Raising Production On Light Land Farm

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30496, 18 July 1964, Page 8

Raising Production On Light Land Farm

In the course of their annual field day this week young farmers in the Christchurch district of the Young Farmers’ Club movement visited the 1718acre light land property of Mr A. C. Wright to the east of the main railway line between Dunsandel and Bankside. Here, in his first year after taking over the property about 15 years ago, Mr Wright, who is immediate past president of North Canterbury Federated Farmers and a member of the electoral committee of the Meat and Wool Boards, shore 800 ewes. Last year slightly more than 4000 adult sheep went over the shearing board and in addition 2500 lambs including 1100 of his own ewe lambs and 1400 Romneys bought in for fattening.

For the last four years lambs sold off the property including those bought in for fattening have totalled about 4000. Associated with the development programme with large areas under cultivation —up to 596 acres one year—and the growing of extensive areas of feed crops has been the buying in of lambs for fattening. Frequently these purchases have been of the order of 2000 and occasionally they have exceeded 3000. In recent years the trend has been for the area under feed crops to tail off with more emphasis being put on fodder conservation.

Mr Wright told the young farmers that the soils, apart from 50 acres of Templeton silt loam, were inherently “poor and poorer” and the annual rainfall was about 24 Inches. Fifteen years ago the property was largely in browntop, danthonia and gorse, and as well there were a lot of rabbits. Four or five hundred acres were in rather stunted subterranean clover.

In breaking in this country two systems have been used. Where the country was in the roughest state it has gone through a routine of roots, rape or choumoellier and then possibly greenfeed barley before being summer fallowed and sown down. The other system has been directed at a rapid sow-down with the land being grubbed and disced simultaneously and worked down into a seed bed. While the recent trend has been for a reduction in the amount of cultivation, the dry conditions of the last year have tended to open up pastures with intrusion of such undesirable species as storksbill, and it is anticipated that a good deal of pasture renewal will be necessary.

Considerable quantities of lime have been used over the years—rarely less than 200 tons and up to 400 tons—and topdressing has been expanded so that now all grass and lucerne receives 1 cwt of superphosphate and wherever a drill is used a

blood and bone mixture is sown.

Quite a large area of the farm—4so acres—is in a lucerne and grass mixture. The mixtures used have resulted from experiments carried out on the property in association with Mr J. W. Calder when he was on the staff of Lincoln College and today the sowing comprises 51b of Rhizoma lucerne, 21b of short rotation ryegrass, lib of perennial, 11b of cocks-

foot, fib of white and lib of red clover. Earlier 41b of Marlborough lucerne and 31b of Rhizoma was sown but the Marlborough has now been omitted from the mixture because it did not persist.

Mr Wright likes the mixture for its year-round spread of production with the ryegrass and subterranean clover, which is in the country, providing the growth in the winter and spring, and the cocksfoot and lucerne being valuable in the summer. Some 188 acres is in straight lucerne. A problem with lucerne in the early stages was premature wilting and Dr. T. W. Walker, of Lincoln College, found that while the pH of the soil was adequate in the surface layer it was not further down, where the roots of the lucerne plants shot off at right angles, and the answer for this has been application of a ton of lime a year before sowing lucerne and turning it down and then spreading another ton at the time of sowing. Mr Wright has been most favourably impressed with phalaris tuberosa both from what he has seen of it in Australia and also from his own experience with it. He has a paddock of 27 acres, where about 31b of phalaris was sown to the acre into country with subterranean clover in it about three years ago. He says that the phalaris seems to grow when nothing else will—particularly in the winter—and it comes away quickly in the autumn, when there is an odd shower that is not sufficient to stimulate other growth.

Just recently a draft of 30 20 to 22-month-old cattle was taken off the phalaris-sub-terranean clover paddock, where they had been for three months getting silage and hay in addition to the pasture growth. Some 18 of these bullocks killed out at an average of 6501 b. After only two weeks of spell, the paddock is coming away again.

