SMALL GRAIN INVESTIGATIONS 



Work Conducted by the Department of Plant Breeding at Cornell University'- 

 Report Should Stimulate Interest — Cooperation Between 

 Institutions Important 



H. H. Love and W. T. Craig 



In Cooperation With the Office of Cereal Investigations, 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture 



THE authors think it advantage- 

 ous for workers in different 

 laboratories to pubUsh a brief 

 outUne of lines of investigation 

 together with some of the results ob- 

 tained. A very interesting outline was 

 given in this Journal by H. D. Hughes 

 of the Iowa State College. Such re- 

 ports stimulate interest in the various 

 lines of work and give all a better idea 

 of the kinds of experiments under way 

 in the several institution?*. 



The small grain work of the Depart- 

 ment of Plant Breeding at Cornell 

 University is conducted in cooperation 

 with the Office of Cereal Investiga- 

 tions. The principal lines of work 

 may be divided as follows : 



The comparison of varieties, pure 

 line selections and selections from hy- 

 brids of wheat, oats, barley and rye. 



Pure line breeding work with selec- 

 tions from wheat and oats. 



Variation and correlation studies with 

 the different cereals. 



Hybridization work with wheat, oats, 

 rye and barley. 



VARIETIES COMPARED 



Under the first heading the work 

 has been directed toward improving 

 yield and other desirable qualities of 

 the small grains. As a basis for this 

 work, comparative trials have been 

 made of the already existing varieties 

 to determine the most desirable ones. 

 Selections have been made from these 

 and from fields throughout the State 



and, when multiplied, compared directly 

 with the best varieties. While these 

 selections are being made and tested 

 any new commercial sorts offered by 

 seedsmen that seem promising are ob- 

 tained for the comparative trials also. 

 The selections are first tested in head 

 rows, then in the rod rows and finally 

 in plats. (Figs 9, 10 and 11.) A very 

 large number of wheat, oat, barley and 

 r^^e selections have been made. In 

 addition to selection, hybridization is 

 also used as a means of obtaining 

 better sorts and a large number of 

 hybrids are now under test. 



Any sorts that seem worth while in 

 the comparative trials have been dis- 

 tributed to farmers for comparison 

 with the sorts they are growing. A 

 ntmiber of selections have been ob- 

 tained which have given promise of 

 being worthy of cultivation commerci- 

 ally, in fact, certain of these are already 

 being grown by the farmers of the State. 

 The work with wheat and oats has been 

 under way longer so that at present 

 more of these sorts have been under 

 test and distributed to farmers. 



RESULTS ARE COMPREHENSIVE 



The results obtained by selecting 

 high yielding types of oats from varie- 

 ties ma}^ be shown* by the following 

 table. In this table only a few of the 

 selections are shown. These results 

 have been obtained on the trial grounds 

 of the Agricultural Experiment Station 

 at Ithaca, New York. 



Paper No. 67, Department of Plant Breeding, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 



67 



