§ Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, as representing the Minister for Science, what steps he is taking to provide for further research Oil the storage of fruit.
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§ Mr. SoamesThe Agricultural Research Council is at present considering how the research effort on the storage of fruit can most profitably be increased. Research on this subject has been in progress for a number of years at the Ditton Laboratory, Maidstone. Fruit raised under different cultural and manurial practices, on experimental plots at the adjacent East Mailing Research Station, is subjected to different conditions of storage, and the amount of deterioration is assessed. With changing techniques of orchard management, new problems are continually arising, particularly in connection with chemical changes occurring in fruit during storage. In addition to research on fruit in storage, field experiments are in progress at the Long Ashton Research Station on the bringing of fruit into store in as healthy a condition as possible.