HIGH WHEAT YIELDS.

Shannon News, 15 April 1925, Page 4

HIGH WHEAT YIELDS.

Discussing the, "wheat .yields m the South Island, a writer in the "Weekly Press" gives some interesting information concerning the wonderfully 1 eoojl yields bbtamed by some of the Soutn Island wheat growers during the ■ • present season.' He estimates* that the average-yield will be approximately 35 bushels in spite of several bad weather breaks. ; When comparing this average- with 24 bushels per acre last year and 27 bushels the year before, .it must certainly be considered as very satisfactory. One grower in the Lyndhurst district, says this writer, who usually averages 36 bushels, obtained 60. bushels this year. "That is a bit better than most roundabout," this grower told the writer, "but generally the light land yields are better tha"n tne average by 10 to 15 bushels." On some shingly land in the Ashburton district one grower sold £4OO worth of wheat off 30 acres and kept enough I'see'd for next season's use. At Waikari a grower threshed 53 bushels off •6 0 acres. -In the early stages Jus threshing he discovered that he had to order a third bags.' Five farmers' who'threshed in the-'Amber- | ley district averaged from 42 to 48 bushels, and an Ashley farmer 42 bushels ots. 45 acres. Lincoln College averaged 51 bushels off 110 the second best return on record—and a proportion of the lighter yielding* Velvet variety was included. These' few returns are taken over a wide area in order to -show that the experience of good yields is not local. The heavy land is not threshing up to anything-like th e promise, a natural result of the'pests ' which attacked such crops. It ''■ is just another instance of the old saw about what is one man's medicine is another man's poison. But the light lands yields will compensate for those of heavy land. However, even at 35 bushels per acre the yield Will only be 6,000,000 bushels, and it does not require any mathematical genius,to calculate What the importations will have to be. The dearer loaf may slightly restrict consumption but even so the 1 country requires approximately 8.000,000 bushels of wheat 'annually. The writer adds, that since'the above was in type the first threshing returns have been published, and for I Canterbury they average 41 bushels per acre for a total of 53,300 bushels threshed. This is much ahead of, the "extravagant" reports.