IMPROVEMENT OF WOOL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 109, 11 May 1931, Page 11

IMPROVEMENT OF WOOL

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH BREEDING FOR HIGHER YIELD. PROBLEM OF COABSE ITBKE. Wool research problems were dealt t with by Dr. F. W. Dry, lecturer in agricultural zoology at Massey College, when ho addressed the Palmerston North Horary Club. He stated that i tho aim of the work was to achieve i something which could have a. useful, 1 practical application to tho flocks, enabling the production of more and better wool than at. present at the same cost. Discussing methods, Dr. Dry staged that they had been associated with the weighing of fleeces. He stated chat if shoep of, say, the age of two years were culled to eliminate those below the average weight of fleece, it would be found that next year the fleeces of those retained would be about one pound heavier. That was not a great discovery. It was only common sense. It pointed to the fact that it was hoped to achieve with the fleece of the sheep what the herdroster was doing with the milk of the cgw, but in the case of the former the problems to bo overcome were both complex and difficult. Ultimately it was hoped to send from Massey College men able to advise on the right lines of breeding. Requirements of Trade. Problems connected with quality or kind in their broader aspects were discussed by Dr. Dry, who said that Bradford interests had indicated repeatedly that they wanted more coarse lustre wool of the Lincoln type, and wanted a long length of wool, for which their machines were adapted. To bring that about it was necessary to change the inborn properties of the fleece by selective breeding. Dealing with harshness of wool, Dr. Dry said it was unpleasant and undesirable. From the practical point of view the major problems included the recognition of harshness. Some was readily perceptible, but other fleeces with this defect were not readily apparent to rhe farmer’s hand, which was in most cases not delicately sensitive to touch. Harshness was due tv irregularities of the surface wool. Hairy Fibres. There were different kinds of hairy fibres. Kemp was obviously undesirable. Those fibres fell out in from six to eight weeks and were replaced by ocher kemps, hairy or soft wools, and this showed the complexities of the matter so far as anticipation of the fleece was concerned. “I believe that if the growth is vigorous when kemp appears in the early stages, it is likely to follow on, but that if the growth is not vigorous > then there is likely to be good wool, instead of kemp later,” said Dr. Dry. in expressing the hope that it would soon be possible to determine when an ’ animal was three months old what the later wool was likely to be like. Research workers were learning to judge quite early in tho life of the animal what tho first fleece was going to be. It was hoped later to be eble to determine the nature of the second and later fleeces by similar methods. Exemplifying the perplexities of inherent characteristics, Dr. Dry stated that if a lamb which was kempy at birth, but did not sustain that defect later, was crossed with another which was not kempy at birth, but whose wool had made tho vigorous growth favourable to that condition, a lamb might be produced which was not only kempy at the start, but reproduced that defect in later wool growth. Concluding, Dr. Dry said that breeding selection among sheep was being investigated both from tho point of view of eradicating undesirable features and multiplying the desirable ones. Nothing creative had been attempted, but benzol tests had been - conducted for hairiness and there had • been research to secure detailed knowI ledge of the construction of fibre 3 types.