H.—34.

WHEAT RESEARCH INSTITUTE. The activities of the Institute are centred about wheat-breeding, wheatgrowing practice, and laboratory investigations, and notable progress in each of these lines of research is reported. " Cross 7 " was made available in sufficient quantity this season to enable it to be grown by about one hundred farmers. Two new wheats, named Taiaroa and Tainui, have been selected as suitable for distribution —the former to Otago and Southland and the latter to Canterbury. Some interesting experiments on the correlation of wheat-yield and soil-moisture have been continued, and it has been shown clearly that an adequate supply of soil-moisture is more important in October, while the numerous tillers produced in September are developing into ears, than in any other month of the period September to February. The past season has been remarkable for widespread sprout damage to wheat. The sprouted wheats themselves, when milled and baked, give very poor loaves that are often useless for commercial purposes, but they can be blended in limited amounts into grists of sound wheats. The laboratory was faced with the problem of determining what percentage of sprouted wheat can be blended with sound wheat without damaging the resulting bread. The baking test was found on the whole to give a good indication of sprout damage in flours, and a new system of recording sprout injury has been evolved. In addition to the large amount of routine work on the testing of wheats and flours, the laboratory has continued its investigations of a number of physical and physico-chemical methods of assessing quality in flour. Experiments on the use of lemon-juice as a bread improver have given notably good results. DAIRY RESEARCH. The year under review has witnessed steady progress in all the activities of the Dairy Research Institute, which are directed towards scientific control of every stage in the manufacture and transport of dairy-products. Previous work on the problem of starters for Cheddar cheese has shown that a culture of lactic streptococci which will produce acid at the required rate, and, furthermore, which would continue to grow at the comparatively high temperature of 100° F. produced the best results. This work has been followed up by selecting suitable strains, which are now in constant use in many cheese-factories. The problem of preventing the destruction of lactic streptococci by bacteriophage is a most difficult and baffling one, and although it has been attacked from numerous aspects, with useful results, a complete solution has not yet been reached. Two important defects of cheese, openness and discoloration, have been traced to strains of lactobacilli, and it appears that the most practical method of controlling openness is the use of pure cultures as starters. Investigations on the flavour of butter in relation to its diacetyl content have been extended to follow the distribution of this compound and its flavourless precursor, carbinol, during the manufacturing processes, and its fate during cold storage. Field investigations in connection with feed flavour in butter which were started last year by the Plant Research Station, the Dairy Division of the Department of Agriculture, and several commercial factories in the Waikato were continued, and at the same time more strictly controlled trials were initiated by the Dairy Research Institute. The results confirmed the previous year's findings — namely, that, wherever an appreciable proportion of clover was present in the feed, a taint appeared in the cream. Furthermore, it has been shown that the time of consumption of the taint-producing plants by the animal in relation to the time of milking has a bearing on the development of feed flavours. The way has now been cleared for an investigation of ways and means of minimizing or eliminating feed-taints. This will require an examination of methods of farm-management, systems of feeding, and methods for the processing of cream. The Institute has published a large number of papers during the year, and close contact with dairy organizations has been maintained through press articles and public addresses. FRUIT RESEARCH. With the active co-operation of the various participating bodies in New Zealand and overseas, a comprehensive programme of work has been carried out, covering all aspects of the production, storage, and transport of fruit. The most important result of the year's manurial trials has been to demonstrate the superiority of " complete " fertilizer dressings, containing phosphate, potash, and nitrogen. Experiments were also carried out on the correlation of manurial treatment with susceptibility of the fruit to breakdown, &c, under cold-storage conditions. Further progress has been made in the various botanical, entomological, and mycological investigations, and also in the standardization of spray applications. Following the discovery of the effectiveness of boron in controlling corky-pit in apples, which was referred to in last year's report, more extensive investigations have been carried out during the past year by the Cawthron Institute, and by Mr. J. D. Atkinson in the Braeburn district. Top-dressing with borax and injection or spraying with a solution of borax have proved equally successful in curing the disease. Examination of soils top-dressed with borax has shown that the boron penetrates very rapidly, and there does not appear to be any danger of a harmful accumulation of boron compounds. Further investigation is required to discover how long the effects of top-dressing, or spraying with borax will last. Determinations of the boron status of soils and fruit have been made, and it has been shown that healthiness of the fruit is accompanied by a substantial increase in the amount of boron contained in it. There is evidence that boron deficiency is also responsible for the occurrence of corky-pit in Otago, and it is proposed to analyse samples of soils and fruit in order to check this.

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