Speeding Up Nature

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 48, 13 June 1930, Page 32

Speeding Up Nature

T the Canadian Government experimental farms, batteries of electric lights are being used in greenhouses in the evenings to mature two crops of wheat in the same year, and so save time in the development of promising new varieties. Time is of importance, because usually it takes eight years to produce enough seed of a new sort to test it for yield in field trials. By maturing a second crop in greenhouses during the winter, the period until field testing is thus halved. The batteries are of 3800-watt lamps, and without them the indoor crop would be lacking in vigour, and would not mature in time to effect any saving. Several hardy varieties have been developed at the Government farms.