CEREAL EXPERIMENTS AT THE WILLISTON SUBSTATION. 13 



Investigations, selected pure races from the head-row tests, and any 

 other samples desired for comparison with standard varieties. When 

 promising varieties were discovered, they were increased and placed 

 in the field-plat tests. Taganrog durum wheat (C. I. No. 1570) and 

 a pure line of Manchuria barley (C. I. No. 882) are good examples. 

 Figure 5 shows a portion of the cereal nursery at Williston in 1912. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH WHEAT. 



In the Williston district, spring wheat is grown almost exclusively. 

 Winter wheat has been tried in northwestern North Dakota and 

 adjoining portions of Montana, but with poor results. In most years 

 the winterkilling has been very heavy, and sometimes all the plants 

 have been killed. Occasionally the crop has been quite successful, 

 with little or no winterkilling, giving better results than spring wheat 

 for those particular years. The tests at the Williston substation thus 

 far have shown that whiter wheat has not been a dependable crop. 



SPRING WHEAT. 



The spring wheats of the North-Central States belong to one or the 

 other of two subspecies of wheat, durum and common. The common 

 subspecies include the three groups, fife, bluestem, and preston, as 

 well as a few miscellaneous varieties. 



The spring-wheat varieties have been grown each year on newly 

 broken land, on corn ground, or on fallow. When there were indi- 

 cations of the presence of smut the seed has been treated before sow- 

 ing. Until 1911 the rate of seeding had been 5 pecks of common 

 wheat and 6 pecks of durum wheat per acre. Since that time they 

 have been seeded at the rate of 4 pecks for common and 5 pecks for 

 durum wheat. In the rate-of-seeding tests this latter rate has been 

 found to give as good results as heavier seeding. 



The annual yields produced by all the varieties of spring wheat 

 grown at Williston during the seven years (1908 to 1914) are given 

 in Table VI. The varieties are arranged in five groups, according to 

 their relationships. The groups appear in the tabic in the order of 

 their importance in this locality. Of the 35 varieties grown during 

 the seven years, only 20 were grown in 1914. Seven varieties have 

 been grown for all of the seven years. Table VI also shows the 

 average yield of each variety for the years during which it lias been 

 grown. 



The average annual yields of the different groups are shown in 

 Table VI for each of the years from L908to L914. The durum group 

 made the highest yield in five out of the seven years. In 1910 the 

 durum group yielded lower than any oiher, and in l!)ll ii. yielded 

 lower than any other except the bluestem and the miscellaneous 

 groups. 



