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LAND AND EQUIPMENT. The 7 acres of city lease secured last year is now fully occupied, and a further 4 acres is under consideration for lease from the City Council. One acre has also been secured for isolation purposes from the Massey Agricultural College. The question of isolation areas would appear to become more acute as the work develops. It would appear almost essential that strain-testing and strain-building should be conducted further apart than we are now able to do, owing to expansion by the Mycological Section on the original Plant Research Station area. An interchange of land would largely overcome the present difficulty, but, owing to the self-contained policy of the Mycological Branch, this is difficult to arrange. No fundamental grassland research work other than strain-testing and strain-building is possible on the Palmerston North area at present. Approval has been secured to purchase power engine, seed-cleaner, and clover-huller, and these will be of great assistance to the work. The pedigree crops harvested this year were threshed partly by the aid of a tractor kindly loaned by the Massey Agricultural College and partly by the Ford car on issue to the Agronomist. Seed-cleaning" was done by a station constructed Heath-Robinson winnower. Hulling of the clovers was kindly done by Mr. Callesen, farmer, at Karere. The plots were mown by the City Council mower. A light tractor of the Gravelly type, equipped with a mower attachment, is required for the use of the Station generally. LABOUR. The Station is run essentially with unemployed labour, twenty-seven men being so employed. This class of labour is highly unsatisfactory for much of the farm work of the Station, and it should gradually be replaced by more skilled and permanent labour. An application for one additional permanent labourer has been made. PLANT BREEDER. During the year, Massey Agricultural College has kindly loaned a post-graduate scholarship-holder (Mr. Corkill) for plant-breeding work on the Station, and it has now been decidcd to engage this worker on a temporary basis. He should be appointed to the permanent staff at an early date. TECHNICAL ASSISTANT. Mr. Corkill is now handling some 25,000 seedlings in connection with the present breeding-scheme as outlined, in association with Dr. Frankel, Advisory Geneticist to the Station, and some assistance will be necessary in note-taking, labelling, and recording this mass of material. An application for a technical assistant has been made. STAFF : GENERAL. It has been very gratifying that all officers connected with this work have performed an arduous year's work in a most exemplary manner. There has been marked co-ordination of effort and an enormous amount of work has been accomplished. The Overseer, Mr. Todd, has given the field Station work every attention, and has handled the difficult labour offering in a very creditable manner. MYCOLOGY SECTION. G. H. Cunningham, Mycologist. Work for the year has covered the following diseases :—. I. BRASSICA DISEASES. Dry-kot (Phoina lingam). An investigation of the host range of this disease has been completed and the results published. It is concluded that infection of swede crops from weed or cultivated crops is rare except when following an infected swede crop. The variety of swede, Wilhelmsburger Otofte, has been substituted for Herning on the commercial seed-growing area at Colyton. It has proved under New Zealand conditions to be a better cropper and more resistant to club-root. The seed crop was exceptionally good, over 6,000 lb. of first-class seed being harvested from 2| acres. Unfortunately, an inspection before harvest disclosed the presence of five plants infected with Phoma lingam., so that the seed cannot be certified as disease-free. Stock seed has been produced for next season's seed crop from bulbs selected on club-root-infected land. Cltjb-koot (PUismodiopliora brassicae). It has been found that the control of this disease by means of applications of lime is dependent on the type of soil. Dressings with lime which give satisfactory results on some soils are quite useless in others, thus accounting for the contradictory field results obtained in the past. An investigation is in progress to find the conditioning factors. It has also been found that selected strains of rape, turnip, and swede that resist the disease in one locality may fail to do so in others. This has greatly complicated the work of selection, breeding, and testing of club-root-resistant lines. Tijkotp Mosaic. This has proved to be a virus disease transmissible from plant to plant by Brevicoryne brassicae and Myzus persicae, the aphides commonly found on brassicas. It has been shown to spread rapidly in the field, and, in preliminary trials with rape, to cause 25 per cent, reduction in yield. It has been found to have no connection with " mottled-heart " condition in swedes. 11. CEREAL DISEASES. Rusts. An investigation is in progress, in collaboration with Dr. Stakman of the University of Minnesota, and Dr. Waterhouse of the University of Sydney, into the biotypes of the rust fungi of cereals and grasses present in New Zealand. This is a necessary preliminary into the work of producing rust-resistant varieties.

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