Properties oe Colorado Wheat 
2 7 
us, richer in protein than the Defiance. So is the Red Fife, and 
the latter, though it is a bearded wheat with an apparently much 
smaller head than the Defiance, is a much surer cropper, because, 
it is earlier, stiffer in the straw and withstands rust better. I have 
not gro-wn the Marquis and this is the reason that I say nothing 
about if. With us the thing that we have to dread most of all in 
connection with the quality of our wheat is rust. Continued wet 
weather, which would keep all parts of the plant wet most of the 
time would without doubt give us poorer wheat than clear weather. 
Tt is not the amount of water that does the damage but 
the fact that the plants are wet almost all of the time, 
which either washes out material that should be stored 
in the plant and later in the grain, or prevents the plant 
from taking this material up from the soil. The fact is that plants 
kept wet most of the time while they are growing are poorer in 
those substances that make good grain than plants not kept wet. 
We may keep the ground wet and not make the grain poor, but 
if we keep the plants wet, that is another thing. The difference 
made by the water alone is not so very big though it is big enough 
to be a matter of regret. The biggest danger to which our crops 
are exposed is an attack of rust. When this is prevalent, the crop 
is very poor in quality, even if it is not badly shrunken. When 
the rust develops abundantly on our wheat, the nitrogen which 
makes the protein in the wheat, and with it the other constituents 
also, seems to be verv largely stopped from going into the grain. 
When this.happens just when the grains ought to fill out, they 
don’t fill and we have shrunken wheat. The Defiance is late in 
ripening and is susceptible to rust. My own experience with it 
has been verv unsatisfactory on this account. The season of 1913 
was a very favorable one. That of 1915 was wetter, but the promise 
of a crop was good till within 13 days or so of harvest, when, due 
to rain, lodging of the wheat and high temperature, rust developed 
very abundantly. 
The yield and the analyses of the wheat from the same plots 
treated in the same manner in the two vears follow. The only 
difference in the two seasons was the development of the rust. 
The promise in T 915 up to this point was good. 
The statement of the results shows for itself the differences. 
DEFIANCE SECTION 1800, SEASON OF 1913 
i 
Fertilizer 
Nitrogen 
Phosphorus 
Potassium 
None 
Bushels 
per acre 
38.83 
39.50 
41.66 
40.58 
Crude protein 
percent 
13.79 
12.01 
12.33 
12.14 
Wet gluten 
percent 
31.33 
24.50 
24.50 
25.07 
Dry gluten 
percent 
12.32 
9.85 
10.08 
10.22 
