USE OF HORMONE WEEDKILLERS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25548, 16 July 1948, Page 6

USE OF HORMONE WEEDKILLERS

VARYING RESULTS WORK BY DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE “Since the visit of Dr. A. M. S. Pridham, the American expert on hormone weedkillers, the department has had numerous inquiries from both town and country residents about the uses of these weedkillers,” said Mr. R. P. Connell (fields superintendent at the Department of Agriculture) in a statement yesterday. “Some people seemed to expect that with the introduction of these weedkillers cropping would be made easy, but there has as yet been no new major development in the general weed problem in Canterbury since the advent of the hormon eradicator, nor has the farmer’s weed problem been- made appreciably lighter,’’ he said. More than 200 formal trials with the new weedkiller had been carried out by the department in this district since it began large-scale investigations about two years ago, continued Mr Connell. These had been carried out mostly near Christchurch, where a trained officer had been specially detailed to do this work, which was of interest to not only the arable farmer, the runholder and the market gardener, but also numerous city gardeners. “Some of the results have been very good, some good, some no good, and some contradictory,” said Mr Connell. “Here and there there have been promising results which have been quite valuable to individual farmers.

“So far the work has consisted of ascertaining by what substances and under what conditions destruction of weeds may be achieved. Apart from a small piece of work done by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, there has been in Canterbury, as far as I know, no work on the economics of weed destruction by hormone killers. The first thing the wide-awake farmer will ask is—‘What are the costs in comparison with other methods of weed destruction?’ It is also important to remember that sound husbandry does a great deal to minimise the weed problem.

“The investigational work is being continued, so as eventually to get the maximum benefit from hormone weedkillers,” he said. “The public will be advised of any further progress.”