THE WEEK

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25270, 23 August 1947, Page 6

THE WEEK

MORE WHEAT NEEDED Wheatgrowers seem to be bacK where they were during the war, when the growing of the crop was a patriotic duty regardless of considerations of convenience, or profit. To help Britain an appeal is being made to growers to increase their acreage this spring, and for the following harvest. The argument is that for every bushel New Zealand can save in imports from Australia, a bushel of Australian wheat will be made available for Britain. The winter has been good for cultivation, and many farmers have land worked up without having made up their minds exactly what to do with it, or with the intention of giving it a summer fallow. Much of this land will undoubtedly go into wheat, in view of the urgency of the need for more production. Much land also that has been in green feed could be worked up for wheat. Sowings should be possible for the next three weeks or so. Spring wheat is normally a rather risky crop, but with the almost ideal conditions existing at present, most of the risk at the time of sbwing will be avoided. The ground is in wonderful order for wheat. It is warm and has had good frosts during the winter to sweeten it, and has had abundance of rain. Barring a spring drought, wheat sown now should turn

out well. Dr. O. H. Frankel, of the Wheat Research Institute, said yesterday that he could not remember more favourable conditions for spring sow.ing. He said that sowing would be reasonably safe up to about September 10 on medium and good land, though he would no* recommend it on light land. Cross 7 was recommended, and Marquis where it was usually grown. The appeal for more wheat, which has the backing of the merchants and brokers as well as millers, will extend into the next season. New Zealand has an opportunity now to help with spring sowings, but the autumn sowings for next season’s crop will be quite as important, and farmers should consider their programmes now. FOOTROT IN SHEEP A penalty on vendors of sheep with footrot is suggested as a means of reducing the trouble by a correspondent who signs himself “Sheep.” “Mr Studholme has summed up Mr McLean’s article on footrot very concisely,” he says. “Most farmers will agree that the article was on sound lines, but an almost impossible task for the average farmer under present conditions. What nature and mother earth has to do with it I am not sure, but your correspondent, B. Humane, is very close to something with his bluestone puddle. Powdered bluestone scattered in j-iuddy puddles in front of permanently fixed saltboxes, first put out with the idea of being a preventive, quickly and permanently cleaned up a large property which for over 10 years had been persistently bad for footrot, despite the regular use of footrot trough and the paring every year of scores of diseased hooves. After hand treating a few dozen lingering active cases, I never again saw footrot on that property as long as I was on it. “Liming, top-dressing, improve grasses and clovers, giving heavier pastures, or dirty paddocks, will not cause footrot. My experience of footrot goes back close on 25 years, and I have discussed it with old shepherds and sheepowners whose experience of it went back 40 to 50 years before mine At one early time it was so prevalent on some Canterbury runs that footrot contractors, with gangs of men, went round treating it. All this was long before liming, top-dressing, etc., was ever thought of. “As in the past the prevalence of - -the disease to-day is solely due to the run of wet seasons we have had, plus the purchasing of infected sheep, or other accidental introduction to a property. With the wet summers and consequent stronger growth of pastures* the conditions have been only too favourable for its spread. “The greatest menace the fattening sheepman has to-day, and should be regarded as a criminal sabotaging of production, is the vendor of store sheep who passes on active footrot to be dealt with by some unfortunate purchaser with a clean property. If the purchaser of footrot sheep could claim . 10s for every infected sheep up to 10, » 5s covering the next 10, and 2s 6d for all over that, footrot would sooh cease to be so prevalent.” BRITISH SEED HARVEST The “Farmers Weekly,” which expresses the views of the British National Union of Farmers, made the following comment in its issue of June 13, this year, on the small seeds position in the United Kingdom: “Nearly 70,000 acres of home grown herbage seeds were harvested last season, but it was one of the worst harvests ever experienced in this country. The report of the Seed Production Committee. National Institute of Agricultural Botany, states that the acreage compared with 103.000 acres in 1945. The committee estimates that more than 940,000 cwt of grass and clover seed will be needed in the United Kingdom for the 1946-47 sowing season. Of this amount 338,000 cwt is for perennial ryegrass. 145,000 cwt for Italian ryegrass and 50,000 cwt for mixed ryegrass. Timothy required for this season is put at 60,000 cwt. Of this amount 8000 cwt is possible from last season’s harvest, while imports are expected to be 24,800 cwt. Last season’s home-grown production of cocksfoot is estimated at 40,000 cwt. but after allowing for seedsmen’s stocks, another 15,000 cwt of seed is likely to be imported, with a possible requirement of 60,000 cwt. “Other estimated requirements for this season are: broad red clover lOO.OOOcwt; late-flowering red clover. ‘ 35,000 cwt; trefoil, 35,000 cwt; alsike, 30,000 cwt, and sainfoin 12,000 cwt.

“The committee state that the acreage of Aberystwyth strains increased from 1497 acres in 1941 to 30,538 in 1946. The estimated acreage sown in 1946 is 18,139 acres.”

Commenting on the position of the seed market, the editor of the journal said: “The first group of British farmers to fall victims ,to postwar politics are undoubtedly the English grass seed growers. Their position, according to an authority on the subject, is just now critical. Under the Geneva Convention the Government agreed to buy among many other things, foreign grass and clover seeds, which, like many other things of which farmers have complained in the past, can be imported here much more cheaply than they can be produced on the spot . . . Just like the British corn grower after the last war they are sold down the river—and many an English farmer will undoubtedly buy the ‘commercial’ imnorted seed because it is cheaper.”

These comments seem to make the situation of the New Zealand small seeds markets even more obscure, unless New Zealand is not regarded in the United Kingdom as “foreign” and has also been displaced by imports of cheap seed. With competition from the Continent re-established, and with increasing competition from English growers. New Zealand seed growers would be well advised to establish some sort of organisation along the lines of the Meat and Dairy Boards. Such an organisation, if it did nothing else, could at least keep New Zealand growers in touch with British market trends. This information may already be in the hands of the Government, which last year sent a well-qualified officer to Great Britain to make such reports.

Poison baits for dingoes are to be laid over an area of 160,000,000 acres of Australia this year by air. This method was tried in Queensland last year and was so successful that it is to be used more extensively. The operation, which is undertaken by the Queensland Government, will take 81 days, and will involve 28,500 miles of flying by one machine.