SUPPLEMENTARY FEEDING.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 230, 29 March 1928, Page 6

SUPPLEMENTARY FEEDING.

VALUE OF ENSILAGE. Paspalum and Lucerne Crops. (By Mr. P. W. Smallfield, B. Ag., Instructor in Agriculture, Ruakura, in the Journal of Agriculture) The prolonged spell of dry weather experienced this summer has demonstrated the extreme value of ensilage for the summer supplementary feeding of dairy cows. In the Auckland province permanent pastures, except on the best swamp land, generally ceased growth early in December, and have since remained in a burnt and dormant condition. Annual forage crops for summer feeding have done badly, and in many cases have failed altogether. Lucerne and paspalum have proved a good stand-by, | but for various reasons lucerne is not an important crop in Auckland province generally, while paspalum, although it has grown well on the heavier and moister soils, has not thrown a great deal of feed where the soil conditions are very dry. The great advantage of grass ensilage for summer supplementary feeding is that it can be saved in years of good rainfall and abundant grass growth and kept for dry years. A stack of grass ensilage is the safest insurance policy a dairy farmer can hold against drought. The failure of ordinary permanent pastures during the dry weather has naturally turned the attention of dairy farmers to the desirability of establishing fields of paspalum and lucerne for providing summer feed. There is no doubt that paspalum could be more widely grown in the | southern part of Auckland province than it is at present. The common idea that once paspalum is sown it will eventually spread all over the farm, smother out all the other grasses, and leave the farmer with no winter or early spring feed, is quite wrong. Experience has shown that where regular topdressing is carried out, and proper pasturemanagement methods are adopted, mixed pastures of ryegrass, cocksfoot and paspalum can be maintained. Paspalum will not spread into an ordinary ryegrass, cocksfoot and clover pasture as long as the pasture has a close sward. Paspalum usually establishes itself in a mixed pasture when the turf is opening up, and really occupies spaces that would otherwise be growing weeds. The best way to establish paspalum is to sow 51b to 61b of seed with the ordinary permanent pasture mixture used in the district.

Lucerne cannot he so widely cultivated in Auckland province as paspalum, since it does badly on lpwlying soils where the permanent water level during winter is near the surface. Lucerne naturally does best in a warm, dry climate and a deep alluvial soil supplied with moisture in the deeper layers. In a wet climate the crop has to contend against the competition of grass and clover, which in many parts of the North Island take possession of the land during the winter and early spring when the lucerne is dormant. The sowing of lucerne • should be attempted only on land that is well drained in the winter and that is in a high state of fertility. Over a very large part of Auckland province summer supplementary feed can be more economically provided by means of grass ensilage and paspalum than by lucerne.