EXPANSION OF HERD TESTING ON RANGITAIKI PLAIN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 67, 10 July 1950, Page 4

EXPANSION OF HERD TESTING ON RANGITAIKI PLAIN

A very successful meeting was neld at Edgecumbe last Thursday night when Mr A. H. Ward, Director of Herd Improvement for the New Zealand Dairy Board spoke to an interested audience o* farmers that taxed the capacity of the Theatre.

Mr W. R. Boon the Chairman of the Bay of Plenty-East Coast Herd Improvement Association, in introducing Mr Ward expressed pleasure at the good attendance and mentioned that the meeting was held owing to the inability of Mr Ward to be present after his visit to the district at the time of the Dairy Board Ward Conference in April. Rapid Survey

Mr Ward made a rapid survey of the work of Herd Improvement in the last 12 years since the inception of the Herd Improvement Plan. All the efforts of his organisation were aimed at giving back to the industry the results of investigation to find factors associated with the most successful farming methods in actual use by New Zealand dairymen. Through data from the group Herd Testing movement and from consulting officers, the best practices were established for the man on the land.

The expansion of Herd Testing in the Rangitaiki Plains was commented on. The various groups in the area include 40 per cent of the cows in herds supplying the factory at Edgecumbe and this, said Mr Ward, was approaching the level in Denmark and surpassing the figure attained in the best area in England, since the great increase in testing inspired by the Milk Marketing Board. 1 In discussing the films shown the ability of the Dairy Board to produce films at low cost was pointed out. During routine, visits to the various districts shots were taken of subjects of practical interest of farmers and these were the basis of modern advisory work. If farmers saw a thing being done in a simple way they would accept far quicker the lessons to be learned from such practices: For instance Mr Ward mentioned his film on “Breeding Better Dairy Cattle.” It was found that those pedigree herds with The good proportion of mature cows entered in the Merit Register were selling bulls to the industry that were definitely better than obtainable elsewhere. Thus the '*heme of the film was to remind dairy farmers that the best places to buy herd sires were those studs evidently breeding the qualities required on ihe commercial farm. The first film dealt with the very successful use of only grass and silage to maintain a high output on a town milk farm of 100 acres in Levin. The management of paddocks by rotational and electrical fence rationing was demonstrated and the silage story involving the cutting of 55 per cent of the area was clearly shown. Various methods of making silage were screened.

English Silage A film on English silage highlighted the various machines used and gave some indication of different farming conditions.

Labour economy on dairy farms dealt at some length with efficient milking—allied to the high production. It was clearly shown that one. at least can without undue exertion, deal with a cow per minute in a herd of over seventy. A variety of other ways of" making work on farms either easier or more pleasant completed a very interesting series of films.

An interesting discussion followed for some time during which some of the newly-arrived English Herd Testers gave first hand experience with modern methods of conserving feedstuffs.