RESEARCH PLOTS AT 2600 FEET

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27641, 23 April 1955, Page 5

RESEARCH PLOTS AT 2600 FEET

Department's Comprehensive Trials

FLOCK HILL HIGH COUNTRY EXPERIMENTAL AREA

The most comprehensive high-country trials so far laid down is the series begun by the Department of Agriculture on Mr G. Urquhart’s Flock Hill run in the Waimakariri basin in the spring of 1953. The object of the experiments is to see what can be done to improve hard fescue tussock countiy, and the experiments comprehend a very wide, range of cultivation practices, of grasses, clovers, and other species, and of manurial treatments. Some results are already showing up, and in general they confirm results already well-known to ruiw holders, but it is the intention to carry the experiments on almost indefinitely, and as time goes by, much information of value will no doubt come from the trials.

The trial area lies at about 2600 feet just north of Broken river where it is crossed by the West Coast road. The soil is a fairly typical friable yellow back-country clay, fairly deep, and interspersed with large boulders here and there. The area is flat, and easily ploughable. It lies on a tongue of land between the Broken river and Cave stream at the end of a low spur, and is fairly exposed to both northerly and southerly winds. Rainfall is about 46 inches. The experiments established in 1953 are a study of three methods of seed introduction on tussock—subsurface drilling into the tussock sward with grassland tips, surface broadcasting on a pitchpole harrowed surface, and on an undisturbed surface. This area was given lime, and with the lime was sown potash, nitrogen, phosphate and molybdenum, individually and in different combinations. The object of a second series is to study the establishment of permanent pasture on cultivated ground and watch its performance. In this series, permanent grass will be established on ground worked straight out of tussock and sown after a winter fallow, and without a winter fallow. On both fallowed and unfallowed ground, permanent pasture will be sown either direct or after a range of different temporary pasture and standard forage cropping programmes.

In this permanent pasture series, an outstanding group of plots is that sown to a special purpose pasture of 141 b of lucerne, 31b of cocksfoot, and 31b of tall oat grass, and a second special purpose pasture of 101 b each of Hl, cocksfoot and tall oat, with 51b of meadow fescue, two each of Mont red and alsike, and 11b of white clover. The idea was to see whether the first would give good summer growth, and whether the second could be closed up for winter saved grass. Both got away very well, the lucerne mixture particularly, and were given heavy grazing. The second was shut up early in February, and at present looks very promising indeed as a stand of good winter feed. Both were given lcwt of nitrogen on sowing, and a further lcwt at the beginning of this month. Growth began a day or two after the second division was applied, and three weeks after was quite remarkable even in comparison with the robust growth on control plots of the same mixtures kept without the second dressing. Throughout the plots the nitrogen story is perfectly clear. It appears to be the principal deficiency. The whole area of the cultivated plots was ploughed before being fenced off into plots, and along the finishes the grasses not long after sowing began to turn the purplish brown characteristic of nitrogen starvation. In patches throughout the area, where the plough got down too near to the subsoil, the same discolouration is apparent. In every case additional nitrogen has immediately restored the grasses to full health and vigour. It is significant that the more vigorous species like Hl and Italian are worst affected.

