THE WHEAT CROP

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 253, 6 August 1937, Page 7

THE WHEAT CROP

YIELDS AND PRICES. AVERAGES SINGE 1869. (Special to the “Guardian.”) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Much informative data are contained in a graph prepared by the V beat Committee, showing the acreage sown in wheat in New Zealand, the total crop, average yield, and price for every year from 1869 to 1936. The lowest average yield was 17.95 bushels in 1898, and the price that year was 4s 6Jd f.o.b. a bushel. The next lowest average yield was 18.99 bushels in 1891, when the price was 4s 2d a bushel. In the period of 67 years covered by the graph the average yield fell below 25 bushels on no fewer than 20 occasions. The highest average yield was 36.56 bushels in 1928, the next highest being 36.54 bushels in 1933. The highest total yield was 13,073,416 bushels in 1899, the area sown that year being 399,034 acres, and the average yield 32.76 bushels. The next highest total yield was 11,054,972 bushels in 1933, the area sown being 302,531 acres and the average return 36.54 . bushels. In 1922 the total crop was 10,564,275 bushels, the next highest return plotted being 10,270,591 bushels in 1883. The price fluctuations disclosed are interesting. The price varied from 2s B;}d in 1900 (the lowest return to growers recorded by the graph) to 7s in the years 1920 and 1921. The area harvested in 1920 was ofily 139,611 acres, yielding 4,559,934 bushels, and in 1921219,985 acres, yielding 6,872,262 bushels. The (price for the highest known yield, that of 1,899, was 2s 10£d a bushel, and that for the next highest, that of 1933, 3s lOd. This tends to suggest that the price paid to growers was not the main factor in determining the area planted. The first crop l shown on the graph, that of 1869, was only 1,619,169 bushels, harvested from 64,517 acres, and. the price that year was 49 6|d a bushel. The smallest area sown this century was in 1920, when only 139,611 acres were /harvested, the next smallest being in 1926, when, during a period of high prices, only 151,673 acres of wheat were grown. THIS YEAR’S OPERATIONS. A SMALLER AREA SOWN. CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. The final returns have been received by the Wheat Committee, in response to its request to farmers, by means or a questionnaire, to supply particulars of their own sowings of wheat and those of their neighbours. These leave the position practically the same as it was last month, when the interim returns from farmers were published, showing a shrinkage of approximately 10 per cent in the wheat area intended to be sown this year. . % Last year, the farms from which information has been obtained sowed 23,894 acres, roughly 10 per cent, of the total area. Experience of former years goes to show that the groups of farmers furnishing the information to the committee are .widely representative of the wheat-growing districts, and form a reliable index of the situation.