Pasture Research at Invermay Station

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 729, 3 July 1953, Page 21

Pasture Research at Invermay Station

SINCE the first successful trial with the trace element molybdenum was laid down two and a half years ago, yields of pasture on the trial plots at Invermay Agricultural Research Station. near Dunedin, have doubled and trebled With other districts now reporting similar results, and great interest being taken in the use of molybdenum in all parts of New Zealand, there should be many interested listeners to the programme about the research work and field trials at Invermay which 4YA will broadcast in Country Calendar at 7.20 pP-m. on Wednesday, July 15. This is the first of four programmes about the work of Invermay Research Station which will be broadcast in the same session. The second, to be heard on July 22, is about wheat trials. Wheat production in New Zealand has declined in the past 20 years till we now produce only a third of our needs, but research goes on, particularly in breeding .new wheats of higher yielding capacity and better baking quality. At Invermay an important phase of the experimental work is to test these new wheats for yields under Otago-Southland conditions. Other work with wheat includes the use of various fertilisers and tests for the effect on both weeds and the wheat crop itself of newly-introduced weed-killers. Invermay is the-only property owned by the Department of Agriculture in Bes

the South Island where the problem of reclaiming marginal land is being tackled on an experimental basis, and the third programme, to be broadcast on July 29, is about this work. At Invermay land ploughed out of gorse and scrub about three years ago is now producing excellent pasture with a carrying capacity in sheep and cattle which proved that the work can be done on an economic basis. This series of programmes ends on August 5 with a survey of weed control work at the station. An important part of this is the preliminary investigation of new weed-killers to determine whether a crop of pasture will tolerate them. Work is also being done on the killing of gorse, manuka, sweet-briar tutu and other woody shrubs which are very serious weeds on much of our marginal land. The proposal to establish a research and experimental station to study problems related to farming in Otago and Southland was first made before the last war, but it was shelved in 1938 and it was not till 1949 that a suitable property was found at North Taieri, eight miles from the centre of Dunedin. Invermay Research Station covers 1300 acres. There are 200 acres of first-class alluvial soil; 500 acres of undulating clay downs, with rather shallow surface soil, similar in requirements and ee aaa eS

capacity to large areas of foothill country throughout New Zealand (and especially the downs country of South Otago and Southland); and 600 acres of poor, previously uncultivated land. Different kinds of research work are carried out on each class of land. On the first-class land problems relating to cropping, seed production and horticulture, and on the second-class. land methods to improve and bring into production this class of land, are studied. Costs and methods of breaking-in and methods for controlling gorse, manuka, sweet briar and tutu are investigated on. the third type of land.