North Canterbury Coastal Areas Dry

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28752, 25 November 1958, Page 14

North Canterbury Coastal Areas Dry

Coastal areas in North Canterbury are badly affected by drought.

Through Amberley and Waipara the country is as badly burnt off as the drought-stricken areas of Marlborough, and one of the driest spots in the province must be the flats north of the Conway.

On the light shingly coastal strip north of the Conway the country is bare and white. Hardy lucerne has wilted and browned off. Cocksfoot is burnt and

brown. Paddocks are bare except for sheep droppings. An oasis in this desert is a field in which a spray irrigation plant is raining 20,000 gallons of water every hour from daylight to dusk. About 1100 lambs which have the run of 120 acres of these flats, including the irrigated paddock, are actually growing under these conditions. Early lambing has eased the position on this property, and the possession of 500 acres of hill country has provided a rough pick for the 1500 ewes. Almost miraculously on the light flats a new paddock of lucerne sown after the early October rains has struck excellently and looks reasonably healthy. Good cultivation between July and time of sowing is thought to have stood it in good stead. On the other hand, 20 acres of rape on ohe of the heaviest paddocks is “blueing” off. although only about three inches high, and a paddock of oats sown in the autumn for spring feed has come to nothing. Seven hundred young pines planted in the winter for farm shelter have practically all died. A Scottish farm worker who came to this property in April was advised when he arrived to secure an oilskin and waterproof clothing. His only use for these so far has been in working with the irrigation unit. Between Amberley and Waipara even the gorse seemed tired and brown on a recent scorching day as the sheep stood round a water trough in a bare paddock and young rape lay listless and wilting. Earth Smells Hot A farmer who has known this country for 30 years said he had not known it so dry before so early. At night he is able to smell the hot earth. Only lucerne, phalaris, and perhaps cocksfoot is growing, he says. Subterranean clover has been a failure and its seed is seen only in the belly wool of sheep. Barley sown after the last rains in October has made some growth, but is not expected to mature. Similarly, this farmer believes that wheat crops in the Glenmark area will not mature properly and yields mav only amount to 10 bushels of poor quality grain. Rape and chou moellier have been in the ground for a month without germinating. Two hundred lambs have gone to the works from this farm at weights 41b to 51b less than usual Another 500 remain to fatten, and if it does not rain before Christmas he says it will be either a case of feeding them on concentrates or selling them, as some of his neighbours are already doing Usually at this time of the year this farmer has saved 3000 bales of hay. He has not made a bale yet. and does not expect to take the mower out of the shed But all Canterbury is not so dry. Near Parnassus a farmer who has* spent about £7OO on watering his farm over the last three or four years, and is also understocked, said that so far his lambs were doing well, but this year he has taken only 330 bales of hay where he normally cuts about 3000. and he expected to start mowing yesterday the paddock he had in mind for saving for seed. For the first time ir 37 years no rape has been sown on the farm. Dry on Peninsula On Banks Peninsula, too, conditions are drier for this time of the year than possibly ever before. A farmer in the district said that with good rains the higher country would recover fairly rapidly, but the points and headland country had become so desiccated that it would take a lot of rain now. What pasture was left there was like Little brown chips. At least, he said, the country had not yet gone black with the earth showing through.

Farmers have been selling ewes anc J lambs—unheard of before“t nearly all of my cattle,” said one man.

The country from Little Akaloa round to Christchurch is described as being possibly the driest. It has had an insufficient rainfall now for about a year. Water, too, is short on some Peninsula properties, and has been responsible for the sale of some cattle. On one property where water is piped to troughs from spring-fed dams the pipes are above the level of the water in the dams. “We are at the stage where we get to in March at the end of a very dry season,” said a Peninsula resident. “By then we have sold our two-tooth ewes at the fair and it is not so bad To start off in October and November like this is something we have not struck before.” (Marlborough Drought, Page 18.)