Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part I - Doctor Hans Tedin, Svalöf, Plant Breeding in Sweden
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Even several new sorts of potatoes have during the last years been put forth.
No new sorts of flax and rape can as yet be ready, but they are being success*
fully investigated. Svalöf sorts of different kinds of Held roots (mangels, Swedes,
turnips and carrots) cannot be said to be superior to all other sorts but they stand
on a level with the best ones. To be able to keep them on this high level, so
that they do not decline, requires continuous attention and constantly repeated
selections founded on a careful investigation of the chief characters of the mother
plant and of the progeny. Professor Hjalmar Nilsson has also during the last
years begun to work with mangels with the purpose of producing sorts com*
parable in uniformity and constancy with those of selfifertilizers. This he intends
to achieve by a more strictly conducted pedigree selection and an artificial Crossing
of sister individuals most like each other.
As a contributive cause of the high average yield of Iron Wheat is also men*
tioned a high degree of resistance against yellow rust, a disease which some years
appears and ravages such sorts as are less resistant. Besides yellow rust a large
number of other dangerous plant diseases are already known, even such as are
caused by animal parasites, towards which different sorts of the same crop behave
very differently, a faet which has also been considered in the breeding work. The
producing of sorts resistant against diseases will surely be an effeetive remedy
against these plant diseases and thus a way of inereasing the production. Another
important problem, upon the solution of which work has already been begun, is
the improvement of the kernel quality, especially in wheat in order to produce
sorts better suited for bread*baking — without mentioning all other future objects
of improvement.
The field trials are an important part of the improvement work. They are
the beginning and end of all breeding, for without good trial plots one works as
a blindman and the whole improvement work floats in the air without the firm
basis which they form. It is namely only by comparative trials that the eventual
superiority of a new sort to already cultivated ones can with certainty be deter*
mined. But one thing is certain, the better the sorts get the less progress can be
expected. The trials, however, must also be more exact and more free from errors
in order to be able to determine accurately the differences that possibly exist
between the sorts. The improvement of the trial system, so that the trials become
as reliable as possible, is one of the most important objects of the plant breeding.
In Svalöf the principle generally followed from the beginning has been to give
the sorts in the triahplots no better conditions than they get in the general culti*
vation, apparantly a quite correct principle, the strict accomplishment of which
has been of great benefit for the work.
The General Swedish Seed Company was founded 1891 along side of the
Swedish Seed Association, with the purpose of distributing the new sorts to the
farmers. It is exelusively a commercial company, with its main office at Svalöf.
The Company, which alone has the right, receives the improved sorts from the
Association according to certain rules, sanetioned by the Government. They cul*
tivate them first on their own farms, which together cover a field area of about
1,500 hektares, and also by contracts on fields belonging to farmers all over the
country. Last year these cultures on fields belonging to private farmers together
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