YIELDS OF WHEAT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 121, 20 April 1940, Page 12

YIELDS OF WHEAT.

THE MANAAVATU AREA. The Wheat Research Institute each year analyses the threshing 1 returns showing varieties and yields from different districts, so as to advise growers of their .most profitable varieties. In the following remarks the counties of Rangitikoi, Kairanga, Oroua, AI mi a want and Horowhcnua arc treated as one area. In this district the area of wheat has fallen from 6003 acres in the harvest of 1934 to 2000 in 1938 and 1939. The cause of this has largely to do with the better price of fat lambs and improved pastures in recent years. Jumhuck has for many years been the standard wheat for the west coast, and the figures show that this has been a wise selection. The weakness of the. straw of Jumhuck suggested that Cross 7 might replace the older variety in some areas, but it is obvious that Cross 7 docs not do so well as Jumhuck when sown in spring, as is the standard west coast practice. In the harvest of 1939 69 crops of Jumbuek averaged 30.1 bushels per acre, 11 crops of Cross 7 averaged 24.5 bushels per acre. Tt is thus clear that for spring sowing Cross 7 is not- suitable is this locality. Tainui is a wheat produced by the institute for spring sowing, and several preliminary trials indicated that it would he specially suitable for the west coast. r ! he 1940 results are not yet available, but one field of about 20 acres yielded 8 bushels more than a neighbouring crop of Junibuck sown on the same farm under similar conditions. The straw of the r .l ainui is weak but is perhaps a little better than that of Jumhuck. •