WHEAT GROWING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7824, 17 June 1909, Page 1

WHEAT GROWING.

Speaking at a, mooting of a; Wheatgrowers' Association in^Western Australia, Professor LowriG, late of j the Lincoln Agricultural College, said that ovei* and over again it had been demonstrated : tka.t r fallowing gave the best returns. ■.! ) Xhey. iHo,uld not be greedy, but prepare' tho land thoroughly jand well. %Wien. he "first went to South Australia,! mpst> fahtie'fs .did hot fallow at all, Md, Qhly&f&V-.bf the best farmers fallowed tHfete land, and, even then tMyCdi^.iiqHiip. jViJi, the best way •. tor they left their,.land to lie, out 'for the; benefit.o.f;the ..feed;, and then fanowed-'-aav^fi.eJ.livnd.-'.iJrieH off. That led to "ta-keall," :,which was a. disease propaged'■* by,; working land too dry. He had an'; experience once in South Australia which proved that dry working was the,'cause of "takeall.'" i fie. was putting in some'wheats of various sorts'.and. among bthergt was intending to sow some', French''varieties. .Owing to the !facj>Vthat. those j,latter; arrived late,: lands fbr>'',ihesm ;hadto be .worked wet. .^Us-thV!- colonial . wheats-■'''were sown (Iry: an'd'Suffered: from "takeall," while the Avheats spwn wet were .free from; .that disease, v What he wanted to insist on.was that,they must fallow early in the winter ,~'or as.early as possible after seeding. Some successful farmers followed a practice that seemed at first sight opposed to that, viz., fallowing before seed time on a free class of land.. That, certainly was working . drj7, • jnii! stho position :was saved by' the laiid being thoroughly worked 'when the mpisture left by; the winter rains, : was •dried up.' The.practice that seemed to hjm to be the best ; all round..wasito let the teams, go straight onto fallow as soon as i the seed was in.. The 1 reasons for that me 7 ) thod of , procedure V were sufficiently plain. Land that had been, ploughed up lost very little rain, for the ground was open and'the fain,penetrated into the subsoil., Chemical: changes ;also; went on, and-plant food was liberated"; moreover, Soils improved and changed character !wH^n aerated. After fallowing'they should jleave,it alone, until' the spring; but ;lie:;would not. recommend that working ithp,Jand should be delayed up till there'was,danger,,ofdryness. As regarded, the best implement: for w,orking jthe.' work .might be done with;a s^r.ing-tp.otli or disc ciilti|.vator o_r.a,jSc,ari.fi.er;vrin-. fact,. -any! implement .wouTdV do, provided. the land was worked; deep enough. ■ Wheati required, a .firm 'seed bed, and the »soil must be. worked d'Qwn;and well'bedded. By fallowing they.'made a rdeep seed bed, but; the cultivator brought the see.i ;bed, ifco? tilie," Requisite state of firmness., : \%eh:f allowing! they. would find a f ill-row,; 6in.deep.best>>but<if;deep cultivation was 'given.iust.before seeding the seed'; bed wiould not be; firm enough, .'and'.'ia din jfurrbw, or Jevejn a cultivator alone, would be sufficient for, ground ;.wPrked:' immediately before seeding. The;..first treason .for spring working was the retention of the rainfall; the equivalent of every inch' of rain that could,be secured in the land was an advantage and increased jthe potential rainfall.' But the?/main reason was thataystenmtic cultivation in the sprJ.ngv,conßier,ved. moisture, and thereby kept bacteria or ferment jlife alive in the soil. Those bacteria were there in myriads—millions to the cubic inch, each: one' an .lining unit, aii'd: if they did ,not ,work the soil properly they did not' get the. full, bene^fit from.'those'"ferments. ' Those bacteria, required moisture,.,^nd it was essential 'that moisture ■ must be preserved for them;, They decomposed , organic matter in the soil, and thereby left nitrogen,Jbehil\d, and ,then nitrification of 'the.