TRIALS ARE DESTROYED BY ROSE HIP PICKERS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29178, 12 April 1960, Page 19

TRIALS ARE DESTROYED BY ROSE HIP PICKERS

“The Press” Special Service

DUNEDIN, April 11

Rose hip berry pickers, while spending their leisure hours in earning “pin money,” have created havoc among Department of Agriculture trials in the control of briar in the Hakataramea Valley. As a result the work of the department in laying trials has been put back 12 months in some cases. t Although there were millions of bushes in the Hakataramea Valley, some pickers had gone on to the trial plots, said Mr J. G. Richards, of the Department of Agriculture. The trials were clearly marked with pegs of varying colours and sizes, Mr Richards said, and it should have been quite clear to all that trials were in progress. The rose hip pickers were not to know that the plants had not

been treated with toxic materials which could have caused a danger to many.

Fortunately, however, the plants had not been so treated. Bushes, with metal tags attached, had been pruned out and the berries picked. As the result the work of the department over many months had been nullified. “It is little consolation to the officers conducting the trials to know that there were such irresponsible people about,” Mr Richards said. The trials most seriously affected were those of the “finer” variety, designed to ascertain the quantity of materials required to control briar and the displacement of materials on and around the bushes. Much of the work would have to be repeated.