CEREAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE BELLE FOUECHE FAEM. 21 



In 1909 and 1913, as shown in Table XI, fairly good yields of both 

 grain and straw were obtained. In 1910 the yields were very small, 

 and in 1912 there was not sufficient growth on any of the plats to 

 make them worth harvesting. In the particularly favorable year 

 1909, the higher rates of seeding gave the best yields. There was 

 little difference in the yields from the different rates in the somewhat 

 less favorable year 1913. In 1910, a very unfavorable year, the 

 plats from the lower rates produced the best yields and in 1912 they 

 made the best growth early in the season. None of the plats, how- 

 ever, produced grain in the latter year. 



The average yields of grain for the four years from the 4, 5, 6, and 

 8 peck rates show very slight variation. The highest yield, 8 bushels 

 to the acre, was produced from the 8-peck rate, while the lowest 

 yield, 7.2 bushels, was produced from the 6-peck rate. The 4-peck 

 rate produced an average yield of 7.4 bushels, only 0.6 bushel less 

 than was produced from sowing 8 pecks. In other words, the extra 

 bushel of seed required at the 8-peck rate produced a gain of only 

 0.6 bushel in the resulting crop, so that the higher rate really entailed 

 a slight loss. The yield of straw is considerably higher from the 4 

 and 5 peck rates than from the 6 and 8 peck rates. 



While the data here presented are far from conclusive, they indi- 

 cate that it is safer to sow 4 or 5 pecks of durum spring wheat in 

 western South Dakota than to sow a larger quantity. Because of 

 the smaller size of the kernels of common wheat and the consequent 

 greater number in a peck, the proper rate of seeding for spring com- 

 mon wheat is 3 or 4 pecks to the acre. 



NURSERY EXPERIMENTS WITH SPRING WHEAT. 



The nursery experiments with spring wheat on the Belle Fourche 

 Experiment Farm have been confined to the testing of pure-line 

 selections of the more important varieties. In 1908 about 100 heads 

 each of durum wheats and of spring common wheats were selected 

 from the varieties in plat tests. These were grown in head rows the 

 following year. In 1910 these selections were grown in 60-foot rows, 

 and in 191 1 in 60-foot rows replicated four or five times. The durum- 

 wheat selections were complete failures in 1911 and produced little 

 grain in 1912, so that only a very small quantity of seed was avail- 

 able for testing in 1913. Only slightly better results were obtained 

 from the selections of common wheat. 



None of the selections has as yet shown any marked superiority 

 over the parent varieties, though there has been considerable varia- 

 tion among the different selections from the same variety. These 

 variations consist principally of differences in earliness, height, yield, 

 and quality of grain. In many cases a selection which has appeared 

 to be particularly good one year has given poor results the next, so 



