SEASONAL NOTES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 648, 28 September 1933, Page 7

SEASONAL NOTES

USEFUL ADVICE REGARDING THE MANAGEMENT OF PASTURES. AVOIDING WASTAGE. Writing in the Septemher issue of the Agricultural Journal, Mr. R. P. Connell, of the Fields Division, says: -In these difficult times, when it is particularly desirahle to" elimdnate all ■ avoidahle wastage, farmers a.t this season may well direct their attentiori . to two matters of current farm management that no,t only lead commonly to serious wastage, hut also are in-. terrelated. In the first place is the fact that on thousands .of farms some of the feed produced iby grassland during late spring and early summer is not utilised to the best advantage. From October onwards for several weeks, on many farms, grazing is of a type which allows a portion of the pasture growth to reach the flowering stage. Apart from exceptional circumstances, flower-h'ead development is definitely undesirahle. It results- in feed of markedly lowed digestihility, whereas feed of high digestihility is a prime need hoth of good milking stock, whether they he cows, ewes or sows, and .of growing stock such as calves and lambs. It results also in feed hadly balanced, in its contents of the various nutritive suhstances, in comparison with short leafy pasture. It results, further, in some of this feed, inferior though it be, heing wasted. It is likely to result in undesirahle changes in the pasture swardsy particularly if they are really good ones, and it may also result in a diminished supply of fresh leafy feed from pastures during the critical period that is experienced frequently after midsummer. In the second place, a suhstantial proportion of the serious stock wastage that characterises New Zealand farming, and that is much in evidence at this season, may he attributed primarily to inadequate winter feeding. It is widely agreed as a physiological fact .that the lowered vitality of stock eonsequent on inadequate winter feeding makes them much more subject in the spring to udder disorders, to digestive disorders, and to breeding troubles. Often disease will pass by ■the animals robust hy virtue of good feeding when it will seriously affect the animals weakened hy the semistarvation that is so common. Stock wastage through disease is such a heavy drain on live-stock industries .that modifications in farm management, based on a more thorough realisation of the extent to which underfeeding in winter contributes to the incidence of stock disorders, is a matter of general moment. It is surely fortunate that ensilage, one of the most important means of hringing about better winter feeding of stock, will also assist greatly in avoiding in late spring and early summer the hadly controlled grazing of pastures which leads to development of flowering, with the various attendant disadvantages which have been already mentioned. In a normal season it would he a distinctly beneficial modification of current management either to introduce ensilage or to practise it much more extensively than has been practised on those many farms on which it has already been given a place. It is often well to supplement ensilage hy some haymaking, partly he-. cause often when a period of good haymaking weather is being experienced some surplus grass remains to be harvested, and it is then quite good practice to turn such grass into hay, and partly beeause hay is a more suitahle complementary feed than silage to roots, which should he utilised for winter feeding on the great majority of farms on which ensilage is well worth while. Another seasonahle practice which will tend to xeduce the tendency towards the development later on of the flowering hahit in patches of the sward is grass harrowing, thorough enough to bring ahout even distrihution of stock droppings before they have been deposited long enough' to result in patches of rank, unrelished growth. Much of the value of ensilage, haymaking, and harrowing as pasture control measures will be lost unless they are associated with effective grazing management, which consists essentially of alternate relatively fields under grazing during late spring and early summer. Further information about the method of effective grazing management at this period may be obtained from local offieers of the Fields Division. The combined effect of efficient igrazing management, ensilage, and judicious harrowing may he expected to he good utilisation of- the feed which is produced. The full importance of efficient utilisation is widely not realised. It may be gauged to some extent hy the fact that improvernent in grass utilisation has been associated with increases of upwards of 40 per cent. in production. And of particular moment in times of eeonomic stress is the fact that these increases have been achieved with a relatively small 'extra outlay. Their financSal positrion to-day may prevent many farmers from attaining in their grassfarming as high a standard as they would like by means of such measures as top-dressing and drainage, hut seldom will a farmer's financial position prevent him from devoting his energy towards more ef'fective utilisation, in respect to which many have immense scope for imi provement. Feeding Value of Silage. in districts in which the merits of silage are well known no one ever ' questions that it is a nutritive and a healthy feed. But in recent years the use of silage has spread extensively into new districts, and in these at times there is a tendency to attribute to the feeding of silage certain "stock disorders which investigation has shown to be due to totally diffcrent causes, among which underfeeding is of frequent occurrence. To those wh'o

