THE SOYA BEAN

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 52, Issue 3767, 10 June 1936, Page 7

THE SOYA BEAN

WORTH A TRIAL. A number of farmers at the present time are evincing considerable interest in the soya bean as a profitable crop to grow. Discussing the subject, Dr. D. L. Freeman, of the Kelso branch of the Nelson branch of the Department of Agriculture, said that he considered that adequate investigations might be systematically conducted on Nelson farms with the object of fully establishing the value of the crop in the district’s farm economy. Whether the crop would become popular would depend mainly upon the market for the product and also upon whether the bean proved more productive or more lucrative than certain other crops which were at present cultivated locally. The bean had been grown on an extensive scale in the Orient where it was utilised as a food for human consumption. It was cultivated successfully in Manchuria, or Manchukuo as it is now to be called, which country, it is stated, has a severe winter season which is followed by a short, warm and humid summer.

The soya bean has also become prominent among crops grown in the United States of America, where it has been cultivated both as a seed and also a forage crop. The crop has also been cultivated successfully in Australia.

It will interest many farmers to learn that it was not altogether a strange plant to New Zealand as it was under observation in the Dominion over twenty years ago in both the Taranaki and Auckland provinces. It was possible that certain varieties of the bean might succeed in Nelson, but at present it was. recommended that the crop should be grown only by way of trial. The behaviour of different varieties of the bean was worthy of full investigation. Besides its being utilised for the purposes already referred to, the bean was also grown for its oil, of which substahce the seeds contained an appreciable proportion. About 1001 b of beans might contain in the vicinity of 171 b of this substance.

Soya bean cake was also valued for' the feeding of farm live stock. There is a wide range of varieties of the plant, Dr. Freeman explained. These include early and late kinds, and also varieties with differently-coloured seeds, yellow, black and other colours. The plants may vary from two feet to several feet in height. The bean plant possesses an upright habit of growth with a tendency to produce vines in some varieties. On account of the nature of the season in Nelson and the habits of the plant it is anticipated that the earlier maturing varieties are likely to prove the most successful, those which are capable of attaining maturity in a growing season of short duration. Late varieties were not likely to reach a stage of full development under Nelson’s climatic conditions. The plant should be regarded as in the case of maize or tobacco, as of a more or less tropical character.

The soya bean owes its value as a food in a large measure to the liberal proportions of oil, albumenoid, and other compounds, which the seeds contain.