SEED RESEARCH

Southland Times, Issue 19836, 6 April 1926, Page 11

SEED RESEARCH

PROFESSOR STAPLEDON’S VISIT TO NEW ZEALAND. London, February 24. On February 27, Professor R. G. Stapledon, M.A. (Director of the Welsh Plant Breeding Station, University College of Wales), accompanied by Mrs Stapledon, will leave by the Aneas via the Cape, en route to New Zealand via Australia. The Welsh Plant Breeding Station is one of the research institutions under the Ministry of Agriculture's scheme for providing for agricultural research in the Mother Country. The station was founded in 1919 largely as a result of the generosity of Sir Laurence Philipps, Bart. The chief objects of the station are to conduct researches with a view to the improvement of herbage plants. At present the staff is chiefly engaged with work on cocksfoot, the rye grasses, and red and white clovers. They are also interested in oats—the cereal of the greatest importance in Wales—and they are conducting breeding work with this crop. At the Aberstwyth Station investigations are also conducted relative to the general questions of the management and improvement of grass land, and a great deal of their most important work is connected with temporary grass. Professor Stapledon is himself particularly interested in the w'hole question of seed production as applied to herbage plants, perhaps particularly with reference to cocksfoot and white clover, both of which are largely harvested for seed production in New Zealand. Professor Stapledon was the first Director of the Official Seed Testing Station for England and Wales, which was set up in London during the war on what was then the Food Production Department, and he is consequently much interested in all seed questions.

Mrs Stapledon is a woman with many interests, including the Women’s Institute movement. She was organising secretary for Cambridgeshire for the Women’s Land Army during the war, and has subsequently much interested herself in the Women’s Institute movements. At present she is county secretary for Cardiganshire, and she is a member of the organisation sub-eommittee at the headquarters of the movement in London.

The travellers expect to be away from the Mother Country for some months. On the eve of departure Professor Stapledon is not sure whether a few weeks will be spent in New South Wales on the way to New Zealand or whether the journey will be made to Wellington by the first connecting vessel.