RYEGRASS GERMINATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1939, Page 6

RYEGRASS GERMINATION

CONDITION OF LOCAL CROPS. EVIDENCE OF FUNGAL ATTACK. Growers and dealers in perennial ryegrass seed will be well advised this year to carefully watch the germination of samples as there is evidence that in North Island districts, at least, the fungus, “Pullularia,” is active. The position has arisen, no doubt, as a result of the general wet and humid conditions experienced over the last month, while a continuation of these conditions may even now be expected to aggravate the position.A fuller account of this trouble may be found in the “Journal of Agriculture” for October last, where, also, are directions for sampling a crop prior to cutting with a view to discovering the extent of infection. Where the infection occurs early, the seeds attacked are usually light and can be removed by machine dressing, but late infected seeds may differ in no outward manner from healthy seeds, and their presence can be detected only by germination tests, or by microscopic examination.

Infection up to 20 pey cent has already been detected in a local sample and any growers who do not intend to cut their crops for a few days may have samples tested by applying to the local office of the Department of Agriculture. If severe infection is revealed by such an examination it will now, of course, be rather late to make good hay from the crop but. at any rate, the expense of threshing a worthless crop may be avoided, while, in other cases, it may be left with the- object, of getting a white clover seed harvest instead.