GRASSLAND FARMING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 78, 10 September 1947, Page 3

GRASSLAND FARMING

(Continued from Monday’s Issue) Following is the second portion of the address by Messrs. Bruce Levy and Peter Sears given in the Awakeri Hall on Wednesday night: Bloat Questions With regard to bloat—it is a National calamity if farmers are unable to use pedigree white clover on their farm. A remedy for bloat must be found other than by the discarding of this valuable plant. All clovers in soil fertility building function in much the same way as white clover. Subterranean clover is one of the most valuable pioneers of the light dry soil: Lotus Major in the wet and heavy rainfall areas: Lotus Hispidus.has done great work on the gum-lands of the North: Montgomery Red Clover and broad red clover in the short leg and special purpose pastures while lucerne figures as a special purpose hay or grazing crops on sweet friable country. * Srain Improvement For some 15 years now the Grasslands Division has been selecting breeding and improving the productive capacity, the seasonal spread of production and the general palatability of pasture plants. There has, through the Department of Agriculture, been inaugurated a system of seed-certification to ensure those improved strains are reproduced and that a guarantee of type is given to the consumer. How many farmers in, the Auck-

land Province are benefitting from that work? How many farmers are applying that work to help in this lift in pasture production on the farm, so that more stock per acre can be successfully carried?

First and foremost stands out our pedigree white clover, and of the new productions short rotation rye grass (H. 1.) will have a marked influence in any system of intensive grassland farming. Short rotation rye grass is a new hybrid product; it is quick to establish; it is highly palatable; it is a good winter and early spring grower (provided always it has an adequate supply of nitrogen): it is an aggressive grower over the period when feed flavours are high and it can compete successfully against the stronger growing clovers; it establishes fairly readily from shed seed or from seed surface down, provided always that there is an adequate nitrogen supply in the soil. It cannot sustain hard, close and continuous grazing and, therefore, should be grazed preferably under a reasonable rotational system of grazing. For temporary 1-2 year pastures, certified Broad Red Clover and certified Italian ryegrass are excellent producers; for 3-4 years special purpose pastures certified Montgomery Red Clover, pedigree white clover and short rotation ryegrass are excellent, while for longer lived special purpose pastures, pedigree cocksfoot, pedigree Timothy, short rotation ryegrass, long rotation ryegrass, perennial ryegrass, Montgomery Red Clover and white clover will give excellent results once our supplies of the newer strains of these have been built up. At the moment, ample supplies of certified pedigree or M/S perennial ryegrass, pedigree or M/S‘ Italian ryegrass, pedigree or M/S short rotation ryegrass, pedigree or M/S Montgomery Red Clover and pedigree or M/S white clover are available in large supplies.

We feel that these new improved strains must be incorporated somehow into pastures of the Auckland Province, either by the plough or by autumn surface cultivation and seeding down as a surface sowing. In all this advocay, we are not unmindful of what Papalum has done and is doing in the North, but dairy factory records all show that, for really high-class intensive grassand farming for butterfat and fat lamb particularly, Paspalum is too late in the spring. Your problem is to combine some of these early spring producers along with Paspalum and we feel the only really satisfactory way to accomplish this is to go into intensive grassland farming with a will. Just as long as we can carry enough stock to control Paspalum in the summer and adopt methods for the introduction of ryegrass and clovers into the Paspalum sward, then we can get early feed from Paspalum areas, and such combination will give possibly the highest grassland per acre production than any pasture anywhere in the world. (To be continued)