WHEAT PRODUCTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 April 1941, Page 6

WHEAT PRODUCTION

BIG SOWING PROPOSED TO MEET DOMINION REQUIREMENTS. DISTRICT ALLOCATIONS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. District allocations in the 300,000 acre wheat sowing which it is hoped will be made this season have been announced by the Director of Primary Production. Mr R. B. Tennent, through the Wheat Committee. The detailed sowing programmes are estimated as follows:— Canterbury, north of Rakaia, 103,000 acres. Ashburton, 74.500 acres. South Canterbury, 57,000 acres. North Otago, including, Waitaki, 18,000 acres. Dunedin, coastal, 12,500 acres. Otago Central and Maniototo, 4,500 acres. Southland, 9,500 acres. Marlborough, 8,500 acres. Nelson, 1,500 acres. Hawke’s Bay, 2.000 acres. Wellington, 9,000. acres. Elaborating the statement, the general manager of the Wheat Committee, Mr R. McPherson, said that on an average yield of 32.31 bushels per acre, 300,000 acres would supply the Dominion’s requirements. This season’s yield was estimated at 35 bushels to the acre. Very few people realised, he said, that every week of the year an average of 5,000 tons of wheat was consumed for all purposes. To sow the area aimed at would require 13,000 tons of seed wheat. New Zealand’s fowl population accounted for nearly 1,000 tons of wheat a week, or about 1,750,000 bushels a year. Except for a small quantity held back for seed, the balance of 4,000 a week was made into flour and wheat meal for human consumption, and bran and pollard.