PLANT PESTS

Hokitika Guardian, 21 October 1927, Page 3

PLANT PESTS

.-V, CONTROL BY INSECTS. WELLINGTON, October 19. An explanation of the grant to the Marketing Board is contained in the annual report of the Board which has just reached the Dominion. “The grant, which is matched by an eTflrt+ulorit amount contributed equally by the New Zealand Government and the trustees of the Institute is desi.gned to further scheme for the control of injurious plants by insects,” states the report. “Encouraging results have been obtained in Australia in the campaign against prickly pear, 4 which had already covered 30,090,990 acres and was spreadng over 1,000,030 acres each year. New Zealand suffers in particular from the unrestrained growth of the blackberry, and no economic method of preventing its ravages lias hitherto been discovered. It lias been stated in the New Zealand Legislature that between 1920 and 1925, the blackberry post bad encroached upon 100,000 acres of land, much of it valuable dairying land. If the blackberry can (be checked by entomological methods in New Zealand, valuable experience will have been gained in a technique which ,night also prove applicable to the control of such weed pests as ragwort, St. John’s wort, and the Russian sowthistle of Canada.”