21 Feb 1986 ICI Cereal 85 wheat competition

Awards in the ICI Cereal 85 wheat competition will be presented at Lincoln College on Thursday March 6 by the Principal, Professor Bruce Ross.

First prize will go to the competitor showing the highest net return from a 0.5 ha plot.

The prize is $7000 from ICI Rural Division for a round-the-world air ticket to allow the winner to study arable farming in the United Kingdom and Europe.

Prize for the second highest return is a Protimeter Grainmaster Digital Moisture Meter worth $720 from Max Cheshire, Ltd, Christchurch.

The competitor whose grain scores highest in Wheat Research Institute tests will get a trophy from the New Zealand Association of Bakers, and cash prizes.

The cash prizes for the highest baking score come from the New Zealand Wheat Board and D.R. Brown and Son, Ltd.

ICI cereal 85 drew 10 competitors from around Canterbury to the competition paddock on the Lincoln College crop farm.

Six of the 10 chose premium but lower-yielding cultivars for the competition.

Three plots were sown with Weka, two Oroua, Otane, and the rest Advantage, the overall winning cultivar in Wheat 85.

All the competion plots were sown in May, except for one sown early in August.

Irrigation was available to those in the competition for the first time since Wheat 82, which established the competition.

Changing the name to ICI cereal 85 last year was to encourage barley growers into the competition.

However, none of the competitors chose to sow barley, and the only barley grown in the competition paddock was on commercial demonstration plots.

ICI Cereal 85 is administered by the Rural Development and Extension Centre at Lincoln College.

Further information from Mr Jim Malcolm, ICI Cereal 85 secretary, Rural Development and Extension Centre, Lincoln College 8150