entertain any doubt about the safetyof feeding silage, the following stateheavy stocking and spellingr of the ment from a hulletin puhlished in Decemher, 1932, iby the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, should he of interest. Incidentally, it confirms widq and prolonged experience in New Zealand. "Silage has been generally reeog- I nised as a feed having great merits 1 for the dairy cow. Cows which receive ' silage seldom develop the constipated ; and hide-hound condition common ! among dry-fed cows in late winter ■and spring. Silage, however, has had its opponents wh'o have regaixled it as detrimental chiefly hecause of its high acid content, and who have claimed that it produced aeidosis. This questiOn has been thoroughly studied at the Ohio Station during the last two or three years. Fifty pounds per day of silage have been. fed for several months. Some cows have been fed exclusively on silage, and others have been fed more laetic and acetic acids in pure form for considerable periods than a cow would ever get from eating silage. As shown hy eareful studies of the blood and urine of these cows, there was not a sign of any harmful effect. Apparently, the silage acids, which are derived from the fermentation of sugars, are used for food as readily as are the sugars themselves. Exclusive grain feeding, on the other ' hand, produced marked evidence of aeidosis during a three-week period when it was practised. Consequently, the beneficial effects of silage feeding may be had without fear of any harmful effect on th'e animal, except such as may come from overdoing any good thing." It is not recommended that stock should he required to depend upon silage alone, any more than it is recommended that other good feeds, such as mangels, hay, or linseed, should he fed exclusively for any extended period, but the feeding of silage .as a supplement to grass or in combination with hay and roots has heen established as valuable by considerable field experience. Possibly the commonest fault in th'e use of silage consists in underfeeding it. This fault arises primarily from attributing to it a. feeding value greater than that it actually possesses. It is at times viewed as heing akin in nutritive value to a concentrate such as linseed meal, whereas actually its feeding value approximates that of the grecn material from which it is made; for example, if silage is made from green oats, then lcwt of the silage is roughly equal in feeding value to 1 cwt of green oats. Cases have come under notice in which troubles appeared in cattle which' were subsisting wholly or almost wholly on silage and in which the silage became suspected of causing the troubles. Investigation disclosed that the silage being fed fed amounted to 8 to 121b daily, and, .as this amount is 'far helow that required for mere maintenance, the cattle were really undergoing a process of semi-starvation, which, by lowerinig their vitality, made them subject to disorders which they would be likely to escape if well nourished. The position might be summed up in the statement that, in such cases, the incidence of disorders is due not so much to silage as to lack of silage. There should be no avoidable delay in the closing of fields for silage. A common error is the making of silage at a later date than is desirahle. One of the important respects in which' ensilage is superior to haymaking consists in the fact that silage may usually he removed early enough to allow of development of a fresh leafy afterwath, before the advent of the customary dry summer period during which such an aftermath is likely to he particularly valuable. It is frequently well worth while to top-dress fields with superphosphate just before closing them for hay or silage, especially if the fields have not heen top-dressed during the preceding 12 months. Forage Crops. Frequently ensilage and haymaking by themselves do not make satisfactory provision for supplementing the feed from pastures during the critical periods of scant grass growth. In dairying the provision of ample highly digestible feed in the latter part of the summer is a particularly important matter. The feed available from pastures often becomes inadequate or unsuitable at an earlier date -than many realise; at times the feed available from pastures is failing shortly after Christmas .as a ration for reasonably igood dairy stock. It is relatively easy to supplement suitably the feed from the pastures during the ' latter part of January and in February, but it is not so easy to remedy the weak feed position that occurs a little earlier. Fresh leafy growth such as the aftermath from an ensilage field and the second growth from a stand of lucerne are likely to be very valuable for this period. If there is not certainty of a sufficient supply of feed from these sources, it is usually advisable to sow| in Octo- | ber an area of quickly maturing soft j turnips, such as Red Paragon or Purple Top Mammoth, for use early in the New Year. The yield from such crops may be relatively small, but this is offset hy its, heing especially serviceable in maintaining the production of butter-fat until a later maturing variety, such as Imperial or Hardy Green Globe, becomes available. * For the winter, crops such as man'gels, carrots, swedes gnd kales — including chou moellier, which is also known as marrow-stemmed kale' — are as a rule desirahle in addition to silage and hay. Chou Moellier has at times been sown with good results in

