14 BULLETIxN" 297, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



in soil and in seasons, the importance of weather and soil conditions 

 at critical stages of growth, and the variable reaction of varieties 

 to seasonal conditions make it difficult to arrive at definite conclusions 

 by a study of averages alone. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH WHEAT. 



The experiments with wheat at Newell have included plat and 

 nursery tests of both spring and winter varieties. In addition to 

 the varietal tests there have been rate-of-seeding experiments with 

 spring wheat and date-of-seeding experiments with winter wheat. 



Because there is always a ready market for the grain and its value 

 is high in comparison with its bulk, wheat is always an important 

 crop in a newly settled district. For that reason the experiments 

 with wheat at Newell have been more extensive and of greater popu- 

 lar interest than those with any other grain. Considerable effort 

 has been devoted to the improvement of varieties by selection. 



SPRING WHEAT. 



Spring wheat is much more commonly grown in western South 

 Dakota than winter wheat. There is considerable diversity in 

 varieties, for both common and durum wheats are grown. The 

 common wheats include representatives of the Fife, bluestem, and 

 Preston (bearded Fife) groups. A varietal test of spring wheat 

 has been conducted on the Belle Fourche Experiment Farm each 

 year since 1908. A rate-of-seeding test with Kubanka durum wheat 

 was begun in 1909 and was continued throughout the period here 

 discussed. 



VARIETAL TEST OF SPRING WHEAT. 



The spring-wheat varieties included in the tests at Newell are those 

 which have given the best results in other dry-land districts, with the 

 addition of a few which have been introduced recently from foreign 

 countries. Because so many of the poorer ones were eliminated by 

 previous tests elsewhere, the varieties grown at Newell do not show 

 wide variations in yield. 



Twelve varieties and strains of durum wheat and thirteen of com- 

 mon wheat have been grown in plats. In some cases several lots of 

 the same variety from different sources have been included in the 

 test. Therefore, only 6 varietal names of durum and 10 of common 

 wheat are represented by the 25 lots. The animal and average yields 

 for all varieties and strains are shown in Table IX. 



As shown in Table IX, good yields of spring wheal were produced 

 in 1908, 1909, and 1913, fair yields of some varieties in 1910, and fail- 

 ures of practically all varieties in 1911 and 1912. Only five of the 

 durum varieties and strains and five of the common varieties have 

 been grown during all of the six years (190S-1913). 



