March 1918, Page 10

WEEVILS IN WHEAT.

In the Australasian Manufacturer Professor Maxwell Lefroy, commissioner on wheat supplies for the Britisn Government, joints out that atv.Mucteg Fanr. tjiree minutes' exposure is sufficient to destroy all forms of insect life in grain. Wheat containing normal moisture will stand 158 deg Fahr. for 12 houre, wnile" if it contains 10 per cent, added moisture it will t 'stand 45 minutes. This leaves a b,g margin' between tne tnree minutes requued and the 45 minutes' exposure that even wet wheat will stand. "What is wanted is a supply of. machines capable of heating the weevilled wheat. The wheat must be sifted to eliminate large objects, then heated, dried if. possiDle, bagged, and bags sterilised. At least 100 bushels per hour must be put through, and manuiauturers are invited to submit portable machines which will do this quantity without injuring the. grain. The Royal Commission on the wheat scheme inspected at Port Adelaide (says the Australasian) a machine for the treatment of weevil-infested wheat,-, invented by Dr W. A. Hargreaves, the Director of Chemistry. The wheat is passed through pipes heated by steam to a temperture of 120 deg Fahr. at the rate of 65 bags per hour, and all insect life in the grain is killed. Dr Hargreaves, in giving evidence, said that if contaminated wheat were.-mixed with fine, dry sand the weevils perished, presumably by starvation. Some worked their way up through the sand, but made no attempt to reach the wheat again through the- sand. Fresh weevils were 'hatched out; but these also 'sought freedom. A month was necessary for the hatching of all eggs. The sand treatment was being tested at Outer Harbour.