-..soir- took place. It wias infinitely better ,to promote nitrification by fallowing-than to : add the required nitrogen to the soil in the. shape of expensive" ;nitrqg;enousi manures.' But what happened when all the: organic matter in the soil was worked out ? There, were ferments, in the ,soil that could assimilate nitrogen from the air and store it in the. form of nitrates. They had not: me same leaching . bf nitrogen put, of the soil in this dry climate as took place in wetter countries, and consequently ferment actively was' greater in Australia than in .England, especially as it had been found that the optimum temperature (that was the most favourable temperature,), for. the operation of those oacteria was over 9tideg Jb'ahr. So he impressed upon, them that they should iailow thorouglily and fallow early. At seed-time ho'did not like to give the land too much.crop. A self-sown crop would almost give a better return than one ploughed iri. without manure. On loose land frequent harrowing should bo , resorted toipr firming, light soils. When they had; got the Jand into a comparatively ■", firm .condition the next question was!.seed. I'.a.q^ wheat in Western Australia showed far too much smut, and that was simply due to carelessness and neglect at seed-time. That fault could be. controlled, by every man by careful pickling. If suspicious of smut they should use ljlb of, bluestone to ten gallons; of water (remembering however,''that .bluestpne poisons .the seed),, but if there was a single sniut ball visible a 2!per cent solution should bei used. That would kill a little 1 grain, but would secure freedom from smut. The spores of bunt or smut were very minute, and germinated with the seed. They then eejit out threads which penetrated growing leaf "an^ grew, .up the.' inside ;stem. ;•'■ As the' * dried up the mycelium iormed spores which -ate up the "starch of ihe! grain. Of course, if they , sowed dry there was less danger of .smut,, the reason .being that there was sometimes sufficient moisture to germinate the .spores but not to germinate the, parent 'plant as well. So,' for pickling their, practice should be 21b; of ;biuest6ne to 'ev^ry ten gallonsi Of water, dipped in haltbags, and allowed.to drain. Another mixture was 2oz of formalin to five gallons of water, but in that.solutibn the wheat required dipping for "fen minutes. The very greatest cajre. should be taken to select Beed. of absolute purity," and the' earliest" wheats would probably be found the most profitable in that district. ,It was worthy while to gradei c©cd wheat,.and it was as true inb'w ; :as-. int Virgil's 'time that grading was highly ■.profitable work, tor by ah extfa ©xgen^e, of 6d per bushel they flight',:get. '"iyrp bushels extra return.' i As regarded the quantity of seed, tho. drier, the ..district the lighter the seed, necessary, and in an experiment: the equivalent' of thirtyseven bushels, to the acre had been reaped .from; a seeding .of ,71b to the acre. His idea was to bow nearly,a bushel for corn, but, 801b to the acre for hay; that was in "a dry district, but in wetter districts they might use a lot heavier; seeding with good results. The fault of too thick seeding lay in the fact that the corn from the resulting crop: 'would" be pinched. He wa.3 in favour;; of < early seeding e^ery time ri and f6ur?.times out of five, if not oftener, they.jwould find early seeding a success. .South Australian experience showed him that June-sown wheat averaged four to five bushels less than April-sown.' The main thing was to getf a vigorous start. As regarded manure, he advised the use of about lewt of superphosphate, which he understood was considerably in excess of the practicein that district. If they put on 1001b' they were putting on a little bit more than would be taken off by a fifteen .bushel crop. A great advantage derived from the use of phosphates was the. fact that they ensured deep rooting of the crop ,and, more than that, they enabled the plant to do with. less moisture ; in fact, 880 parte of water with superphosphate will go as far as 1300 parts of water witnout the superphosphate. Farmers had a notion that wheat would be blighted if too much "phosphate was used with the crop,': but he had never experienced blight. from the excessive use of phosphate. Why not always have their land equivalent to new ? To do that they must manure from the start, and, his contention was.that it would pay. ..The advantages of sufficient mamiripg were that the wheat

would ripen earlier, withstand drought better, and give a better sampje, heavier yield and better feed. If they manured:their land properly they would derive immense benefits from the..improved feed. They should not beggar their land, but do their best for it. ;' \v