WAIMATE CROPS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19286, 16 April 1928, Page 14

WAIMATE CROPS.

♦" —"~ ■ POTATjOES AFFECTED BY BLIGHT. Earlier in the year the expectations of Waimate farmers were that the .potato crop would be an. exceptionally good one, and much larger than the average yield. These expectations, however, are doomed to disappointment, blight having made its presence felt severely in almost every crop in the district. It is stated by those in a position to know very few crops' are free from disease. Some of the crops have given every indication to the eye of being clean 1 and of returning a good yield, but an examination of the roots has shown that many of the potatoes are already badly infected with blight, it being stated in some quarters that fully thirty per cent, of the table potatoes —•« affected and will be of no value. What was said to be about the' best area of potatoes in the Willowbridge district, on close examination, disclosed many blighted tubers. The crop which, under other conditions, might have been expected to produce ten tons to the acre will now dig only seven tons at the outside. So badly has the blight affected one crop of Up-to-dates in the Willowbridge district that it will not prove worth, lifting, there being not a sound potato in the ground. However, it is hoped that with the smaller yield of table potatoes, the price will be much higher, which should have some recompense for the smaller yield. Partridge peas this season have fallen far short of expectations, there being few crops threshed of the first quality. The dry season has resulted in far too many small peas. Those farmers in the district who sowed linseed are realising fairly satisfactorv results. One crop which has already been threshed has aiven a reI ' t „ rn . of half a ton -to the acre. This vield however, is expected to lie crentlv exceeded by the crops sown in tti* he'ttrr class lands, which m've every appearance of turning out excellently.