5-48 Agricultural Gazette of N.S.W. [Aug. 2, 1920. 



Thk Selection of Pkomising Wheat Plants. 



Considerable attention has recently been called to the subject of plant 

 selection, especially in regard to wheat. It has been suggested that men 

 should be employed to travel round the wheat districts in the harvest season 

 to select productive plants or heads in farmers' crops. It is perhaps desirable 

 that such selectors should have special training, but it is questionable 

 whether any further training is required than a keen eye for observing 

 plants which are more vigorous than their neighbours. Tra'ining and 

 method are necessary, or at any rate desirable, in the testing of such 

 individuals when once gathered, but the selection could be done by any 

 intelligent and observant farmer or his son. Selectors are apt to have 

 preconceived notions about the best plants or heads to pick out. It might 

 here be stated that, for all practical purposes in breeding and selection, the 

 stalks arising from an individual plant have the same value and show the 

 same characteristics as a single head from that plant. Some experimenters 

 prefer a broad or clubbed head, others a cigar-shaped head; some like to 

 see short awns, and others prefer the head to be entirely awnless. Some look 

 for a head with a large number of grains per spikelet, and others are content 

 if the head is merely of great length. The fact is that these are not essential 

 points in isolating a high-yielding variety, though they may be a guide. 

 Yield of grain per plant is the final and conclusive indication of produc- 

 tivity. Defects such as weakness of straw, shattering of grain, rust liability, 

 and undue softness of grain would disqualify a plant for selection, but an 

 individual with medium-sized heads often has more stalks and gives a 

 greater yield than a plant with very large heads. Miracle or Mummy 

 wheat is an instance of this. 



A farmer who passes through his crops every day for perhaps a month 

 before he starts stripping has a better chance of seeing a particularly 

 desirable plant as the wheat begins to ripen than a visiting expert, who may 

 only have time to spend half a day at the farm. One may say, " How are 

 you going to get farmers sufficiently interested to bother with plant 

 selection?" It is quite likely that only a few would take it up, but with 

 even two or three keen selectors in each wheat district we should have a 

 quantity of material tested each season among which useful local varieties 

 are likely to be found, and possibly varieties adapted to more than one 

 wheat district. When located in the crop, plants so selected for separate 

 harvesting should bo marketl by tying a narrow strip of coloured print just 

 below the head, and before stripping such plants should be pulled up by the 

 roots and hung up away from mice till they can be threshed. 



Such selections might be tested in rows adjacent to standard varieties, 

 and if superior could be forwarded to the Department for further testing. 

 The apparent superiority which took the eye in the field is not always trans- 

 mitted to the next generation, and only testing in an isolated plot with other 

 selections and alongside a standard variety for comparison will prove 

 whether the selection is worth going on with or not. — J. T. Pridham. 



