WHEAT BREEDING 



Many Genetists Working With Important Cereal Crop — What They Have 



Accomplished — Hope for Future Improvement — Methods 



of Procedure/ 



A. E. V. Richardson 

 Agricultural Superintendent, Victoria Department of Agriculture, Melbourne, 



Australia. 



S 



YSTEMATIC breeding of wheat 

 and other cereals has been prac- 

 tised for many years past in the 

 United States, Canada, Ger- 

 France, Sweden, Britain, and 



teristic of the Manitoba wheats ; and (c) 

 immunity from yellow rust {Puccinia 

 glumarum) . He claims to have achieved 

 considerable success in this direction. 



In Sweden, the wheat breeding is 

 concentrated at Svalof under the direc- 

 tion of the Swedish Grain Society. 

 This society has done a vast amount of 

 good in introducing superior varieties of 

 wheat in Swedish agriculture. No less 

 than fifteen trained plant specialists are 

 engaged in this work. Details of this 

 institution will be discussed later. 



In Germany, a large number of public 

 and private institutions are engaged in 

 the improvement of cereals and root 

 crops. According to Hillman,^ there 

 are no less than 84 breeders engaged on 

 the improvement of wheat, 46 of rye, 

 65 of barley, 53 of oats and 44 of fodder 

 and sugar-beets. 



A considerable amount of work has 

 been done in India towards the improve- 

 ment of local wheats by selection and 

 crossing. 



WHEAT BREEDING IN AUSTRALIA. 



The outstanding feature in wheat- 

 breeding work in Australia is the 

 remarkable success achieved by that 

 patient and retiring genius, the late 

 William Farrer, of New South Wales, 

 in every branch of wheat improvement. 



A man who could set out as clearly 

 and comprehensively as Farrer,^ both 

 the goal toward which he was striving 

 in his work of wheat improvement, 

 and the methods whereby he hoped to 



1 Parts of a paper read before the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 January, 1913; published in altered form in Bui. 22, n. s., Victoria Department of Agriculture. 



2 Year-book of the U. S. Department of Agriculture 1908, p. 155. 



3 P. Hillman, Arb. Deut. Landw. Gesell. (1910) No. 168. 



^Farrer: The making and improv^ement of new varieties of wheat for Australian conditions. 

 Agricultural Gazette (N.S.W.), February, 1898. 



123 



many 

 India. 



A large number of agricultural ex- 

 periment stations and colleges in the 

 United States are at present engaged in 

 breeding new varieties of wheat. The 

 Minnesota station has originated numer- 

 ous varieties, two of which have "yielded 

 from 1 to 3 bushels more per acre than 

 the varieties formerly grown. "^ Other 

 stations, particularly Maryland, North 

 Dakota, California, and Ohio, have 

 done much valuable work in the pro- 

 duction of new varieties and the im- 

 provement of existing types. 



In Canada most of the breeding and 

 selecting of wheat has been done in 

 connection with the Dominion Experi- 

 ment Farm system on the central station 

 at Ottawa. The late William Saunders 

 began the work of wheat improvement 

 in Canada in 1888. Working on the 

 Red Fife wheats, he succeeded in pro- 

 ducing the cross-bred varieties Stanley, 

 Preston, Huron, Marquis, and Bishop, 

 which are now wideh' grown throughout 

 Canada. 



In England, Biff en of Cambridge has 

 done a large amount of work in wheat 

 improvement, paying special attention to 

 the production of a variety of wheat com- 

 bining the important qualities of (a) 

 high yielding capacity of the English 

 varieties; (6) the high strength charac- 



