Wheat (1) - Part 3

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the wheat districts, I have no doubt that those who grow wheat as well as the taxpayers who are concerned in the guaranteed price will, in common with the members of the Commission, be interested to have further and perhaps more definite information on this most destructive pest as it affects us in this State.The weevil is undoubtedly a very serious menace, and is costing and will continue to cost the Scheme large sums of money both in preventive work and remedial measures and by direct losses from actual damage to the wheat. Up to the present, heavy expenses have been incurred in railing wheat back from ports to mills and in having it gristed into flour to avoid further loss. As time progresses it is almost certain that the life of our wheat will be reduced—by the life of the wheat I mean the period between harvesting and actual attack by weevil. There are various insects that attack wheat, but that most concern us are two forms of the pest known ans Calandra oryzae (the common or rice weevil) and the Rhizopertha dominica, the one that cause us so much trouble last year at Fremantle and which has been discovered this year in small quantity at Geraldton. A third is technically known as Attagenus undulatus, but this is not found in Western Australia at the present time, and I only refer to it because of a bearing it will have on my later remarks in connection with Professor Lefroy, who has recently come into prominence in Australia by a recent visit to the Eastern States, when some apparently revolutionary statements were made and many methods of treatment of weevil were experimented upon at his instigation. The farmers in this State are naturally looking to the Wheat Scheme to use all the expert knowledge available to protect their wheat during the long storage necessitated by the shortage of ships; but before I relate in detail what has been done in this State and what should be done in the future to control this pest it is necessary for me to review at more or less length the activities of the various weevil experts, whose opinions we must necessarily regard with consideration and whose methods we should attempt to follow if practicable and at all efficiently economical. In view of the importance attached to Professor Lefroy's statements in the Eastern States, particularly by Mr. Sinclair J. McGibbon, who, I understand, represented the views the Farmers and Settlers' Association of this State, and who considered that the Wheat Scheme should have blindly followed the professor's methods, it is interesting to note some of the results of the professor's research work in India on weevil. First of all, however, I would like to refer to the statement of Professor Lefroy, made by him in Sydney soon after he arrived in Australia. It was this opinion that Mr. McGibbon evidently had in mind. His remarks will no doubt be readily recalled: "I am quite willing to put down my professional reputation and say that we have a situation in hand if the States will back us up." This definite statement of course referred to the control of weevil in wheat and the safe stacking of cereals in future. Of course a man who risks his reputation lightly is either one who has no reputation to lose or one who has been carried away with enthusiasm for his subject. In referring, however, to Professor Lefroy I must bring in the names of J. H. Barnes, B.Sc., F.I.C., F.C.S., and A. J. Groves, M.Sc., principal of the Punjab Agricultural College and of the Department of Agriculture, and the Entomologist of the Imperial Department of Agriculture, India, respectively. These two scientists made a most exhaustive search in the Punjab to arrive at the best means of keeping seed wheat free from weevil, and the report of their work and the conclusions they came to are set out in the Memoirs of the Department of Agriculture in India, published in November, 1916, Vol 4, No. 6. Professor Lefroy was some time in India, and in 1906 and again in 1909 he wrote volumes on Indian insects. There is in India an insect referred to as Attagenus undulatus that attacks the wheat to such an extent that Messrs. Barnes and Grove considered it the most destructive insect of all those attacking wheat. Professor Lefroy in his records mentions this insect, and states that it is found in wheat, and he says: "The part it plays in wheat is not ascertained, but it is likely to be predacious upon the other insects there or to feed on their dead bodies." Investigation has shown that this insect certainly does not play the role suggested by Professor Lefroy, but is one of the most active agents in damaging the actual grain. Another pest in India is known as the Rhizoperth dominica. This is very destructive to grain, and Professor Lefroy in his volume on Indian insect pests, in 1906, does not mention it at all, and in his volume on Indian insect life, 1909, he merely mentions it as a household pet. This is Lefroy as an entomologist. In a private letter by Professor Lefroy to Messrs. Barnes and Grove in September, 1912, he said that sun-dried wheat to which moisture does not gain access is immune from insect attack provided it contains 7 per cent. of moisture or less. Barnes and Grove state that this opinion appears to be based upon insufficient information both biological and physical, since it refers only to Calandra oryzae, above mentioned. This is Lefroy as physicist. Professor Lefroy promulgated a method of stacking wheat by which it was to be kept indefinitely. He went on to say also that it had been thoroughly demonstrated that weevil-infested wheat could be cleansed at a cost of 1d. or less per bushel. This statement as to the cost is so absurd and contrary to the fact that it tends to discount in the mind of a practical wheat man the rest of his statements. Even though Professor Lefroy's reputation was at stake, the Wheat Scheme did not consider it advisable to rush blindly in and carry out in toto his infallible and revolutionary system. Merely as a precaution, however, in view of the advertised credentials of the professor, a wheat section of one of the sheds at Geraldton depot was built exactly along the definite lines specified by Professor Lefroy. The result, after a period of less than six months, is that a portion of the wheat is well affected by weevil. Of course it is not to be deduced from this that the weevil has bred in the shed. There is no doubt the weevil was taken into the shed with the wheat. This was a factor in his scheme of things entirely overlooked by the worthy professor. Fortunately for the farmers, however, it was not overlooked by the Wheat Scheme management. So much for Lefroy as a practical man. Professor Lefroy is a great advocate of the use of naphthalene. Experiments conducted with this preparation by experts prove that it cannot be used for wheat to be sold for that, owing to the objectionable taste and odour it imparts to the bread. I do not think, however, that the amount of naphthalene described by Professor Lefroy is likely to affect the wheat that we have already stacked under his system at Geraldton depot, neither do I think it is likely to affect the weevil, although possibly it may prevent weevil breeding on the ground. The floor of our shed there is, however, grain-proof and there should really be no wheat dropped on the site. In regard to the treating of wheat in silos for weevil Professor Lefroy stated that wheat in an elevator could be treated with carbon di-sulphide and the weevil combated. Messrs. Barnes & Grove, on the contrary, differ form the Professor, and, furthermore, say that the use of carbon di-sulphide would be attended with serious accidents and would raise the insurance rates to a prohibitive figure. Dr. Duval, who is from the Department of Agriculture in America, and recently visited Australia in connection with our wheat and its disposal, considers that the use of gases for the destruction of weevil in elevators is not practicable on account of either their inflammability, combustibility, or poisonousness. He states it was not done in America. The system followed there was to clean and turn the wheat over. So much, therefore, for Professor Lefroy as entomologist, physicist, and practical wheat man, whom we are asked to implicitly follow. Before I refer to the preventive and remedial measures that should be taken and in a great measure have been followed in this State, I should like to mention the causes directly responsible that have to be realised before the Scheme can adequately deal with weevil trouble here. The main causes are the long storage of wheat in bags, accelerated by the natural moisture contents in the grain itself, the location of the wheat in a more or less humid atmosphere, and the plentiful supply of wheat throughout the State, by which the weevil could obtain good feeding and multiply. This abundance of food has, of course, arisen because of the long periods of storage necessitated by the shortage of shipping. As the female weevil lays several hundreds of eggs