1920.] 



Plant Breeding at Aberystwyth. 



747 



Sixty Day"^ came into ear 12 days earlier than any other variety, t 

 It did not actually ripen, however, any sooner than Dala or 

 YieldeTf but shared first place about equally with these. + The 

 Irish Tan oat§ has evoked favourable comment from hill farmers ; 

 it is very decidedly earlier than Ceirch dii Bach, and would seem 

 to produce an abundance of straw, and it may well be worth 

 consideration for our hilly districts. Of " grain producers " but. 

 slightly or never grown in the district Victory, Crown, Banner 

 and the Danish Oat, Gul Naesgaards, have the appearance of 

 yielding heavy crops. 1 1 



It has been noticed that the potato and closely related varieties 

 have been attacked by both smut and rust to a greater extent 

 than any other group of alhed varieties. 



Yield trials will be conducted on a greatly reduced number of 

 varieties next spring, and will be followed up for several years ; 

 the duplicated small plot will form th^ basis of all the trials. 

 One object of the trials set up during the present season has 

 been to experiment with the management and technique of small 

 plots, as it is intended to conduct all trials at Headquarters on 

 this plan. 



The general arrangement of the cereal plots is shown in 

 Plate IX. It may be remarked that the sowing of these numerous 

 small plots did not prove to be such a serious undertaking as 

 was anticipated. All the beds and plots were measured out 

 * . some time before sowing commenced, and the drills for the 

 oat rows were drawn from three weeks to a fortnight before the 

 grain was sown. About three-quarters of the 1,080 rows were 

 actually sown in one long day by a party consisting of four of 

 the scientific staff and five of the garden staff. The paths were 

 largely sown during adverse weather conditions. 



The preliminary work on oats has shown that in normal 

 circumstances the average hybridization season will be a very 

 short one at Aberystwyth. The effective flowering period will 



* The seed of this variety was obtained direct from America by the 

 Ministry of Agriculture, which was able to place a portion of the grain at the 

 disposal of the Station. 



t It was not possible to procure a sufficiency of seed of any A. sterilis 

 variety for inclusion in the rod plot yield trials. 



+ The slow ripening was doubtless in part due to wet weather, of which these 

 early exserted panicles had a longer period than the later produced panicles of 

 Dala and Yielder. 



§ This oat was included in the trials on the advice of Mr. P. G. Dallinger, 

 of the Ministry of Agriculture, and samples were obtained through the kind- 

 ness of Mr. Pimlott, of the Irish Department. 



|| A full report of the yield trials will be published as a College Bulletin 

 early next year. The plots will be threshed on the field. Practically all of the 

 plots have been cut at the time of writing this article (September 14th). 



