“No Quick, Easy Cure For Gorse”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30454, 30 May 1964, Page 8

“No Quick, Easy Cure For Gorse”

“I cannot emphasise too strongly that there is no quick or easy cure for the gorse problem and any early success must be regarded as purely temporary unless followed up by determined efforts towards eradication in succeeding years,” said Mr T. D. J. Holderness, chairman of the Lincoln College Council and a Banks Peninsula farmer, in a paper to last week’s farmers’ conference on gorse eradication on his hill property. Mr Holderness described his own experiences in dealing with 10-acre and 20-acre blocks of gorse—the latter with more success than the first. He said that saturation with the chemical spray was an all-important factor and was more important than the concentration of the mixture, and for that reason he has not used fixed wing aircraft for spraying, and he also favoured spraying before burning in the belief that a gorse bush suffers most from spraying when it is carrying the maximum amount of spine. The attack on the 10 acres, which was part of a 200-acre block, began in October, 1959, with the spraying of seven acres from a helicopter. In this case the gorse block was not fenced off. Burning, oversowing with super and seed, grazing to control regrowth and knapsack spraying followed, and Mr Holderness said that it had been again attacked with the knapsacks early last year, but it was a losing battle, for with another growthy year for grass and seedling gorse the ewes had

failed to control it and the area had deteriorated further. Knapsacks were inadequate for the job and he had reluctantly given up through physical inability to keep up with it. He was, however, reluctant to see so much effort and money spent to no permanent avail so he had recently

spent a further £lOO for a contractor to cover the area with hoses and a Fontan motorised knapsack. Turning to the more successful operation, which had been aided, he said, by the essential feature of successful eradication—fences—Mr Holderness said the unburnt gorse had been sprayed in October, 1960, by helicopter. Subsequently there had been a pretty fair kill and a good burn. Seed and super followed the burn in August, 1961, and the area was heavily grazed with on-off grazing aimed at pasture establishment in the first instance, during the winter of 1962 it was stocked heavily with ewes at tithes and hay was fed out on it. In the spring it was set stocked with ewes and lambs and received a further, 2cwt of super. Regrowth and a fair amount of seedling gorse was sprayed with knapsacks in November. This took two men the best part of three weeks and 10 gallons of 245 T was used.

Z In spite of heavy mob j; stocking at times last year there was a fairly heavy gero mination of seedlings which o took two men again almost three weeks to cover, about I; six gallons of 245 T being used. “The kill was a good one and driving past this area, which bounds the road. ? you would say it is gorse <! free,” said Mr Holderness Z “However, I am under no I; illusions and know that ? spraying of seedlings will be ;> an annual job for many years <! to come, though I have the o comforting feeling that on this 1; job I am definitely on top of Z it.”

In handling this block, Mr Holderness said, he had spent a total of £557. “This is near enough to £2B per acre, so you can see the eradication of gorse on hill country is a costly business in terms of cash and physical effort. On the other hand if the job was not tackled, production from this area would be practically nil.”

Mr Holderness said that 245 T was a good weapon for gorse control, but the job involved a lot of hard, tedious work and really vital for a successful programme was a genuine desire on the part of the farmer to see his land free of this menace and a determination to bring that about.