PERENNIAL ITALIAN RYE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10248, 26 May 1911, Page 5

PERENNIAL ITALIAN RYE.

SAID TO BE A FAILURE.

A, number of Masterton farmers have from time to tame, with various grasses- Amongst the -grasses- has been perennialised Italian rye- A set/tier in a northwestern district of the North Island secured some seed of this, and planted four acres. The seed was sown in October, 1909, and came away well, but did not stool.out, running up thinly to seed, and ' producing nothing like an ordinary crop of Italian rye. This year it has become ■thinner and' thinner, and is now 60 poor that the farmer in question intends ploughing the paddock, and resowing with other grasses. The manager of the Moumahaki Experimental Farm, Mr Primrose McDonnell, reports:— "In November, 1909, three small beds of Italian rye were sown in the grass-plot paddock. One was English seed', one New. Zealand grown seed, and the other perenndalised. Up "to the present the last named variety cannot be said to be in any wiay stiperior to the other feet, after a long period of drought the perennialised has the worst appearance of the three varieties. Whether it wfiiil be more permanent as a pasture-grass remains to be seen. The above remarks also aipply to a small patch that was sown in paddock No. 18."