Zero Grazing Not So Popular

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29940, 29 September 1962, Page 7

Zero Grazing Not So Popular

r pHE practice of zero grazing 1 —cutting pasture and carting it to the animal—was not gaining in popularity as fast as some had thought it would, said Professor A. N. Duckham, professor of agriculture at the University of Reading, during a visit to Christchurch this week. Professor Duckham said that it did not allow the cow —he had not heard of it being used yet with sheep—any freedom of choice in the feed that it ate and this could affect its output It also involved quite an additional capital outlay in machinery, and in the third place it necessitated week-end cutting and the system could be disrupted by break-downs. He had heard of one or two persons who had tried the practice but given it up oecause mainly of the labour problem and break-downs. One or two had secured high yields of milk an acre with zero grazing, but Professor Duckham said he thought that as good yields could be obtained with good management of grazing stock with rather less trouble. This was nevertheless a field where new mechanical developments or a method of preventing grass from fermenting over the week-end could result in a big change in the position. Professor Duckham, who is spending five weeks in New Zealand, is particularly interested in what he describes as ‘‘the advanced nature of the New Zealand scientific approach to the problem of

pasture management and exploitation.” This, he said, was the grass-animal complex and all that was involved in it—the exploitation of climate, the choosing of species, the solution of mineral deficiencies, use of irrigation or the avoidance of drought, the type of grazing animal, density of stocking, the frequency of grazing and control of parasites of sheep and cattle. It was one of the most complex areas of agriculture and one of the most difficult to do research in or be a good farm manager or farmer in.

With New Zealand, parts of southern Australia, and parts of north-west Europe, he said, the United Kingdom shared the problems of intensive pasture management. Comparisons between British and New Zealand grassland standards were not strictly fair, said Professor Duckham, for although the climates of the two countries appeared similar there were differences at critical periods —New Zealand for instance had a more marked summer drought. This did not however mean that they could not learn a great dead from each other.

It seemed, he said, from a very brief look at the South Maud so far that farmers in Britain were making as good u<se of the climate as farmers here. While it was realised that for winter production some of the meadow fescues had a role, cocksfoot was being used as was being done in New

Zealand and there were timothy—meadow fescue type swards. Professor Duckiiam said that ryegrass was still the dominant type sward on the more productive lands in Britain. But Whatever type of seed mixture was used, he said, management was the over-riding consideration. By poor management the best pasture seed mixture in the world could be spoilt. Commenting on the use of clover in New Zealand bo fix nitrogen as opposed to bag nitrogen in Britain, Professor Duckham said that human beings were not daft and farmers everywhere with the assistance of scientists soon found out the best sort of practices to use under their conditions. Differences in climate and price of nitrogen were the two salient considerations in this position, he said. It seemed that the summer temperatures in the North Island and also the South Island were higher than in England, which tended to favour clovers as compared with grasses, so that under New Zealand conditions clover was a better fixer of nitrogen. But for better or worse in Britain nitrogen was subsidised and at the University of Reading cost £ll a ton. Under these conditions using irrigation it was considered much simpler to have a simple grass sward and use a ton or more of sulphate of ammonia to the acre —something that quite a lot of practical farmers were also doing.