FARMING WORLD.

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20740, 25 February 1939, Page 11 (Supplement)

FARMING WORLD.

Grazing of Pastures The subject of grazing is an extremely controversial one, but there are a number of important fundamental facts which it is always well to mear in mind. These concern the grazing season, the grazing animal and the herbage to be grazed. With regard to the grazing season, veryheavy grazing early in the year, will have an adverse effect on the persistency of the grasses which start growth early. The palatability of such types may increase the damage. There are, however, two remedies for this, namely, the use of good herbage strains and a sound manurial scheme. The danger will be most marked on light soils. Spring grazing must be so organised as to prevent the tendency to rankness, to ensure high paiatability and high nutritive value. Grazing must not be allowed to become selective. During the summer the aim is to prevent, by varying the density of stocking, the tendency of the herbage to run to seed. The shorter the pasture is kept during the summer, the greater the chance of preventing high fibre content in the autumn. Allowing pastures to run to seed in order to have plentiful autumn and winter feed is uneconomic and unsound. Difficulties, of course, at once arise, and these lead to the conclusion that the grazing policy should not be haphazard, but should be organised on a rotational basis. The grazing animal, both as regards type and numbers, has a profound influence on the quality and quantity of pastures. Sheep graze mainly on the fine thin grasses, so that wherever there is selective grazing there .is produced a fibrous, unpalatable, indigestible herbage. Mixed stocking is essential, sheep and cattle dovetailing into each other, so that rough, tufty herbage is kept down by the cattle and the finer grasses suitably exposed to the sheep.

Farm Workers and the Land All are agreed that one of the biggest problems facing farmers to-day is the farm labour problem. As every farmer knows there are farm workers and farm workers. Some have a real aptitude for their work and are enthusiastic in the carrying out of their duties, while others regard their work merely as another “job.” Probably the main reason why the former class are so keen about their work and so willing to learn ail they possibly can about farming is because they have definite prospects of one day becoming farmers themselves. Some of them are young men with capital who are merely passing through a probationary period In their desire to gain a practical knowledge of farming, some are immigrants anxious to learn all they can about farming in a new land. Now if the second-class of farm workers, those who can entertain little prospect of one day becoming land-owning farmers and who consequently have little enthusiasm for their work, were given definite prospects then the whole question would probably be entirely different. The Government or some responsible body of farmers should endeavour to devise a means whereby all farm workers would be given a chance of becoming farmers themselves. Thus with definite prospects ensured, farm workers would have

By “STOCKMAN."

able phosphate and potash usually insomething to aim for and be happy in the knowledge that they were merely serving their apprenticeships. Herein lies the solution of our farm labour problem. Keeping Down Rough Grass The scheme of the farm may not permit of the best proportions of cattle and sheep and the working plan may he very much one-sided. It will still be good policy to aim at short, non-ffbrous herbage, and this can be done through the agency of the mowing machine. This machine is an important means of keeping down rough grass and of introducing a method of rotational control by means of which it is possible to have high quality pastures during the different periods of the year. Salient points in the practice of grazing may be summed up in a few words. In order to lengthen the grazing season, i.e., get earlier pasture in the spring and later grazing into the autumn, a system of nitrogenous manuring along with balanced phosphates, potash and lime, will give the desired result. Rotational manuring will counteract the bad effects of heavy grazing in the spring. On the other hand, if grazing in the spring is too light, the summer period will present difficulties. The Optimum Amount The optimum amount of nitrogen to apply varies with crop, season and soil conditions, and as it is rarely possible to make an exact forecast at the time when the fertiliser treatment must be decided, any measure that will provide a safeguard against the possible harmful effects of a bad forecast is obviously worth consideration. In this connection potash and phosphate can be useful, for lack of availduces a decline in resistance to disease. Potash seems to be a par-

ticularly important factor in maintaining resistance to a number of diseases and several well-known examples of its effects in this connection are frequently encountered in farm practice. Phosphate is, of course, likely to be particularly important in connection with diseases which attack the root systems, for most crop plants are capable of putting out a large number of roots, and since phosphate generally encourages root development it may help a plant to overcome loss of roots arising from disease. An instance of this is to be seen in the controlling effect of superphosphate on the “Take-all” disease of wheat in Australia. Effects of the Disease The explanation of this result presumably lies in the fact that since one of the chief effects of “Take-all” is to kill off roots, any circumstance which is likely to encourage the formation of new roots should help the plant to resist disease. This, of course, is an additional reason for ensuring an adequate supply of phosphate for crops susceptible to this type of disease. The selection of fertiliser treatment is inevitably a matter for compromise. It must be such as to work with reasonable satisfaction over a considerable range of soil and climatic conditions and, whilst designed to produce vigorous growth, it must help to protect that growth from pest attack as far as possible, either by making soil conditions favourable to the plant and unfavourable to the growth and spread of the disease, or by increasing the resistance of the plant to the disease. This can be summed up best, Mr lanley states, by advising the adoption of balanced manuring, adequate supplies of lime and regular applications of organic matter. Manuring and Crop Disease Writing in the December Issue of the Journal of the English Ministry of Agriculture, Mr F. Hanley, School of Agriculture, Cambridge, points out that the effect of individual elements of plant food, such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, on the incidence of disease is a somewhat complex problem, and it has yet to be established how plant nutrient supply affects disease resistance. For instance. he states, it is not certain whether effects of this kind are due directly to actual abundance or scarcity of the element concerned or to

the change in the proportion of the various elements relative to one another. It is often stated that excess of nitrogen predisposes a plant to attack by disease. But is this due to the increased amount of vegetative growth, combined with slower maturation, exposing a larger surface area to attack for a longer period of time or to internal changes within the plant rendering it more susceptible to disease. The effect of excess nitrogen is sometimes explained by saying that it produces a "soft” type of growth, more susceptible to disease •than hard, firm growth. But “soft” growth is not always more susceptible to disease than bard growth. The general tendency to-day is to emphasise the importance of balanced manuring and the supply of the various plant foods in the proportions test- suited to steady growth. It is probably a good working rule to regard excess of readily assimilable nitrogen as likely to lead to increased susceptibility to the attacks of fungus pesls. But, on the other hand, nitrogen is of overwhelming importance in the matter of crop yield, and in these days of artificial fertilisers, it behoves tne grower to give as much ns the crop can utilise without suffering reduction in quality or disease re6i£Utn^s