ANNUAL RESEARCH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 3, 10 March 1947, Page 3

ANNUAL RESEARCH

NEW ZEALAND WELL AHEAD

AUSTRALIAN EXPERT’S OPINION

A visitor to New Zealand at present is Mr L. J. Cook, chief experimentalist. to the Department of Agriculture in South Australia, reports a southern paper. He is here to find out what is doing in New Zealand in animal research, and has visited most of the research stations of the Dominion.

He paid a visit to Lincoln College recently, and inspected the work going on there. He was particularly interested in the progeny-testing work that has been carried on for some time at the college. “From what I have seen,” he said, “it seems that the opinion we have in South Australia that you are well ahead of us in animal research is well founded.”

Mr Cook at present has charge of all experimental stations and Government farms in his State, and is gathering ideas that may help in establishing the large research station which it is planned to set up at Struan, in south-eastern South Australia. Great strides have been made in the State in pasture improvement, but the new research station is designed to carry on animal research in conjunction with and related'to the pasture work.

Mr Cook was among those responsible for the development of subterraneon clover, and from 1920 to 1936 had charge of the Kybybolite experimental station whei’e subterraneon clover, with superphosphate, was first extensively used to develop very light land with a rainfall of about 20 inches. On the type of soil in the area, sub. clover grows without lime, but needs fairly liberal dressings of superphosphate. The work of Kybybolite was highly successful, and large areas of farm lands were brought up from a carrying capacity of half a sheep, producing about 31b. of wool to the acre, to two and a-half to three sheep producing up to 401 b. of wool to the acre. The land has been built up to a point at which it gives good promise for dairying.

Sub. clover was used there, as it is here, purely to build up the fertility of the land and encourage the growth of better pasture plants.

Good results have been obtained with strawberry clover and grasses, particularly phalaris tuberosa. Perennial ryegrass of this land is disappointing. It does not give the sward that phalaris gives.

The main difficulty with phalaris, as it has been here, is that it needs at least six to eight months to develop, and few farmers can be induced so far to let good grass alone for that length of time.

Mr Cook expressed gratification at the gi eat amount of help he had received everywhere in New Zealand.