To Harrow or Not to Harrow

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 3, 14 July 1939, Page 11

To Harrow or Not to Harrow

It depends, members of a Young Farmerg Club were told the other night, on the state to which outrageous fortune and their own management had reduced them. The speaker was Mr. F. J. S. Holden, of the Department of Agriculture, Palmerston North, and these were some of the points he made, Ten or fifteen years ago "soil aeration" and " penetration" were magic words. It was the grass farmer’s proud boast that he had " harrowed it black." But time has modified that attitude. Indiscriminate harrowing with heavy harrows is one of the worst examples of "outrageous management." The chief result of the heavy harrows on many pastures is a splendid new crop of Californian thistle and ragwort, and in other districts of plantain, hawkweed, etc, If the aim of harrowing is merely the spreading of animal manure that of course is a different story. To spread manure is not merely desirable but necessary, but it does not involve the use of heavy harrows. Nor does it involve heavy expense. There are many types of excellent and inexpensive light grass harrows for use behind a tractor which on flat land will spread manure at a cost of about 3d an acre. Heavy harrows are certainly useful on night paddocks or house paddocks, where there are heavy deposits of stock manure and the sward has become sod-bound. They are also useful in places like North Auckland where paspalum is dominant in the dairy pastures, Finally, heavy harrowing is good practice where it is necessary to rejuvenate pastures composed of poor strains of grass. The purpose in this case is to tear out the maximum quality of weed grasses like browg top, Yorkshire fog, and ribgrass, and at the same time lift up and spread some of the surface soil as a covering for the new seed that is to be added. But that is a different thing altogether from the indiscriminate use of the heavy harrow on any type of pasture and in any climate. In brief, the case for harrowing is something like this:1. A light tripod and chains or even chains alone for spreading manure. 2. Heavy harrowing for sod-bound pastures and for the rejuvenation of worn-out pastures in conjunction with correct re-seeding. As a regular farming operation severe harrowing is bad practice.