New A.B. Centre Will Service South Island
A second artificial breeding centre at Awahurl, eight miles from Palmerston North, will come into production about this time next year. Dr. J. P. James, director of artificial breeding for the New Zealand Dairy Board, told yie dairyfarmers’ section of the Ruakura farmers’ conference, this week. The present artificial breeding centre is at Newstead, near Hamilton. The second centre, said Dr. James, would service the southern part of the North Island and the South Island. This development
should meet all requirements from these areas for several years, even if expansion continued at the present rate. Dr. James said It had been realised fpr several years now that Newstead could not go on expanding to Yneet the needs of the whole country, due mainly to distribution problems. The coming season would be a very difficult one for distribution, particularly as air services from Hamilton in the early morning were worse now than they were two years ago.
The advantages in distribution, resulting from the second centre, would be obvious and another important feature of the second centre would be the division of the bull team against, possible—though it was hoped very remote chance—of some infectious disease closing down one centre.
In New Zealand this might seem a very slight risk but at this time last year it had been thought otherwise. The division of bulls would mean that relatively more bull power would be required at two centres as wastage would be increased and the selection of bulls for each area would be restricted. This would apply more to bulls of Friesian, Ayrshire and Milking Shorthorn breeds.
Nominated service would be available from all suitable bulls at both centres and there would no doubt be some exchange of animals between the two centres. A farm of about 200 acres has been acquired at Awahuri for the new centre.
At Newstead a new barn has been built for 40 bulls, .designed to house them continuously for lengthy periods. Dr. James said that on the success of this .unit would depend the adoption of this system on a more extensive scale at Newstead or other centres.,
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19600618.2.65.2
Bibliographic details
Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29234, 18 June 1960, Page 8
Word Count
360New A.B. Centre Will Service South Island Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29234, 18 June 1960, Page 8
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Press. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Acknowledgements
This newspaper was digitised in partnership with Christchurch City Libraries.
Log in