INSECTS TO SUBDUE NOXIOUS WEEDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 96, 14 July 1927, Page 11

INSECTS TO SUBDUE NOXIOUS WEEDS

WORK AT CAWTHRON ERECTION OF INSECTARY (From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. The control of noxious weeds at Cawthron Institute will be greatly facilitated by the erection of a large insectary and attached to the laboratory for noxious weed control work. For this purpose the Empire Marketing Board offered a special grant of £1,333 and the New Zealand Government £667, bringing the total to £2.000. It was reported to the Research Council to-day that plans have been completed and approved, and full specifications drawn up. The Trust Board considered the eight tenders sent in and accepted that of Mr. Holbrook for £1,658 Bs, exclusive of cost of gauze, which has to be indented separately from England. The insectary is designed primarily for blackberry work, but there should be plenty of room for work on other noxious weeds also. The Cawthron Institute is contributing £IOO worth of furniture and £IOO worth of equipment toward the buildings. During the summer all attempts at transplanting gorse were failures, owing to heat and drought. In cooler weather and after heavy rain considerable success in transplanting gorse bushes into the insectaries has been met with The New Zealand Meat. Producers’ Board has offered the sum of £ 300 annually for a period of two years for an extra assistant entomologist to work on t\ie problem of the control of piri-piri or bidi-bidi. This offer has been accepted by the Cawthron Institute Trust Board, subject to certain small adjustments which are at present under negotiation with the Meat Producers’ Board.