Spring wheat production in Taiwan

T. H. SHEN and Y. K. KING

Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, Taipei, Taiwan

A large number of wheat varieties have been collected in the last 10 years from the mainland of China, Japan, U. S. A., Canada, Australia and India. Results of test-t on these have shown that only early varieties of spring habit are adapted to the rotation system in Taiwan. Wheat is grown from November to the middle of February as a catch crop after harvesting the second of two crops of rice per annum. The average yield of wheat was 1,732 kg. per hectare, equivalent to 25 bushels per acre, in 1956. This wheat has high gluten content and good baking quality. The plant is free from all smuts, probably because seed-born spores of smut cannot live through the long, hot and moist summer. There has been litte stripe rust to cause loss in yield. Orange leaf rust and black stem rust appear every season and become a determining yield factor.

(Received May 15, 1957)