TUSSOCK GRASSLAND RESEARCH

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27576, 5 February 1955, Page 5

TUSSOCK GRASSLAND RESEARCH

New Organisation To Control All Activities

CATCHMENT BOARDS AND SOIL COUNCIL

Good hope for real progress at last in high country research lies in the decisions of the conference of South Island catchment boards and Soil Conservation Council representatives at Kurow last month. The conference appointed a committee of the Soil Conservation Council to act as a central authority to direct all high country research, and as a clearing house for information; and set up also a committee of catchment board representatives to suggest the work to be done, and see that the council carried it out.

The initiative came from the North Canterbury, South Canterbury, Otago and Southland catchment boards, which sent representatives “to outline a tussock grassland authority that will act as a clearing house for information, and be responsible for a counting programme of tussock grassland research, the research to be that considered necessary by the catchment boards.” The meeting agreed on a full programme of research, and on the order in which it considered the research should be undertaken. After the boards’ meeting, representatives of the Soil Conservation Council, including its chairman, Mr W. L. Newnham, the Waitaki Soil Conservation District, and the High Country Research Committee (Mr L. P. Chapman, its chairman), were invited to a combined meeting with the boards. All the boards’ suggestions were adopted, and the council reported that it had already set up a central authority. Board’s Interests The boards will act through the South Island Catchment Boards’ Pastoral Lands Committee, which will meet yearly, or more frequently if necessary. The principal functions of this committee will be to keep a general eye on the interests and needs of the boards in relation to their pastoral areas; to define subjects on which research is required and inform the Soil Conservation Council; and to refer to the council matters on which a statement of the council’s policy is required. The broad policy of the boards was stated to be “that in the national interest the high country, where possible, should be kept in occupation by capable and experienced farmers.” The research programme considered necessary by the boards is as follows: A land inventory to be made and a land capability survey carried out of the South Island high country. This is an urgent necessity. An investigation of the grazing habits of sheep, cattle and animal pests—deer, rabbits, hares, opossums and wallabies. Th? answer to the question—what plant species iheep and cattle eat in the high country and indicating the food preferences of the stock in the different plant associations? The fescue and .silver tussock grasslands below about 3000 ft. Experimental work to enable recommendations to be made to the land occupier for oversowing and manurial treatment. Such recommendations to refer to the different soil types, aspects, altitude, time of sowing and the experimental work to include native and exotic species. Scrub—An investigation into the problems of scrub invasion and methods of scrub control with particular reference to chemical methods of control. Red tussock country—(l) An investigation to enable recommendations to be made to the land occupier for oversowing and manurial treatment. (2) Experimental work to devise methods of control of rank red tussock growth other than by fire, e.g. cattle and subdivisional fencing and others. Snow tussock country—(A high priority is recommended for this work). (1) Alternative methods of maintaining and improving the vegetative cover other than by fire. (2) Experimental work to provide recommendations for the treatment of eroded slopes with trees, shrubs, grasses and clovers. (3) The mapping of snow tussock country considered beyond practical measures of rehabilitative treatment. Broiyntop Invasion Brown-top invasion below about 3000ft.—Experimental work to enable recommendations to be made to the land occupier for improving such pastures which have become a thatched twitch sward, e.g. alternatives to fire, suitable pasture species and manurial treatment. Research on the effect of fire on the different types of tussock grasslands -on the plant species, the soil, the bird and insect life. Grazing standards—An investigation to enable the preparation of grazing standards for the different types of tussock country. Animal pest research: —It was recommended that the research into the destruction of animal pests be intensified, with particular reference to opossums and wallabies. It was recommended that prompt dispatch of the results of research work to Catchment boards’ was essential. The method recommended was cyclo-styling and distributing reports once every year and at such other times as information becomes available. It was recommended that the rate of subsidy for fencing should vary with the soil and water conservation value and the rate should be up to 100 per cent, where the land occupier received no benefit. When the combined meeting opened, Mr R. M. D. Johnson, the chairman, put the boards’ proposals before the council. Mr Newnham confirmed a statement made earlier by Professor L. W. McCaskill, that the council had

already instructed its Soil Conservation Committee to act as the single, authority responsible for the organisation and supervision of research into problems of the tussock grasslands. He said he agreed with the programme put forward by the board’s committee, and undertook that the council would start work as quickly as possible. The council, he said, had decided to send a team into the Ahuriri catchment to study the preparation of grazing standards for tussock grasslands. Mr Chapman said that he agreed in general with the research programme put forward, but considered that a high country runholder should sit on the committee dealing with research tasks. Other members said that runholders were already represented on the catchment boards, and on the council.

Because members of the boards wanted to be free to say what they felt like saying, the meeting was not open to the press, but board members who attended said that there was a very high degree of unanimity among the boards and the council representatives on what research is needed. They said they felt very hopeful that at last something constructive would be done about high country research. (goodwill Needed The organisation envisaged could be made to bring to the high country the systematic and continuing investigation which has for a long time now been universally admitted to be needed. It could put an end to the piecemeal and sporadic studies by specialists of special problems, which have too often led to nothing practical, and of which the results have most frequently been pigeonholed and forgotten. It could lead for the first time to a broad understanding of what back country problems are. Whether the new organisation will in fact achieve these things will depend on the Soil Conservation Council, on the goodwill of the Scientific .and Industrial Research Department, and the Departments of Agriculture, Forestry, Lands, and perhaps, others, and on the vigour of the catchment boards’ watchdog committee. The work need cost relatively little. Practically the only addition needed on the Conservation Council staff will probably be a full-time man to head the whole undertaking. He will need to have a solid scientific background, as well as experience of high country work, and some ability as an administrator. A large part of his duties would be to co-ordinate the efforts of the men already working in the back country for the several departments interested, and most important, to let each of them know what the others are doing, and have done. The board’s committee logically insists on a land inventory as the first and most urgent research activity It is an illuminating pointer to the muddled approach of the past that nobody really knows what the high country is made of; how much snowgrass country there is, for instance. This is basically a job for the botanists, and it must be done before further high country research can be approached intelligently. Grazing Habits The recommendations give high priority to an examination of the grazing habits of livestock and pests in the high country. This is almost virgin ground, and is a subject on which runholders differ widely, but it is one which needs thorough understanding right at the beginning of the research programme. Work on . . aspect, apart from its own valuq, might be a useful counterbalance to the purely soil conservation approach which has been so much emphasised recently. The acceptance of Tara Hills as the central field research station will raise some misgivings if the intention m into th e chief centre. Tara course, not typical of all South Island high country—no single run is—but it could be used to answer a lot of questions of general application. It has the great advantage of being already in existance as a research station and will be as good a place as any to start off with. The objection to Tara Hills as a full-dress research centre is that it would be asking a . great deal of a research worker with a family to suggest that he live there permanently. The obvious solution is to establish permanent bases at such places as Lincoln, and Invermay, from which workers could make field trips. There must be some attempt to n }? Ice ,. high country research an attractive proposition to the individual research worker. Up to now, too much has had to be done more or less as a spare time occupation, or at best as an isolated short-term investigation into some single detail. The man who makes science his career cannot afford the luxury of such pleasant backwaters. Largely through the educational activities of the Soil Conservation Council, there is now a wide public awareness of the importance of the

high country. The ordinary citizen understands well that the health of the high country, while it may influence the business of the runholder for better or for worse, has a direct influence on the comfort, and perhaps even the safety, of every other member of the community as well. The research programme projected at Kurow need not be expensive, but whatever they are. its costs will be met without complaint by the community as a whole.