... while harvesting gathers pace

Press, 7 February 1986, Page 13

... while harvesting gathers pace

A few days of hot dry weather and Canterbury will resound to the noise of combine harvesters, according to the general manager of the Wheat Board, Mr Guy Elliott. He said on Tuesday that the wheat harvest would begin in earnest within days in central and southern Canterbury and was only awaiting a short dry spell. AH wheat crops were ripe but many had moisture levels which were too high.

“The weather pattern has concentrated the harvest,” he said, “and all the grain will come off very quickly when the dry spell comes.

“About half the wheat has been harvested in North Canterbury and the board has begun moving the lower-quality end to North Island mills by container where it

will be mixed with imported grain” He expected 1000 tonnes of 15 to 17 MDD baking score wheats would be loaded out of Christchurch and Ashburton stores for the North Island this week.

By the end of February the first bulk shipment from Timaru would be dispatched. The board expects that about 50,000 tonnes to 70,000 tonnes will need to be imported this year to make up New Zealand milling requirements.

South Island mills will be able to concentrate on the higher-quality domestic wheats and the imported wheat and lowerquality domestic wheats' would continue to be blended in the North Island.

“Flour quality for 1980 will be maintained as even as possible and on a

level similar to 1985,” he said.

In spite of some gloomy pre-harvest predications, the quality of this season's wheat wilt be good, according to the Wheat Research Institute.

Oroua has an average MDD bakescore of 24, Rongotea 22.33 and Advantage 20.6 after testing of the first 223 lines of the 1986 harvest

The average MDD bakescore to date is 22.6 compared with 21.1 last year. Most of this increase resulted from a bigger proportion of Oroua being grown. The incidence of

sprout damage has been low so far, but with the recent rain, checks for sprout damage in baked loaves will have to continue. This results in a delay of several hours before the loaf can be

judged. Only one bug-damaged line has been detected and this was from the Dunedin area. Bug damage occurs when insects feeding on the grain inject an enzyme into the wheat kernel which is capable of destroying the gluten protein. When bread is baked from bug-damaged wheat the loaf collapses completely. The enzymes involved are very potent and if even a small amount of damaged wheat is gristed with large quantities of sound wheat, the resulting flour is unusable for break baking.