INSPECTION OF IN CEREAL

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28896, 16 May 1959, Page 8

INSPECTION OF IN CEREAL

Trials which the Department of Agriculture has instituted this autumn with cereals being introduced into mainly clover dominant pastures on town milk supply dairy farms near Christchurch show that at this stage in many cases the cereal is making a useful contribution to over-all production. Where mower. cuts were made on the farm of Mr R. J. McCarthy at Tai Tapu late last month cereals sown at 2 bushels to the acre with up to 3cwt of nitrolime and lcwt of reverted super have yielded from two to 36 per cent, more dry matter than controls, with the highest increases being shown by C.R.D. ryecorn, Cape barley and Wong barley, and where the seeding rate was only one bushel to the acre with down to half the weight of nitrogen and super the increases have ranged from 1 per cent, to 33 per cent.

Overall Production However, as Mr D. J. Davies, instructor with the Department of Agriculture in Christchurch, who was instrumental in starting these trials, told farmers who attended a field day this week organised by the department in conjunction with Halswell Federated Farmers, these figures are really not important as it will be performances of each of these cereals through until spring that will count and it is the intention of the department to take periodic measurements of dry matter production up till that time.

There is obviously some difference of opinion on the introduction of cereals to pastures but there would appear to be a place for it on heavy wet country used for town milk production where it is impossible to feed a greenfeed crop during the winter because the ground is so soft. Just how this works ' out was strikingly demonstrated on the property of Mr Jules Le Lievre when the farmers were shown a six-acre paddock where four bushels of Garton oats with lcwt of super was introduced in early March into old pasture. After the rains of the last two weeks much of this country is carrying a lot of surface water and a greenfeed crop grown by normal methods would be quite out of the question as a grazing proposition. Mr Le Lievre has been grazing his oat pasture for the last two weeks. By any standards it is a magnificent greenfeed crop with robust plants a foot to two feet high covering the ground. No Claims The department is naturally making no claims for the method at present and Mr R. C. Stuart, an agricultural economist of the department, said that it would be three or four years before the answer would be known. The question was what the resultant pasture would be like, he said. If it was good the economics of the method must be assured as it involved but one operation compared with a conventional seven or eight. Mr Bruce Barclay said that it was alright to produce volume of » feed, but there was a question of quality of that feed from a stock feeding point of view and he expressed some doubt about the cattle being able to handle the cereal in converting nitrite to nitrate. He suggested that much of the response might be due to fertilisers. Interest in the response of grass to nitrogen was shown on the property of Mr G. W. King at Ladbrooks where similar treatments have been given to a clover and cocksfoot pasture. Here there has been a remarkable response from the cocksfoot, and the presence of the cereals, though marked, is not as outstanding as on the properties of Mr McCarthy