Abstract
THE seventeenth report of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, Cambridge, is now available, and copies may be obtained on application to the Institute (Huntingdon Road, Cambridge). The work of the Institute is directed to supplying the farmer with unbiased information as to the seeds he sows, and the report deals with methods by which this information was obtained in 1936. New varieties of all farm crops are tested by the Institute as soon as they appear, the trials being conducted on a field-scale at six permanent stations in England, and in some cases at additional centres on a farmer's own land. In all cases, the varieties are grown just as they would be by the farmer himself. Every feature of the varieties is noted and the results are often extremely enlightening. For example, of all the new varieties of winter wheat that have been tested in the last ten years, only one has proved to be worthy of general recommendation by the Institute. This is the Dutch variety ‘Juliana’, which has in the past two years' trials given slightly better results than ‘Wilhelmina’. The position with other crops is very similar, and it is clear that farmers will be well advised, before deciding to grow a new variety, to apply to the agricultural organizer for their county, or direct to the Institute, for information as to the merits of the variety in question.
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The National Institute of Agricultural Botany. Nature 139, 833 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139833b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139833b0