40 Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. 1918. 



PLANT BREEDING AT AROOSTOOK FARM IN 1917. 



Oats. 



Oat breeding experiments have been conducted at Aroostook 

 Farm since 19 14. This work has been directed toward develop- 

 ing new and improved varieties of oats which would be better 

 adapted to the conditions in the northern part of this State than 

 those now grown. The work has been carried on along three 

 principal lines: (1) variety tests, (2) pure line selections and 

 (3) hybridization work. 



Comparative trials of commercial varieties more popular 

 in the central part of the State, were begun in 1914, and were 

 continued in 191 5 and 1916. The detailed results of these 

 experiments were published in Bulletins 246 and 260. These 

 results indicate that certain varieties of oats which are well 

 adapted to the conditions in the central and southern part of 

 the State are not suited to Aroostook conditions. It was pro- 

 posed to continue these variety tests for a number of years. 

 Owing, however, to the movement for increased production of 

 farm products in connection with the war emergency, it was 

 deemed advisable to temporarily discontinue the variety test 

 in 191 7, and seed the acreage available for small grains to 

 Maine 340 which has proven to be one of the best varieties so far 

 obtained for Aroostook County. 



As a further means of developing new and better varieties 

 the work with pure line selections was undertaken. The prin- 

 ciple of this work is based on the isolation of prepotent individual 

 plants out of standard commercial varieties. In 1914 several 

 hundred individual plants were selected from varieties known 

 to have been grown in Aroostook for several years. In 191 5 

 the seed from each of these plants was sown in a separate row 

 in the nursery or breeding garden. Thus the plants of each 

 row were the offspring of a single, self-fertilized plant of the 

 year before, and represented what is called a "pure line." Care- 

 ful notes were taken on each row, and those that showed the 

 most desirable characters were harvested and threshed, each 

 row by itself. In 1916 the seed of each of the most promising 

 rows was planted in 5 replicate plots each 1-2000 acre in area. 

 The rather high number of replications offered a safer basis 



