WHEAT GROWING IN NEW ZEALAND

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19511, 9 June 1933, Page 12

WHEAT GROWING IN NEW ZEALAND

XXI. A SOLID STRAW VELVET AND PURPLE STRAW TUSCAN. s (By Wheat Research Institute.) This variety came into prominence on the Ashburton Experimental Farm before the War, where it was at first considered a cross between Velvet and Tuscan. This may have been its origin but it is extremely similar to the variety known as McCallum’s in Canterbury, and to that known as Velvet Ear in South Otago. It has a Solid Straw and a square head with Velvet Chaff. It is a good all round wheat, and it is just touch and go whether or not it is as good as Tuscan, from the points of view, of yield, milling extraction and baking quality. Its similarity is shown in the following table:— Bushels Flour Baking per acre, percent. Score. Tuscan . 51.9 69.8 29.5 S.S. Velvet 52.4 72.0 28.5 From these figures one would not know which wheat to recommend, but this is not the whole story. Solid Straw Velvet is much less wind resistant than Tuscan, and therefore is not at all suitable for most of the country that Tuscan now occupies. For the less windy country where Hunters succeeds the Solid Straw Velvet is again not suitable because it has lower quality than Hunters without any higher yield. Thus we reach the conclusion that Solid Straw Velvet has no place in Canterbury or North Otago. In South Otago, however, and in Central Otago large areas of Solid Straw Velvet are grown, this variety accounting for an average of 78,000 acres or about 20 per cent, of the total crop. It is entered in the statistics as Velvet, although it is graded only as Tuscan by millers and merchants, a classification justified by the milling and baking quality shown in the table. Some pure smut-free seed is available, but this is for distribution only in the localities where the variety is already grown. Purple Straw Tuscan.

classification justified by the milling and baking quality shown in the table. Some pure smut-free seed is available. but this is for distribution only in the localities where the variety is already grown. Purple Straw Tuscan. One of the earliest wheats to be widely grown in Canterbury was a variety known as Tuscan. It could be sown in either autumn or spring, tillered only slightly, grew tall, had hollow (not solid) straw, and produced a long grain with a rather thick skin. Under certain conditions of soil and climate the straw had a strong tendency to become purple in colour as it ripened, and this gave its name to the variety. The name White Straw Tuscan was also employed, but there was no real difference between the White and Purple Strawed lines. Numerous cases are on record where in the same field, sown all with the same seed, the straw would be purple on the hill and white on the flat; and it was not unusual to see a field where most of the straw was white, but with definite lines of purple straw 'where the soil was shallower, as along the finishes cxf the ploughing. To get over the confusion of the names. White and Purple Straw it has recently become common to refer to this old variety as hollow straw Tuscan, to differentiate it from the Solid Straw Tuscan now in vogue. A particular line of Hollow Straw Tuscan was Talavera de Bellevue—called Talavera for short. Hollow Straw Tuscan and Talavera started to go out of commerce about the beginning of the century, as Solid Straw Tuscan came in, and exceedingly few, if any, crops of it are now grown. In 1929 the Wheat Research Institute asked everyone who had any other kinds of wheat beside Solid Straw Tuscan, Hunters, Pearl and Velvet, to send in samples, so that they could be grown and their variety determined. Thirty samples called White Straw Tuscan, Purple Straw Tuscan or Talavera were received. Twenty-four of them when grown proved to be Solid Straw Tuscan, showing that the old names had carried on, although the old varieties had died out. Six of the samples received were true Hollow Straw Tuscan or Talavera, but their germination was only about 3 per cent., showing that they were very old samples that had been lying on the shelves for years. Thus it is almost certain that no old Tuscan is now grown. Was the Old Variety Really Good? One frequently hears the disappearance of the old variety deplored, but it is pretty certain that its performance was not as good as our memory of it. There are four lines of evidence pointing to this conclusion. (1) Solid Straw Tuscan has beaten it in popular favour. This is the most convincing argument. The new variety would not have exterminated the old one, unless it had been better. (2) The Department of Agriculture and Lincoln College tried Purple Straw and White Straw Tuscan against Solid Straw Tuscan or Hunters for ten years, and the average result was that Solid Straw Tuscan beat it by 7.4 bushels per acre, and Hunters beat it by 4.6 bushels per acre. (3) Lincoln College from 1913 to 1917 worked at producing a pure strain of Purple Straw Tuscan. This was finally distributed in 1918, but after being grown by various farmers for a year or two it dropped out of use in favour of its Solid Strawed rival. (4) A firm of seed merchants obtained a line of Purple Straw Tuscan three or four years ago, but after trials found its yield unsatisfactory and abandoned it.

It thus appears that Purple Straw Tuscan, although good in its time, has been surpassed in yield by the newer varieties or strains. and that it is never likely to be grown again.