IRRIGATION FARMING AT DROMORE

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28536, 15 March 1958, Page 9

IRRIGATION FARMING AT DROMORE

Experience Of Returned

Serviceman

When an Edinburgh-born New Zealand returned serviceman, Mr J. D. Letham, went to Dromore in July, 1946, to work on a block of about 1100 acres of light land being developed by the Lands and Survey Department for three irrigation 'sheep farms, the 368-acre property which he farms today was in brown-top, apart from about 60 acres which had already been border-dyked for irrigation.

Today the same land is wintering about 1500 sheep including 1100 ewes, is producing useful small seed crops, and has grown 50 bushels to the acre of wheat.. And according to its returned serviceman owner its potential is yet far from attained.

Mr Letham came to New Zealand from Scotland in 1927 to work for an uncle in Mid-Can-terbury. For some time he worked as a teamster and tractor driver on a station near Fairlie. After serving four years in the Middle East and Italy with the 2nd N.Z.E.F., he went to Dromore in 1946 and for the next three years he took part in the preparation - of the block by the Lands Department for irrigation farming. When he took over his land on August 1, 1949, 186 acres had been borderdyked and subdivided into paddocks of 15 or 16 acres. Pastures were a standard mixture of one bushel of perennial ryegrass, 31b of Montgomery red clover, 21b of white clover, 21b of crested dogstail, and on some paddocks ylb of cocksfoot had been added to the mixture. With the property, Mr Letham took over 800 ewes, 125 hoggets and 13 rams. There was a small granary, an implement shed, sheep yards and a house standing in an open paddock. Since then Mr Letham has sought, on an average, to add a paddock a year to those borderdyked for irrigation and • today about three-quarters of the farm —290 acres—can be irrigated. In the meantime there are no plans for further extending this irrigation area. Each year one of the small paddocks of about 15 acres is being ploughed out of pasture. It is the practice to follow a summer fallow with a crop of quick maturing York Globe turnips, and perhaps lupins and Italian ryegrass, in the autumn for winter feed and subsequently to follow this with short rotation ryegrass or Italian ryegrass to provide a fresh pick for the ewes before lambing and afterwards for both the ewes and lambs. After another summer fallow the land gods back into grass again. Wheat Crops Up to three years ago, however, the practice was to follow crops of turnips and then rape with a wheat crop and finally take another greenfeed crop—mainly I lupins—before again sowing down. For three years running, Mr Letham had wheat crops averaging 50 bushels to the acre, but in the fourth year the yield dropped to 38 bushels in a season in which disease affected the outcome. i Mr Letham believes that under I the treatment he gave his land I this light type of soil can grow wheat successfully. Before breaking up the pasture, he concentrated ewes on it in the winter and fed out hay and this with the two preliminary greenfeed crops helped to build up the fertility of the soil. Then with the crop lewt of superphosphate was sown to the acre. Mr Letham did not have much success with rape so gave up this practice and has since been fattening lambs on purely irrigated pasture. Pasture mixtures used on the property consist of a bushel of perennial ryegrass, 31b of Montgomery red clover, 21b of white clover, 21b of crested dogstail, and 51b of cocksfoot dr a bushel of perennial ryegrass, 31b of white clover and 21b of crested dogstail. With all new pastures IJcwt of superphosphate is spread and this is followed by a topdressing programme involving lewt applications in the spring and autumn where possible. One ton of -lime also goes on to the ground with •the initial sowing and in the next two years another ton is added. The farm has had two tons of lime all over. Seed Harvest On all pastures a crop of ryegrass is taken in the first summer and on every second block a white clover, crop is harvested in the second and also possibly the third year. Yields of about a bag of clover to the acre have been obtained. The small-seeds crops have paid for the seed and sowing down of new pastures. On the pastures where no clover crop is taken the Montgomery red clover is used for lamb fattening, j The ewes on the property aie crossbreds and are mated with Romney rams. They lamb about the last week in August with all the ewes starting off in the one paddock. Morning and night the unlambed ewes are moved on to new paddocks, so that ewes and lambs are left undisturbed for four or five days until they can be concentrated into suitable tailing mobs. The ewes and lambs are then rotationally grazed. The lambs are weaned early—about the first week in December—and at that stage generally only a small proportion of the lambs born to Romney rams are ready for drafting fat. The wether lambs are subsequently sent to the works as soon as they are fit to hang on the hooks—generally the carryI over amounts to only a handful—and 300 ewe lambs are held as flock replacements and the balance are sold at the Tinwald fair. By 1952 the ewe flock had , been built up from 800 to 900, and for the last two years it has stood at about 1100 and in addition 300 ewe lambs, 24 rams, and 50-odd culls and killers are wintered. The ewes give only a modest lambing of 105 or 106 per cent., but they shear 9£lb to lOJlb of wool. [ Under irrigation, Mr Letham i finds that the older ewes thrive jso well that the difficulty is to keep the condition off them, but I that more care must be exercised with the younger ewes', which

tend to become dirty under the tail and have to be fed out some dry rations in the form of hay. The teeth of the ewes seem 0 wear away under irrigation, according to Mr Letham, and buyers would not believe that five-year-old ewes were in fact of that age to judge by their mouths. This has led to earlier culling of ewes, but last year Mr Letham held back 100 of these ewes and, mating them with a Southdown ram, he secured 154 lambs and was still able to quit the ewes as fat. He plans to carry on with this practice this year. Two thousand bales of hay are taken annually from a 15-acre stand of Marlborough Jucerne, which is grown purely for haying, though sometimes in the winter the ewes are concentrated on the lucerne for a month and has is fed back on to it with the idea of building up the fertility. Now another 15 acres of lucerne has been added. About now, Mr Letham normally makes provision for pasture saved for winter. He bares off, topdresses and waters 30 acres and closes it for boosting the ewes just before lambing. Using Water Mr Letham is not one to start using irrigation water early in the spring, and for this reason he thinks that his stock may be healthier. There was no doubt that growth could be obtained by watering, he states, but he waters according to the stock he is carrying so that he does not grow grass that he cannot utilise. “They used to say you had to run cattle on these units,” he said the other day. “All the cattle I have are a few dairy cattle. These Romney sheep will eat as much as a cow and will cut out all the roughage.” With his farm situated at the end of a main race, Mr Letham is in a rather different position from other farmers in that he is able, in the irrigation season, to irrigate whenever there is water to spare in the race. When it is dry he goes out to live on the job in a caravan until it rains again. Snatching a few hours’ sleep, he irrigates without ceasing. Once for a week on end he irrigated night and day without a break. In a really dry spell it may take about 10 days to give all his farm an irrigation. But Mr Letham says that irrigation, with its long hours of work, is a young man’s job and the more a property is developed for irrigation the more work is involved. Labour and capital are the two limiting factors in irrigation farming. “If you have the labour you can grow the grass and carry more stock,” he says. “We are only on the outside of the potential here.” Capital is needed to develop and prepare the land for irrigation, carry out subdivisional fencing, and buy the stock to take advantage of these conditions. Mr Letham’s facilities now include a two-stand shearing shed and a hay barn to house 3000 bales of hay. He has permanent help in Mr Ken Heard, a Londoner.