THE WEEK

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24570, 19 May 1945, Page 3

THE WEEK

THE CHANGE FROM TURNIPS

Some weeks ago an Ashburton County resident remarked to “Straggler” that in his 30-odd years of farming in the county he had never seen so many poor turnip crops and such a small area of them. The quality of crops is mainly ruled by tne season, but the acreage decline cannot be explained by such a condition. The plain fact is that turnips are fast disappearing from farm crops—statistics show how rapidly.. The turnip area in the Dominion in 1933 was 414,911; 10 years later (in 1943), 198,880 acres, but in addition to the latter figures were 128,178 acres of swedes. Swedes were not recorded separately in 1933, but in 1943 just on 60,000 acres were grown in Otago and Southland. Canterbury’s contribution to the turnip area in 1933 was 132,336 acres, which had dropped to 73,148 acres in 1943—in addition 15,188 acres of swedes were groprn. A drop of approximately 50 per cent, in the province’s turnip crop in the decade shows how rapidly farm practice has turned to other more remunerative crops. Rape and turnips together were a popular crop up to recently. Ten years ago the Canterbury area was 11,893 acres, and in 1943 7898. Southland and to a smaller extent Otago specialise mainly in this feed. In 1933 Southland grew 26,470 acres, and in 1943 the drop was to 20,185 acres. In Otago in 1933 the acreage was 12,919 and in 1943 it was 7277 acres. The southern climate js more adapted to turnip growing than Canterbury, and in the three headings of turnips, turnips and rape, and swedes that province grew in 1943 an area of 110.000 acres. It is more directly interesting to know the incidence of root cropping in the leading Canterbury counties. The 10-year decline in turnip crops in Ashburton county was from 38,212 to 28,329 acres; in Waimate, from 17,697 acres to 6219; and in Geraldine (the third largest grower in 1933), from 12,362 to 5272 acres. In these three counties the decline has' been more than made up by other classes of production—in Ashburton partly by another stock feed, blue lupins. Lupins have spread to an exceptional extent in the county in the last five years, both for sheep feed and green manuring. The latter practice is restoring the fertility of much over-cropped land and in the process Is increasing the sheep flocks on these lands. It is a practice that will have to become prevalent over most of the light, medium, or over-cjropped soil in Canterbury if maximum production is to be secured. Peas and small seeds have also contributed to the replacement. South Canterbury's marked decline m turnip crops is mainly due to the spread of small seeds production. If just as risky as turnips in seasons such as the one passed through, seeds are much more profitable, and in proportion to the return requires what to-day is of major importance —less labour. And one all important crop for which small seeds production is largely responsible is probably _ the most necessary of all—hay for winter feed. The change from the turnip crop to these others in Canterbury calls for no regret

CRUSHED WHEAT FOR PIGS

This subject may seem a strange one in view ol the acute shortage of wheat tor human consumption, but an account is published by Massey College of an Australian experiment. “Crushed or gristed wheat nas been proved superwr to whole wheat for fattening pigs in experiments carried out in New South Wales," the college’s statement continues. “Two groups of young pigs were fed on wheat, meatmeal, and green feed, in one group the wheat being fed whole, and in the other It was ground. During a period of 15 weeks the pigs given crushed wheat gained a total of 141.51b, compared with 126.51b in the whole-wheat group. The average net return of the crushed wheat group was better by from 7s 9d to 8s lid (depending on the cost of crushing) than that of the wholewheat group. The loss of whole wheat in the faeces was negligible in young pigs, but was of significance in older This may be a new scientific discovery, but it is an old farm practice. When wheat was cheap. 40 or more years ago—about 3s 3d a bushel it was occasionally fed to fattening pigs when pollard and other feeds were scarce, but always in crushed form. Farmers then knew that if the grain was fed whole there was no animal known that could “bolt” it so completely as the fattening pig—it was too dear a feed to give weaners or slips. The result was a definite losmg practice unless pork and bacon were high in price and wheat at bedrock. The New South Wales experiment showed that the lose of wheat fed whole was “significant.” The relative cost of wheat and pig products at present would appear to put the use of wheat out of the picture as a fattening feed in the Dominion. However, in any case, whole wheat fed to the pig was not thought of at the period referred to Many farmers fed wheat-straw chaff—hollow, not solid straw— to their teams with crushed oats, the idea being that the crushed oats made the wheat chaff more palatable. Another idea was that there was no loss with it.

DELAYED FARM WORK

TILLAGE PREPARATIONS IN ARREARS

Preparation of the land for cereal and other seasonal crops is meeting with serious delay because of the frequent and heavy rains. Many farmers in various parts of the province have been able to get their tillage implements on the heavy soil only at broken intervals, and instead of a big area of land being ready for wheat, which is generally, the experience in mid-May, comparatively little has been got ready. One Mid-Canterbury, and also a North Canterbury farmer, said to "Straggler” the other day that their experience was typical of many others in their districts. By mid-May in normal years one of them had more than 100 .acres ready for wheat; this season the area was one paddock of 13 acres. In the other case, an area of 120 acres had declined to 30. The subsoil has been sodden more or less over a wide area of fairly heavy wheat land, and with the delay caused by clearing the preceding crop off farmers will be pressed to overtake the delay. There is general agreement that anything like a quick take-up of the weather would result in good germinating conditions, but autumn growing. can spread over another six weeks at most, which leaves little time for the preparatory work. So far the season is again favouring the light soils. On big areas the normal 18 to 22 bushel crop of the light land was increased last season in many cases to more than 30 bushels. Over whole districts the increase has ranged up to 10 bushels an acre, and with the repetition of last season’s moisture conditions another substantial acreage on light land should be expected. It is rarely that this class of land can be depended upon for these special efforts in two consecutive years, but the weather conditions have not held up its preparation as in the case of heavy land.

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