EXPERIMENT STATION REPORTS. 



2i»T 



Alfalfa Improvement Work — Individual Plant Row and Individual Plant Study. 



as in the case of wheat crosses involving color and hardness of grain. When 

 such segregations are important, plant notes may need to be taken on 

 all of the individuals of the phenotype involving the other desirable 

 characters. The final selections are made on the basis of the segregations 

 revealed by the individual threshing. 



PLANT-ROW TESTING. 



The seed from selected homozygous plants are planted in a plant-to-row 

 series with frequent checks. for comparison. The seed of selected heterozy- 

 gous plants go to centgeners to allow segregation and reselection. 



In the case of corn the ear-row test is in fact a row series of centgeners. 

 Some of the plant-rows can be discarded at harvest time by inspection. 

 Others go on to 1-100 acre plats and later to the regular variety series. 



In corn work, ears from selfed plants will be subjected to the ear-to- 

 row tests in order to decide on the most desirable and productive strains. 

 Remnants of the ears will be saved for future planting. 



Trueness to type is one of the main points to be looked for in the plant- 

 to-row work. In the self-fertile plants these progenies generate pure- 

 lines that can go directly into the variety testing work. In the case 

 of corn and rye the problem is more difficult, and the types are fixed 

 more slowly. 



MILLING AND BAKING. 



The problem is first to find a wheat that has the sufficient hardiness 

 and yielding ability to justify quality testing. 



The milling work beganjn 1911 with the wheats then in variety test 

 and continued until 1916.1 It thenfbecame^known^that the Red^Rock 

 was the only one that stood a high^baking test among the stiff strawed 

 practical Michigan varieties. The work has rested for the production of 

 new wheats from the breeding work. It is planned to resume the work 

 in 1919 on wheats originating from crosses in 1912. The milling will be 



