TOPDRESSING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 December 1938, Page 3

TOPDRESSING

TREATMENT OF HILL COUNTRY. NEW FERTILISER AVAILABLE. Hill country farmers desiring to increase the carrying capacity of their land and to improve the quality and constitution of their live stock should topdress with a suitable fertiliser. Hitherto the hill country farmer has had to work under extreme difficulties of high landed cost Of fertilisers, large areas to cover and scarcity of suitable labour for spreading. Whilst it is impossible, under existing circumstances, to remove these difficulties, something has been done to make the topdressing of hill country a less arduous as well as a less costly business and this has been achieved by the production of a completely granulated high-grade phosphatic fertiliser. Previously the only method whereby the combined action of water-soluble and slowly-available phosphates could be secured was by mixing superphosphate with finely ground North African or Nauru phosphate rock. This mixture could not be granulated and so made suitable for hand topdressing, but was always in fine condition and unpleasant to sow on windy days. Today, by using a recently installed unit, manufacturers have produced a product that combines the immediate action of super with the delayed action ■of natural phosphate, and the whole in an even, granular condition that greatly facilitates sowing. Most hill-country farmers adopt a system of rotational topdressing —that is. they do a certain portion of their holding each year. To work this system succesfully they must have a fertiliser that will be effective over a long period. This new product is claimed to be just such a fertiliser, as more than half of its 54-56 per cent of phosphate is water-soluble or quickly available, and the balance more slowly available. Thus the pasture will be fed continuously for a long time, eventually absorbing the whole of the phosphate. I