MEW INSECT PEST

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19135, 2 October 1936, Page 12

MEW INSECT PEST

PEARS IN CANTERBURY WHEAT SAMPLES AFFECTED Fears that another insect pest may have invaded the Dominion exist today in the mind of some New Zealand scientists, states a Christehurch correspondent. There is evidence in Otago .of a condition in some of the wheat harvested last autumn which is analogous to that obtaining in the case of depredations by the wheat bug, an insect which has taken heavy toll of European wheatfields. The situation is being closely watched, nut it will be impossible to determine the question before next harvest. :Mr.> H. E. West, consult ant and technical adviser to a group of New Zealand flour mills, said that early in May three samples of wheat, among others, arrived at his laboratory for baking quality tests. These wheats were milled in the usual fashion and doughs were made from the resultant flours. During the process of fermentation all three samples acted in a very abnormal manner. Instead of rising, the doughs went soft and sticky and one, in fact, became so "runny" that it was capable of being poured out of the" fermentation pan like thick syrup. The conclusion at first arrived at was that the wheat samples must have been badly sprouted. However, a close examination of the part of the original samples showed that all had been harvested 'before the rains, and were quite free from any sprout damage. Subsequent tests' also proved that in this respect the grains were absolutely sound. The only peculiarity noted about the samples was that in many of the grains there was a tiny opaque spot, easily discernible in clearskinn*! grains, but almost impossible to notice on more mature and whiter grains.

Mr. West is concerned lest the wheat has been spoiled by the -wheat bug, which attacks the kernel in the milk ripe stage,,depositing a substance which so disintegrates the gluten that the flour is unfit for baking. He does not say positively that the wheat which reacted so unusually was in fact spoiled by bugs, but lie does think that the behaviour of the flour and the appearance of the grains so exactly tally with the descriptions of wheat damaged by the bug that there is a basis for serious investigation.