BLACKBERRY PESTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 183, 5 August 1925, Page 6

BLACKBERRY PESTS.

TESTING THE SPECIFICS, -i EXPERIMENTS AT WAIROA. s": (By Telegraph.—Special to "Star.") "c 3 GISBORNE, this day. ' Mr. Northcroft, officer in charge of the investigational plot of forty acres at Wairoa, on which experiments in connection with the eradication of black* berry are being carried out, in a state* ment on the work done up to the present said that bo far none of the specific! > tried out had given results which would indicate that a solution of the problem had been found. Any mixtures sent to the Department in connection wjth the bonus of £10,000 offered by the Government are tried out at Wairoa, but none had been satisfactory. A surprising feature of the work so far has been the small number of solutions sent forward for testing. In addition to the testing work, Mr Northcroft is carrying out experiments with various solutions of arsenic and sulphuric acid, and also working on the life history of the blackberry. It is . . considered that the complete work ofinvestigation will take at least two years, and it is hoped that by that time the best method of handling the pest will have been decided upon, even if no specific has been discovered for complete eradication. Mr. Xorthcroft said he wae very impressed with the work which had' been done by goats, and believed that the eventual solution might possibly be found in spraying with some solution, burning the dead blackberry and handling the country thereafter with goats. Various methods of cutting and burning will be tried out during the coming summer, and any further solutions sent forward will be tested.