The Silk Grower and Farmer's Manual, 1(7): 148-149 (Jan 1839)

TRANSFORMATION OF WINTER TO SPRING WHEAT

In the Encyclopedia Americana, article Wheat, may be found the following statement:—"Winter wheat sown in the spring, will ripen the following summer, though the produce of succeeding generations of spring sown wheat, is found to ripen better. White, red, awned, and beardless wheats change and run into one another, in different soils and climates; and even the many spiked Egyptian wheat, is known to change into the single spiked common plant."

Some experiments have been made in this country that seem to favor the correctness of these opinions, though none seemed to be clearly decisive of the turning of winter wheat to spring wheat. The principal difficulty was found to arise from the fact that winter wheat sown in the spring would not sufficiently mature its seed before the frosts of autumn; and that in most cases the roots required to stand over the winter before any ears were produced. To prevent this necessity, and hasten the period of its ripening by anticipating, in effect, the time of sowing, the winter germination of wheat to be sown in the spring was attempted and found practicable, though it led to no particularly valuable results.

Believing that some of the best and hardiest varieties of winter wheat could be thus transformed into spring wheat, a valuable addition might be made to the resources of some districts where winter sown wheat is at the best an uncertain crop, in a former volume of the Farmer, we urged the importance of such experiments, and the benefit of a successful result.

In the winter of '36-'37, Col. W. Abbott, of Onondago county, a farmer of success and intelligence, entered upon the experiment. The wheat selected by him was the white flint variety, a kind well known to our farmers and millers as one of the best produced in the country; hardy, yielding well, very thin-skinned, and making flour of a superior quality; berry white, and ear beardless.

A small quantity of this wheat, prepared by soaking, sprouting, and freezing during the winter, was sown by him in the spring of 1837; but owing to the imperfect manner in which the grain was prepared, (only a portion of it having been thoroughly and fully sprouted before freezing,) only a part of it eared out at the proper time, while the other part, though it finally threw out ears, produced only a shrunken, worthless, immature grain.

Last spring we procured from the Colonel a bushel of this on the whole, very inferior looking product, though containing many fine kernels; but the quantity was reduced nearly one half by the process of brining, skimming and liming, to which it was subjected before sowing. It was sown on about half an acre of ground, and though seriously injured by the heavy rains which fell soon after it was put into the earth, much of it grew and had a fine appearance. It is not yet threshed, but we shall probably have some six or eight bushels of wheat. Before sowing the wheat Col. Abbott had assured us that the earliest and most perfect ears from his sowing, and those of course in which the change was the greatest and most perfect, were all bearded; and when our wheat came to earing, a careful examination made at different times could not discover a single car that resembled the original bald wheat; every ear was bearded. It was also no less remarkable that, though the original wheat was one of the whitest berried varieties we have, the new product is clearly a red wheat, not so dark as the common variety of spring wheat, but still only a shade lighter in color than the Italian.

By a comparison with the best varieties of common spring wheat, as well as the Italian and Siberian, (which by the way we suspect are only varieties of the same plant having the same origin,) made with one of Raspail's microscopes, some of the distinguishing and peculiar excellences of the original wheat can be plainly traced in the thinner skin, whiter flour, and greater ease with which it is reduced.

Should it prove on farther trial an improvement an the common varieties of spring wheat now sown, the name of White Flint spring wheat, or Abbott's spring wheat might be adopted. To determine whether it is worthy of a new name, must, however, be left to the trial of another year. In the meantime the facts, that winter wheat can be converted into spring wheat— that bald wheat can be changed into bearded wheat— and that white wheat can be transformed into the red varieties, we consider fully established. We wish some of our farm friends would, by experiment, ascertain whether by sowing spring wheat in the fall, the reverse of these changes can be obtained.—Genesee Farmer. [8(43): 339 (October 27, 1838)]