WHEAT IN MANAWATU.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 249, 18 September 1940, Page 12

WHEAT IN MANAWATU.

YIELDS OF VARIETIES

The Government Statistician has made available summaries of the returns of tho wheat threshings for the harvest of 1940, and the. Wheat Research Institute, as usual, is analysing these so that they may bo used as a guide to farmers for future sowings. Since sowing is possibly still in progress in tho Manawatu, a special advance analysis of the yields in those districts is made available for publication now. Yield for 1940. —Taking together the counties of Rangitikei, Kairanga, Oronn and Manawatu, tho following figures are obtained; they represent about 90 per cent, of the total wheat handled :—Total number of crops of wheat, 102; total acres, 2422: total bushels threshed, 100,653; averago bushels per acre, 41.6.. This is a very high yield, especially for wheat that is mostly spring sown, it has never been approached since 1933, when the yield in the same counties was 43 bushels per acre. • In the intervening six years the average lias been on’y 31.5 bushels per acre. At this time last.year the indication was given that Jumbuck was tho most profitable variety to_ grow, that Cross 7 was obviously not suitable to the Manawatu district/and that Tainui should be tried with caution. Tho yields of- the varieties in the harvest of 1940 strengthen this indication. They arc: Jumbuck, 84 crops, 2097 acres, 42.7 average yield; Cross 7, 4 crops, 73 acres, 32.2 average yield: Tainui, 4 crops, 45 acres. 54.5 average yield. These figures do not include all tho crop, since, where there are fewer than four crops in any county, the yields, etc., are not given. Too much weight, it is stated, should not bo put on the yields of Cross 7 and Tainui, since there wero only four crops of each. Tho best varieties for the district arc apparently as follow:—Jumbuck for all ordinary conditions; Cross 7 where wheat is sown in autumn and where Jumbuck is likely to go’down; Tainui for the latest sowings. This variety should be used only on a small scalo until moro experience is gained, but the indications of higher yield are favourable as far as they go.