THE WEEK

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26123, 27 May 1950, Page 5

THE WEEK

CHANGES IN BREEDING A striking feature of the Hororata ewe flock competition was the number of flocks among the entry that. were being changed in their breeding. Of the 13 entered, six were working from fine wool toward the Romney, and one toward the halfbred from Romney. Most of the owners were not very definite about their reasons for making the change, beyond saying that their fine-woolled flocks were not performing as well as they did formerly, but one owner probably did state the reason for the trend. The flock on this property, which is mainly on the hills and in a good rainfall area, took over a predominantly halfbred flock. A lot of development work is being done on the flat areas of the farm, where really good pastures can be grown with adequate lime and fertiliser, and the reason given for the change toward the Romney was that though the place would not yet grow enough feed to do Romneys well, it would be growing enough by the time Romney blood became predominant in the flock. The one owner who was working back toward the half bred from a Romney flock was doing so because he could carry more halfbreds on his rather hard country.

The underlying cause of the need for ’ a move toward stronger wool is with- ■ out question the greatly increased supply of feed available on so many Can- , terbury farms since modern methods , of pasture establishment and management were adopted. This is a problem , facing farmers over practically the whole province, and may even be as widespread as the Hororata competi- : tion flocks suggest, that is, in more than 50 per cent, of the flocks not on . true Romney country. It is a difficult • problem to solve, mainly because there ' are major headaches attached to trying to maintain an even flock of three- ; quarterbreds. One of the competition flocks illustrates this well. The flock is a good style of big, strong woolled halfbred of fairly even type. The owner is using halfbred rams on his stronger ewes, and Romneys on the finer. His young sheep are excellent, and of two even types, but evenness may eventually be difficult to maintain. There seems to be a case for an inbred three-quarterbred. The problem has been solved in the United Kingdom, of course, by every district having its own breed of sheep. NO RACE Mr W. B. Trotter, of Fairlie. told his audience at Ohoka last week that he had used an aircraft to spread copper sulphate and cobalt on an area of hill land he has recently bought in the Fairlie district. The aircraft, he said, took off. climbed 1000 feet, top-dressed 100 acres, and was back on the ground in 18 minutes. “I certainly wouldn’t attempt to compete with that myself,” he said. The area treated has been under browntop and danthonia for many years, ‘and has had a poor record for carrying stock. Mr Trotter believes it can be made profitably productive with top-dressing with lime and superphosphate, but his experience on his own farm leads him to be'lieve that copper and cobalt may be deficient in the soil, and he is therefore rectifying the deficiencies before bginning regular top-dressing. An area of about 1200 acres received 3 A tons of bluestone ‘at the rate of 71b to the acre, and 4|cwt of cobalt. The dressing was mixed. The spreading took 3J hours.