CLOVER SEED

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20977, 4 October 1933, Page 14

CLOVER SEED

-N..Z. TYPES FAVOURED ; - AUSTRALIAN' EXPERIMENTS ■';. (PBOM OL'il OV.'.N COaS.ESPOKDEIiT.) • SYDNEY, September 28. Because of its wonderful growth in England overseas specialists, a fewyears ago, expressed" the view that Kentish wild white clover might give superior results in Australia to the New Zealand 'types now largely in use. After a series of experiments conducted in New South Wales this has not proved to be the case, and farmers have been' urged to insist on the New Zealand seed. In order to arrive at a conclusion on the subject the agrostologist of the New South Wales Department of Agriculture, Mr J. V.' Whittet, obtained a number of registered strains of the clover from England. These were grown in comparison with-most of the persistent types of New Zealand white clover at coastal and tablelands experimental farms. In every case: it was found the New Zealand clovers gave superior results, both in regard to growth and persistency Subsequent to the laying out of these trials, Mr A. F. Carr, a wellknown Romney Marsh breeder, sent the agrostologist some seed of the Kentish wild white clover collected by him during a visit to England. Mr Carr emphasised the value placed on the plant in England, and mentioned that a field of the clover on the Earl of Guildford's estate at Waldershare Park, near Dover, had carried liomney Marsh sheep at the rate of 14 head an acre for a period of five months. The seed was grown at the Hawkesbury Agricultural College, in New South Wales. The resultant plants were found to be slower in growth, finer leaved, and not so persistent as the main New Zealand strains, which gave 80 per cent, persistency as .against 30 per cent, from the Kentish seed. "Australia has been importing white clover from New Zealand for many years," said Mr Whittet, the other day, "and the best strains are already established in our coastal areas. Farmers who intend sowing white clover next autumn should insist on obtaining New Zealand see'd, and, for preference, that bagged under the New Zealand department's pasture certification scheme."'