SEED WHEAT.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 364, 10 April 1915, Page 2

SEED WHEAT.

SELECTION AND GRADING.

A t'ow good points were made by Mr. Spafford, Superintendent of Agriculture, in South Australia, at an agricultural conference a few days ago, in reference, to -the parts j)layc<l by selection and grading: and change of seed in wheat improvement, a question that is begiuuing to receive a little of the attention it deserves from New Zealand wheatgrowers. He attached just as much importance to the selection of seed as to the selection of breeding stock in maintaining or improving the standard of j quality. The practice of retaining a good, grown piece of erop, harvesting it separately,-.and giving it an extra ide ning, was still considered by far too many farmers to be nil that was necessary in obtaining seed. That practice, of course, is better than just taking f.a.q. wheat from stack, but,it did not go nearly far, enough. It was about on a par with saving the ewe lambs for breeding purposes from the part of the flock iti the best field, quite irrespective of what the dams or the sires were like. TJien there were still some who pinned their faith to "change of seed" as the /only way to produce good wheat crops. The ridiculousness of that was easily demonstrated. ;

Professor G. W. Shaw (chemist and officer-in-charge of cereal stations connected with the University of California), had very thorough experimental work conducted on four stations und<n* his charge with a view of testing the effect of change of seed. In the experiments varieties grown on ; the . stations were • sent to parts of -the iState> and grown for varying periods before any seed was taken from them and sown at their original home. The returned seed .was always sown alongside of seed that had been growing continuously for some -years on the station farm, and in every instance the " old' *•' seed gave greater returns than that which had had a change of conditions. He summed up by saying that '' loss always occurs by mere change of seed, except oiily when there is a change to a better type of wheat or more vigorous grain of the same type." At Koseworthy Agricultural College, King's EarJy-' wheat had been grown continuously for the last 20 odd years Without change of seed, and the average yield of that variety for the last eight years had been 20 bushels —though the last three of these had been bad grain years. Gkryas also had been grown at that institution for the last 18 years without change of seed, and a block of it last harvest yielded 26 bushels to the acre. Those illustrations did not tend to show that a change of seed was necessary.

Apart from what scientific workers co\ild do in plant-breeding all farmers could do a little toward improving the good wheats already available or at least prevent- them from deteriorating. All of them could remember some really good wheats, which were hardly heard of nowadays- "Because," some of them would say, "better wheats had taken their place," which was true in some cases, but not so true as they tried to make out. For instance, Marshall's No.'3 was not so good as it was some years ago, not because a now wheat had taken its place, not because it had been neglected. There had been complaints lately about Federation, and Unless more men than the few who were keeping it up to the standard came into the field it would go the way other good \Vheats had gone. He mentioned these two varieties because they were both wonderful wheats for Australian conditions.

There were methods of improving wheats well within the reach of farmers. First, there was the selection of the grain. This was done by a mechanical ' ' grading.'' It consisted of separating the largest and plumpest of the grains from the broken and the shrivelled ones, and the removal of most seeds of other plants. This treatment did much to improve yields when only the best grains were used for seed, and it certainly improved the plants that came under its influence; but it did practically nothing toward keeping the varieties down to one type. This grading of the seed had been proved again and again to much more thau pay for itself in the increased crop. 'Dr N. A. Cobb, while in the New South Wales Department of Agriculture, tested this question thoroughly for five years, and used 24 varieties of wheats. He had summed up his results as follow:—!. "The germinating power of large seeds is greater than that of small ones of the same variety and the same harvest. 2. Under similar conditions large seeds always give higher yields of both grains and straw. 3. The percentage of large grains in wheat from large seed is always greater than from small seeds. 4. The weight per bushel of grain produced from, large seed io greater than from small seed."