Abstract
NOWADAYS, when the English miller regards Indian wheat as a valuable addition to his resources, the work of the authors of this memoir in improving it is of the utmost national importance. The progress they have made already deserves to be widely known and commended. The problem is the same as that which confronts us in this country, where, however, the farmers still refuse even to try to understand it—namely, the introduction of a strain of wheat, of easy cultivation, which will combine high yield with quality and give a satisfactory straw. Usually in India, as elsewhere, the consistency of a wheat varies greatly, according to the conditions under which it is grown. Although weak wheats can be improved to some extent in milling and baking qualities by cultivation, they have not been made to behave like strong wheats. Owing to the shortness of the growth-period and the liability of the water-supply to deficiency, moderate-yielding wheats are on the average the most profitable to the grower. The Pusa experiments, which have been in progress since 1907, show that the strong wheats with good milling properties retain these properties both under canal irrigation and on the black soils, and that high yield and high quality can be combined in the same wheat.
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A., E. The Improvement of Indian Wheat 1 . Nature 91, 586–587 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/091586a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/091586a0