Overdrilling Research Recommended

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30230, 7 September 1963, Page 7

Overdrilling Research Recommended

A recommendation that the Tussock ■ Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute should sponsor research into overdrilling, preferably at Lincoln, is contained in a report which the director of the institute, Mr L. W. McCaskill, is making to the committee of management of the institute as a result of a seminar on overdrilling held recently ; under the auspices of the institute.

It was attended by representatives of catchment boards, the Department of Agriculture and Scientific and Industrial Research, Lincoln College, Massey University College, fanners and two machinery firms. Initially it is envisaged that research should be directed at the development of a disc and a tyne coulter which would satisfy the requirements for precision sowing of seed and fertiliser by overdrilling in a wide variety of situations. In his report Mr McCaskill says, that parallel with this development and testing should go a critical study of

the achievements of existing machinery in seed placement, emergence and subsequent growth of grasses and clovers, and that results should be compared with those obtained from aerial oversowing in the same environments. The report says that after the development of suitable furrow - opening equipment, a study should also be made of the effects of banding fertiliser in overdrilling, and if then thought desirable, attempts should be made to incorporate a suitable device in the coulters. A number of other suggestions also emerged from the seminar. They were:

(a) That the use of nitrogen fertiliser in overdrilling should be invesugated to find, under various conditions, the minimum amounts necessary for satisfactory establishment of cereals and grasses. (b) That modifications to aeroplane equipment to enable better distribution of seed and fertiliser should be investigated. It was agreed that almost universally there was a need for better ground - air control with aerial oversowing and topdressing. (c) That granulated superphosphate, with and without DDT, should be readily available in the South Island and its use should be encouraged. (d) Tha.t attempts should be made to determine under what conditions aerial oversowing, using larger rates of seed and fertiliser, was more effective and economical than the use of overdrilling at lower rates. (e) That more research was required into the pelleting of seed, particularly of grasses, both for aerial oversowing and for overdrilling.