New Varieties of Wheat and Lucerne.

King Country Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 86, 12 June 1908, Page 3

New Varieties of Wheat and Lucerne.

It is reported that the botanical branch of of Agriculture at Washington (U.S.A.) has discovered a new type of wheat which will thrive on a 10-inch rainfall. This, if true, will prove of great importance as such a type would prove invaluable in many parts of the Commonwealth and in South Africa, where agriculture needs drought-resisting crops. A cold-resisting variety of lucerne is also said to have been discovered. Writing on these reported discoveries, the London Standard has the following remarks : —" Great local differences in rainfall are the main trouble of the American botanists, but a type of wheat has now been found which will grow in a region with lOin. of rain. Now, to mate with it, or to alternate with it, to maintain fertility, and to supply much needed vegetable matter in the soil, a dry land legume is required. A second search has found the desiderated plant in a new variety of lucerne. Many new varieties of lucerne, not to mention other fodder and crop plants, have been discovered in different parts 'of the world by the officers of the division of plant introduction. In early summer one expert returned from the limits of northern cultivation in the Arctic" circle with three hew types of lucerne —one with a yellow flower, not improbably connected with our own weedy species, sickle medick, Medicago falcata. It is hoped that a plant with greater power than common varieties of resisting the effects of cold weather may have been found. The weak point of lucerne which has been in cultivation in climates that become cold in winter is its liability to be checked in growth by frost, and to go under during the cold season. In Argentina, where lucerne has been successful on a very large scale,, the method of overcoming the difficulty is to sow with it either ryegrass or Bromus inermis, which grow in the winter months and disappear during the warm weather of summer, when the lucerne is at its best."