Hayes and Garber - Cucurbit Breeding

METHODS OF BREEDING SMALL GRAINS 113
for the yearly field notes, a separate book being used for each
crop. The following illustrates the method of keeping records
for the year 1922. 1921 HEIGHT, DATE OTHER
NAME N.S.N. SOURCE IN. HEADING FIELD
NOTES
Turkey X Odessa.. II-18-1 A -1-10
After obtaining yield and taking notes on grain characters, the
yearly results are drawn off on 8% by 11 paper, summarized, and
filed for reference and further study. Only general notes are
taken, such as date heading, date mature, height in inches,
per cent, lodged, degree lodged, per cent, and kind of destructive
diseases, botanical characters, grain color, plumpness and quality,
weight per bushel, and yield.
New Introductions. By means of new introductions the
breeder is enabled to obtain varieties or strains which have been
produced by other breeders, or native varieties from the original
home of the crop. There is no value in attempting to produce
a variety which is adapted to a particular condition if the qualities
desired are to be found in some variety already grown in
another locality or country.
The United States Department of Agriculture has a trained
corps of workers who are constantly introducing new plant sorts
from foreign countries. At the present time the Office of Cereal
Investigations of the Bureau of Plant Industry acts as a medium
for the introduction of new varieties of small grains. Through
cooperation with this office, promising new introductions are
being tested in localities to which they seem adapted.
In small grains no conclusion can be drawn from the firstyear
test of a new introduction obtained from a widely different
climate. Often the seed does not give a high percentage of
germination or for some other reason the results secured are not
even indicative of the value of the introduction. The first year
the different introductions may well be grown in short rows.
The following year a rod-row of each new introduction may be
grown as a part of the regular crop breeding row trials, and yield
and other characters determined. Those which are at all promising
by this test may then be placed in the regular row trials
and handled in the same manner as pure-line strains. After
two or three years those introductions which give results of
promise will be used as a basis for individual plant selection,
providing the introduction was not already a pure-line.