“IN THE SAME BOX.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20233, 17 February 1934, Page 32 (Supplement)

“IN THE SAME BOX.”

Millers and Farmers in a Quandary. SAMPLING WHEAT. “Our many years of experience in deciding on the quality of wheat by the appearance of the sample seem to be coming to nought. We don’t know where we are now, and the millers and farmers are in the same box,” declared a prominent Christchurch grain merchant yesterday, in commenting on the surprising results obtained through baking tests carried out by the Wheat Research Institute. Wheat samples which in previous years would have been classed as of high quality often gave a very poor baking score, said the merchant. Some of the best baking scores came from roughlooking wheat which previously had run a big risk of being rejected by millers. Some millers had been conducting their own baking tests for many years, but testing had been placed on a more scientific basis*only in the last year or two, since the Wheat Research Institute had got into full working order. Much more testing for baking quality had been carried out this year owing to the first batch of wheat samples having contained much poor stuff. That fall in baking content had been brought about by frost and through those crops having been too far forward to benefit to any extent from the December rains, which had ended a very dry period. The later crops obtained the advantage of that moisture, and it was expected that the baking scores in the future would show a corresponding improvement. That was indicated already by some of the returns. The main purpose of the baking test, by which samples of wheat were ground into flour in the small mill on the Wheat Research Institute’s premises, and were, then made into bread, was to assist millers in blending their flour. The practice was to get a fair average flour by blending the wheat from several districts. The quality of Australian wheat, which in times of shortage here was used for blending, had deteriorated in the last ten years owing to concentration on high-yielding varieties; and the quality of the New Zealandgrown article was now quite as good as that from across the Tasman. Farmers, said the merchant, were continually complaining when millers asked for a baking test before buying the wheat, in the quality of w’hich the growers had for years had implicit faith, there was no fear of the wheat not being sold, provided it were passed as milling quality by the Wheat Purchase Board’s graders, for the board was bound to purchase that quality. Baking tests did not enter into the board s system of grading. Last year the board had begun buying on its own account about the middle of April, and indications were that purchases would be made from about the same time this season.