October, when it provides feed in latter part of summer. Later sowings of kales may be made to provide feed in autumn and winter. A suitahle sowing of chou moellier — which rightly has been increasing in popular flavour, partly -hecause of its marked resistance to club-root — is 11 to 21b of seed per laere sown( broadcast, or h and flb in drills 2 to 3ft apart. Full success with the crop is dependent upon high fertility; even on relatively good soils a dressing of 3 to 4cwt an acre of a mixture of equal parts of superphosphate and blood and hone is considered profitable on the basis of considI erahle experience. I On free soils greater areas could • advantageously" he devoted to the ; field carrot, both for dairying and sheep-farming. In Taranaki, wh'ere the carrot is heing exploited more fully than in other provinces, the most popular variety is probably Matehless White, while Barriball, Guerande, and White Belgian have all been grown freely with good re- ■! sults. The average manurial dressing | is one of about 4icwt an acre, conj sisting essentially of a mixture of superphosphate and bonedust. The seeding usually adopted is from 1 to l'lb an acre, in drills 14in apart, hut really good crops have resulted from sowing in drills 18 to 24 inches apart. ' Preparatory cultivation is most generally commenced between mid-August and mid-October. The Guerande carrot, which ean -be grown without thinning or dig.ging, is rightly very popular as a food for sheep, since, de- | spite its small labour requirement, j crops of over 50 tons an acre are not • hy any means rare. Ordinarily it j should he sown .at the rate of 1 to l»lb of seed an acre, in rows 18in to 24in apart and intercultivated as much as j possihle; hut it may be grown without intercultivation and sown at the rata of lSlb of seed an acre in 14inch rows. It is considered good practice, especially for sheep, to sow it on low ridges obtained by rolling" after the ordinary ridger. The Potato Crop. In many districts the main crop of potatoes should he sown in October. The use of healthy seed is of outsttanding importance; the use of poor, diseased seed is probably more produetive of unsatisfactory crops than the combined effect of all other factors which bring about lowered yields. The most serious class of disease is borne in the tubers. It is not completely understood, and the term "virus" disease is applied to it. Several forms of virus disease occur, and an important character common to them all is that while their symptoms can he seen in the foliage, they cannot be seen in the tuher, and so it is impossible to tell by inspection of seed whether it is healthy or infected with a virus. On this account' the only safe course is to use "certified' seed — i.e., seed which has heen passed under the ofificial system of certification which is administered by the Department of Agriculture, and which' attaches much importance to the amount of virus in the foliage of the parent crop at the time of field inspection. The importance of virus incidence may be gauged from the fact that one line of potatoes may yield five times as much as another line of the same variety grown under identical conditions, thie largie differenee being due primarily to virus trouble. ) The following are well proved va.rieties: Dakota, a standard main crop variety that generally does well on medium land in Canterhury; Arran Chief, ia main crop, good lines of which should he popular on heavier land; Aucklander Short Top, (usually grown in the North Island as Sutton's Supreme), a second early which rightly is a general favourite, hecause it is reWtively reliable and yields a. tuber of good quality; Aucklander Tall Top, similar in essential respects to Aucklander Short Top, except that it is later, .being a main , crop; King Edward, a potato of out- j standing quality, which has not generally yielded satisfactorily except in Southland; Epicure, an early variety i which can he recommended, though' , this only when certified seed is to he ( nsed. The cutting of seed potatoes at times leads to many blank spaces in the rows of the resultant crop, due to the rotting of the cut portions. Rot- ' ting is greatly minimised if conditions are suitahle for healing of the cut surfaces. Dry conditions are particularly unfavourable for healing. Hence, while it is good practice to cut and plant immediately into a moist soil, it is not goofi practice tto leave cut potatoes in sunlight or to plant them at once into dry soil. If cut , seed are to he kept for a day or two they should be stored in a moist place or covered wtih wet sacks — not . piled in heaps, but loosely spread out, as access of air facilitates healthy 'healing of the cut surfaces. Of popular varieties, Aucklander Short Top, Aucklander Tall Top, and Majestic do not heal readily after cutting, and so when cutting is to he carried out every endeavour should be made to provide the conditions favourable for healing.