Grass Species The third main series is a trial of introduced grass species with and without white clover, and of introduced legumes. All these plots were sown direct into the tussock with grassland tips, and were given 2cwt. of superphosphate and 3cwt. of lime. Most noticeable feature of this third series is the excellent showing of most of the clovers and the very poor showing of most of the grasses. It is possible to find some of the grasses on bare patches of ground, but so far they have made very little growth. Some ■ have apparently gone altogether, though it is a very difficult matter to be certain they are not still there among the browntap and vernal which fill most of the space between the tussocks, and even the best, which at present seems to be cocksfoot, can be picked up only after a careful search. Where white clover was sown with these grasses, it is showing up very well. Even where the grasses were sown alone, the manure has brought up volunteer clover all over the plots. It is easy to distinguish on these plots between the certified sown white clover and the volunteer, which appears a much poorer plant by comparison. These grass plots will be carried on for some time to see whether any of the grasses do show up. The species include perennial and Hl ryegrasses, cocksfoot, timothy, Phalaris, and a number of other less well known grasses like bromes, fescues, agropyrons and so on. By comparison with the grasses, the legumes have done well, and only one, Lotus major, appears to have failed to establish. Four lucernes were tried. They grew very well at first, but some of them are now a bit hard to find. They seem to be there nevertheless. Creeping lucerne (M. glutinosa) is still there. Palestine and ordinary strawberry clover are both showing, with the Palestine a little more prominent, and there is quite a good showing of reversed clover. White clover is show- - ing up well, and alsike, which went away particularly well is still there but showing the effects of April frosts. Montgomery red clover is well in evidence. • An interesting plot in this section is the one sown in Mount Barker subterranean clover. This plot made an excellent start, and was still showing up well last week, but it does not appear tp have set any seed. It was sown in November, and the question is whether it will, survive the winter and set seed next summer. It would be tedious to give full details of the complex but welldesigned series of plots which will eventually all come under permanent pasture. At present they are either in permanent pasture sown direct, or in one of the several preparatory stages of temporary pasture, forage crops and so on, that will lead to permanent pasture. The principal division is a replication of the plots on winter fallowed and non-fallowed ground, and the difference between the two divisions is striking. The fallowed plots are almost all at least 50 per cent better than the non-fallowed. Just as striking is the response to nitrogen. Both series show good growth of grasses and clovers. Pasture Mixtures The pasture mixtures used in these plots are a permanent pasture mixture of perennial, Hl, cocksfoot, tall oatgrass, timothy, Mont, red, alsike, white clover, and sheep’s burnet; a temporary mixture of Hl, alsike, cowgrass, and white clover; and a second temporary mixture of Italian, cowgrass and white clover. Each of these mixtures on the fallowed land is looking very well. An interesting trial is a comparison of drilling in 34-inch rows as against the standard 7-inch row. The closer drilling appears so far to be distinctly better, and under grazings in one of the small paddocks, the 3|-inch section Obviously appealed to the sheep more than the wider rows. At the first grazing they hammered the 31-inch section hard before moving on to the 7in, and at tlqmsecond grazing the story was repeated. There is, of course, less bare ground in the 3Jin section, but apart from that, the grasses and clover appear stronger. Two accidents of the sort that seems to be inherent in scientific work occurred on these plots. All the seed used was the best that could be obtained, and all was tested before use. The only lot not tested was some oats, which was sown by itself, and as a nurse crop for pasture. The oats were a thoroughly bad sample, and their performance can give only an approximate idea of what may be expected from the crop. For some reason, the drill cogs were mixed up when a trial of a number of varieties of turnips, swedes, rape, and other brassicas was being sown. The planned rate was lOJoz to the acre, but Mr A. Dingwall, who is in charge of -the experiments, ruefully asserts that the actual rate was probably nearer lOjlb. The result was an immensely thick mat of young plants which even now are only an inch or two high for the most part. Their contrasting colours give a most pleasing .carpet-like appearance,, but the plots have only limited scientific use. They are not entirely a dead loss. Some thinning was done to study the performance of different varieties, and it appears that purple top turnips are inferior to green top, and that swedes are inferior to turnips. A few individuals have bulbed up well, and a few individual plants of rape, chou, and kale are also looking promising. The oats and brassica plots will have to be sown again.

