EXPERIMENTAL WORK

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20740, 25 February 1939, Page 9

EXPERIMENTAL WORK

FACIAL ECZEMA INVESTIGATIONS AT RUAKURA Farmer-visitors to Ruakura guests of the Department of Agriculture, spent the forenoon inspecting areas on’the farm set aside for experimental work in connection with the department's facial eczema campaign. Details of the work being done were given in a brief address by Dr. J. F. Filmer, who has been in charge of this branch of the department's activities, and bv Mr P. W. Smallfield, fields superintendent for the Auckland district. * Referring to the difficulties which confronted the investigators, Dr. Filmer said that it appeared that the disease broke out only about once in three years, being induced apparently by a toxic principle in pastures which had flushed in warm humid weather, after a long dry spell. The active term of the three-yearly outbreak, too, was only a few' weeks, so that to secure natural conditions, chemists and other investigators were restricted to those brief periods. Little in the way of adequate investigation into the disease itself could be done until another outbreak occurred. use of Pas pal urn Tn the meantime, however, both at Ruakura and at a control station established in the district, efforts were being made to induce an artificial outbreak of the disease by providing, through heavy grazing and subsequent irrigation, conditions which approximated to those obtaining in many parts of the Waikato when the bad outbreaks occurred last year. So far, the weather itself had to a large extent counteracted the efforts of the investigating officers, particularly on the controlled paddocks at Ruakura, and no outbreaks of facial eczema had occurred in sheep or cattle.

An emergency scheme had been arranged, however, under which a watch would be kept on other districts w’here a relatively dry summer had been experienced and equipment was all ready for instituting prompt investigations should an outbreak of the trouble be reported from any of these quarters.

From data gathered relative to the last outbreak, however, the investigating officers had found that where paspalum had formed the basis of the pasture there was relatively little trouble experienced by the farmer. In the absence, at present, of more positive knowledge on the subject, the use of paspalum pasture was recommended by the research workers as a preventive measure.