CEREAL EXPERIMENTS AT THE AKROK FIELD STATIC JS'. 15 



WINTER WHEAT. 



Winter wheat has been more profitable in this section than spring 

 wheat. The most important varieties are the hard red winter wheats 

 belonging to the Crimean or Turkey group. Six varieties have been 

 grown continuously since the Akron Field Station was established 

 in 1907. Rate-of-seedmg and date-of -seeding experiments were 

 started in 1911. Kharkof is the variety that has been used in these 

 tests. An excellent field of winter wheat in the vicinity of the 

 station is shown in figure 4. 



VARIETAL EXPERIMENTS. 



Experiments with winter wheat have been conducted both on 

 field plats and in the nursery. These will be discussed separately. 



PLAT EXPERIMENTS. 



The winter-wheat varieties have been sown each year on land 

 prepared by clean summer fallow. The date of seeding has varied 







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Fig. 4.— "Winter wliPit m shcirk on a farm m (he vicinity of the Akron Field Station, 1912. 



because of weather conditions. Table VIII gives the dates on which 

 sowing commenced each year. Except in the fall of 1907, the sowing 

 has been done in September. The rate of seeding was 4 pecks 

 per acre in 1907 and 3 pecks per acre in the following years. No 

 fixed depth of seeding has been used. The object has been to sow 

 the seed in moist soil, and in dry seasons this means 2 or 3 inches 

 below the surface. Table IX shows the annual and average yields 

 of 17 varieties of winter wheat grown at the Akron Field Station 

 within the 8-year period, 1908 to 1915, inclusive. 



In the fall of 1907 the winter- wheat varieties were sown on land 

 which had been broken the previous summer. Although the seed 

 was sown late (Nov. 5), a good stand was obtained, and the varieties 

 adapted to this part of the Plains gave fair yields. A number of 

 varieties which failed completely are not included in Table IX. 



In the fall of 1908 the seed was treated with formaldehyde solu- 

 tion for smut. The germination was slow. Counts for stand were not 