A comparison of broadcasting clovers on tussock, with drilling with grassland tips, and with broadcasting on ground knocked about the pitchpole harrow, shows establishment to be better with the tips and after pitchpoling. In this sort of wojrk, pitchpoling, which tends to fill ixr the small hollows where water may lie‘during the winter, may have some advantage. Good Lucerne A special purpose pasture of 51b each of Hl, cocksfoot, tall oat grass, 31b of lucerne, |lb each of Mont red and alsike, and 11b of white clover, drilled in tussock with grassland tips is notable for the very good strike of lucerne, which is present all through one of the two replicate plots. Here the grasses are showing up a little better, and the clovers are, of course, good. This plot includes rather more bare ground than its replicate, and it is in the bare patches, where there is no competition from browntop and vernal, that the grasses show up. On the series of plots designed to test fertiliser applications, those treatments containing molybdenum are at present showing up well. Lime by itself and phosphate by itself do not give any great early response, but combined, and with molybdenum, they give excellent responses, with those including molybdenum well ahead. The molybdenum plots went ahead very well right from the start, but there are signs now that in the second year of the experiment the lime and phosphate lots are catching up. There are some signs that there may be a potash response on the plots. Dry mattz^.««Rroduction has been highest (29001 b from five months’ growth from plots given phosphate, nitrogen, potash, .and molybdenum after a ton of lime. On these plots the drilled lots have again made much better growth than the broadcast. Costs of cultivation, sowing, and manuring are about what would be expected, and are no different from those ruling on good farming country. They have been about £l7 an acre. Cultivation and drilling costs worked out at contract rates have been up to £5 8s an acre on a section ploughed, rolled on the furrow, given a single cut with the discs followed by a double cut, pitchpoled, rolled, disced, pitchpoled, and harrowed after drillFertiliser on this series cost £5 3s 6d an acre, and the rest was made up in the seed mixture, at £6 15s an acre. The seed was all good certified strains, and, as every farmer has found recently, was very expensive. Grassland tip drilling of clovers with manure but without grass cost about l ss *9 r the drilling, £5 3s 6d for the fertiliser, and £1 3s for the seed. Good times and more secure tenure have allowed many runholders to improve their properties in recent years. Some of these men, well placed with a good balance of ploughable country to hill have developed their properties to the stage at which the easy land is being farmed along .normal low-country lines, and the hill used as a run-off to spell the paddocks. These men are inclined to believe that the future of the high country lies in exploiting afi the farming possibilities, and are rather inclined to find themselves in argument with the men who believe that the first improvement must be done to the hin grazing. There must be a big area of ploughable hill country below the Flock Hill lavel L of 2600 feet - so that Flock HiU should be able to give answers to many problems of high country cultivation. If it can be shown that standard lowcountry farming practices can, with one or two obvious modifications, be applied successfully to ploughable high country, no doubt it will be farmed when the pressure on land justifies it, even if it is not justifiable already. It will simply be a matter of weighing off returns against costs. Nitrogen Deficiency

This leaves a lot to be learned about the possibilities of improving country which is difficult or impossible to work with implements other than aircraft. Nitrogen is the most obvious limiting factor to hill country pasture production, and unfortunately nitrogen out of the bag is too dear in New Zealand so far to be used widely on hill country, where costs must be kept low.

It is now well established that clovers can be introduced on native tussock, but not yet so well understood is what effect clover alone may have on increasing carrying capacity. There is little understanding of the economics of oversowing with clover and keeping up topdressing on South Island high country. The Flock Hill trials so far have shown clearly that it is possible to establish and grow good pastures of grasses and clovers on cultivated ground where nitrogen and other manures can be as easily applied as they can on the Plains. The plots seem to show that there is very little return from sowing grasses on the browntopsweet Vernal-hard tussock association which covers so much of the South Island hill country. The aggressive browntop and vernal give the better grasses little chance, at least in the first year or so after broadcast sowing, or even after subsurface sowing with grassland tips. Superphosphate can be sown from the air relatively cheaply, and perhaps even lime, but most of the nitrogen needed to keep good grasses going must come from grazed clovers. Levy’s opinion is that somewhere about four

sheep to the acre are needed to keep the stock nitrogen supply up to highly productive pasture. The high country season is short, not more than six months, whereas the pasture Levy had in mind has a growing season lasting almost the whole year. It may be tnat two sheep would on high country give the nitrogen required to establish and maintain good grasses with the clovers. As they mature, the Flock Hill experiments will yield a big fund of information on both ploughable high country, and high country which can be improved only by oversowing from the air. The experiments have been so designed that there will be answers also to problems on all sorts of country in between. It is to be hoped that they will be continued, and that after this very promising beginning the work will not be allowed this time to taper off and eventually be forgotten

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday next week, Mr Godfrey Bowen, the New Zealand Wool Board’s shearing instructor, will give demonstrations in the Farmers’ Co-operative car park in Madras street at ll.au a.m.