WHEAT GROWING EXPERIMENTS

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9462, 3 June 1909, Page 3

WHEAT GROWING EXPERIMENTS

For Bom3 two or three years experiments have been extensively carried on, in Russia, in the growth of wheat, and now a method has been discovered by which seventy pounds of ripe corn is gathered as the product of only one grain of seed. As the modustoperandi will no doubt interest many of our readers we hereunder give it as it appeared in a late issne of an English newspaper : —The Russian wheat-planting experiments still continue to arouse great interest among Russians, and somejsof their illustrated papers contain pictures of the results of the system. It is claimed for the experiments, which have chiefly been carried out at Annapolis, that they p-ove both that wheat can yield hO enormously as to support a man on a fraction of an acre and that it can be inade in some degree perennial. It ’ls difficult to believe, as is claimed, that a single seed can produce 701 bof fl'rain and an acre carry 45 tons, bat the new method is certainly worth the attention of the experimental stations, and may be tried by any amateur in any square yard or garden. The method is as follows: Jftach grain is planted in a conical pit, 11 to 17 inches deep and 42 inches wide. After every three weeks the sprouting grain is covered with a layer of earth, and this may be repeated ten times. The result, according to the account quoted in a Russian paper, is that each grain planted in the inverted heap of the conical pit gives a stalk with blades. Under the blades is a thickening of the stalks which is called the “bashing knots.“ If the stalk with the knot is covered with earth to the depth of half a finger it has thej property of taking root and giving no fewer than three fresh shoots with bushing knots on each stalk. These three shoots, if covered will each produce three more, and son ou, so that after each covering with earth the number <Jf the jstalks w.ill be trebled : After Ist covering ... 3 stalks. After 2nd covering ... 9 stalks. After 3rd covering ... 27 stalks. After 8 coverings ... 6,561 stalks. Alter 9 coverings .. 19,683 stalks. After 10 coverings ... 39,049 stalks. The ten coverings will take thirtythree weeks of which three weeks will be required for the first growth after the planting, and then each of the other ten coverings three weeks or less, according to the climate. If the covering is limited to ten times, then as the winter comes on a green carpet is produced of 60,000 stalks. In cases where the layer of rich soil is very thin and a gopd crop is desired, the following system can be applied -Plant the grain as you would for seedlings, and replant the shoots soil of the pit in three week’s time, but Into a less deep hole, and then cover with earth as In the first This replanting often gives a very strong growth, producing after the first bashing fifty or more stalks, so that having covered it' only eight times the number of stalks amount to 105,850. This mode of cultivation requires no watering, as the air having free access to the roots leaves the moisture and g’.a necessary for the growth of the plant.