CEREALS AT THE AKRON FIELD STATION 31 
NURSERY EXPERIMENTS 
Nursery experiments at Akron have consisted chiefly of the testing 
of varieties and selections of winter wheat. Several thousand selec- 
tions from Alton (Ghirka Winter) and the Crimean wheats have been 
made. Since 1917 probably 2,500 selections made at this and other 
stations have been sown in the winter-wheat nursery. Most of these 
were lost by winterkilling and soil blowing or were discarded after 
tests of several years proved them unpromising. A larger number 
of selections was made from Alton than from any other variety. The 
object of these selections was to obtain an awnless winter wheat 
equal in all other respects to the awned varieties now grown. Of 
the numerous selections made at Akron prior to 1920, a few are 
somewhat promising and are being grown in preliminary plat ex- 
periments. Some unusually promising selections of winter wheat 
made at Akron are now being grown in rod-row experiments. One 
of the most promising of these was made from Kanred (C. I. No. 
p16). SPRING WHEAT 
VARIETAL EXPERIMENTS 
Most of the spring-wheat varieties grown in plat experiments 
belong to the two main classes, durum and hard red spring. Varietal 
experiments conducted early in the history of the station proved that 
most of the white spring wheats are poorly adapted. In all, 63 
varieties have been grown in plats during the 15-year period from 
1908 to 1922, inclusive. Several lots or strains under the same name 
but from different sources or several selections of the same variety 
have been grown in some cases, so that the actual number of distinct 
varieties is somewhat less than 63. é 
Some of the varieties grown in 1908 were not continued ‘in the 
experiments because of similarity to other varieties or strains or 
because of low yield or other undesirable characters. As yields of 
these varieties have been presented previously,® they will not be 
repeated here. These varieties included 7 durum wheats, 5 hard 
red spring wheats, and 5 white wheats. The annual yields of the 
remaining 46 varieties and strains, with average yields for the 
periods from 1908 to 1922, 1917 to 1922, and 1920 to 1922, inclusive, 
are presented in Table 15. 
The data in Table 15 show that good yields were produced in 1908, 
1910, 1912, 1914, and 1915. Fair yields were obtained in 1909 and 
1920 and poor yields in 1913, 1916, 1917, 1921, and 1922, while 
failures were recorded for most of the varieties in 1911, 1918, and 1919. 
Previous to 1917 the spring wheats were grown largely on summer 
fallow. Beginning with 1917 they have been grown in quadruplicated 
plats, two on fallow and two on cornland, which partly accounts for 
the lower yields recorded during the past six years. Had the 1920 
crop been grown on fallow alone the yields would possibly have been 
equal to those of 1908 or 1915. In 8 of the 15 years—1911, 1913, . 
1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1921, and 1922—the spring-wheat yields were 
reduced by lack of moisture when it was most needed. As arule, only 
the early varieties yield well at Akron. Spring wheats have not been 
injured seriously by rust in these experiments. 
8 Mc Murdo, George A. Cereal experiments at the Akron Field Station, Akron, Colo. U.S. Dept. 
Agr. Bul, 402, p. 20. 
