CEREALS OX THE BELLE FOUECHE EXPEEIMENT FARM. 25 



yield for five years. The October 1 seeding' g-ave the highest yield 

 in 1914 and the September 16 seeding in 1915. 



In the column of Table XW showing the average yields, the re- 

 sults for 1910 are omitted because of the large irregularities pre- 

 viously mentioned. The highest average yield per acre was obtained 

 from the October 1 seeding and the next highest from the September 

 16 seeding. With the exception of 1908, seeding later than October 

 1 resulted in decreased ^delds each year. 



Only limited data are available, but apparently there is no ad- 

 vantage in seeding wheat earlier than September 16 at Newell, In 

 1916 and 1917 the wheat in the clate-of-seeding experiment was so 

 badly injured by soil blowing and winterkilling that it was disked 

 up. It was observed, however, that the plats sown late showed the 

 highest winter survival, the earliest sown wheat having the lowest 

 survival. In both of these years the wheat in the November 1 seed- 

 ing did not emerge and apparently had not begun to germinate until 

 spring. The wheat in these late-sown plats showed a much better 

 stand in the spring than that in the earlier seedings where the plants 

 had emerged in the fall. In the fall of 1914 the wheat in the Novem- 

 ber 1 seeding started to germinate, but the plants did not emerge 

 until about April 15 the following spring. The wheat sown Novem- 

 ber 16 did not even start germination in the fall but it emerged about 

 April 17. The average yield from the three plats sown November 

 16 was 51.9 bushels per acre. 



Winterkilling at Newell is not due to heaving of the plants, but 

 apparently is a result of low temperature, drying out of the soil, and 

 mechanical injury from soil particles blown by the wind. The sur- 

 viving wheat plants die clown to the crown and make no growth dur- 

 ing the winter period of nearly five months. It was observed in these 

 experiments that wheat plants which had reached the 2-leaf stage 

 survived the winter as well as or better than plants which had formed 

 several tillers, 



NURSERY EXPERIMENTS. 



A large part of the nursery work with winter wheat consisted of the 

 testing of the several hundred selections from the Turkey, Kharkof, 

 and Crimean varieties previously mentioned. In 1915, 1916, and 1917" 

 several hundred additional selections of Kharkof were made. Most 

 of these were subsequently destroyed by winterkilling and soil blow- 

 ing during the three rather severe winters of 1915-16, 1916-17, and 

 1917-18. 



Some hybrids made between awnecl and awnless types also were 

 destroyed during this time, A large number of winter-wheat varie- 

 ties were grown in the rursery in 1909 and 1910 and a number each 

 year since then. None of these except the hard red winter varieties 

 77754°— 22 4 