In the summer, Mr Wright says, phalaris has to be watched for outbreaks of phalaris staggers in sheep, but there has been no trouble with cattle, which have done well on it. Mr Wright likes it so much that he plans to put in another paddock. About 630 acres are in pasture. The mixture currently used comprises 101 b of short rotation ryegrass, 51b of perennial ryegrass, 21b of cocksfoot, 21b of white clover, and 11b of red clover. The flock at present consists of 3200 Corriedale ewes and 1070 ewe hoggets. The ewes are descended from Rakaia Gorge Double Hill Station Corriedales and the rams come from the neighbouring Glenrock property. Mr Wright has been impressed with the greater evenness of the flock in recent years and is convinced that light land farmers do not generally pay enough attention to the wool on their sheep—he feels that it costs no more to grow good wool than poor wool. Wool production from adult sheep has risen from 11,2601 b in 1949-50 to 43,0001 b in

1962-63 and in the same season there was another 65001 b from lambs. Wool production per acre has trebled in the last 10 years to about 351 b. Mr Wright is at present moving away from prelamb to December shearing. Apart from its convenience, he says that pre-lamb shorn sheep have a high feed requirement and to his thinking they tend to put the feed on to their backs rather than into milk for their lambs. The ewe flock is due to begin lambing in about a week’s time. The lambing is staggered so that 600 older ewes

mated with Down rams—principally Dorset Downs—lamb first, followed by the main group of ewes and finally by the two-tooths. Altogether about 2000 ewes go to the Corriedale ram and 1000 to the Downs. For the last two seasons, the lambing percentage at tailing to ewes mated has been just over 100 per cent If the season is a dry one lambs are drafted early and at light weights. About 30 acres of rape is grown to finish off the fattening of lambs produced on the property, and about 40 to 50 acres of chou moellier is grown for fattening of bought-in lambs. The chou moellier stands up better to periods of northwests that play havoc with the rape, and is available for use in the autumn. Numbers of lambs bought in vary, but they have ranged up to more than 2000. The aim is to obtain Romneys, which are subsequently shorn, and these are frequently taken to about 331 b or 341 b and shipped because of the deduction on the local schedule for shorn lambs, though the Romneys are often carrying little less wool than woolly Down cross lambs. This year about 2350 lambs have been shipped, and last year about 2000. Winter Feed About 150 acres are nowsown to winter feed crops. About 90 acres goes into swedes and chou moellier. Initially turnips were grown, but in six years out of 10 they were a failure, but since swedes have been used instead there have been no failures, and from a comparison this season of swedes grown on the ridges as compared with the flat Mr Wright feels that those on the ridges are far superior. About 30 acres of cape barley is sodseeded into rape or chou moellier stubble, and about 30 acres is also sown by conventional methods. Because of the heavy stocking on this light land, much emphasis is placed on fodder conservation and last season 17,000 bales of lucerne and meadow hay was made off the place, so that with a carry-over of 3000 bales, the winter began with a supply of 20,000 bales, for which there is accommodation under cover for 15,000 bales. At present about 5500 to 6000 bales are left. Cutting Hay Last season, Mr Wright had a contractor with a windrower cut all the hay and this made it possible to save 5000 to 6000 bales that might otherwise have been lost because of the weather. The farm staff were able to concentrate on baling. Silage is now playing a quite important role on the property for both sheep and cattle, being made when conditions are not suitable for hay making. Visitors to the farm this week saw a stack of originally 500 to 600 tons. A smaller stack of 150 to 200 tons had also been made. Mr Wright said it had been a wonderful standby this year.

Older ewes close to lambing, which Mr Wright said were really getting too fat, had been on .141 b of silage a day in addition to hay. Calves have been fed over the winter entirely on hay and silage. They have been getting about six times as much silage as the ewes.

Cattle numbers on the place have risen from a handful in the mid-1950’s up to 200 head in favourable seasons and at present, after a recent sale of 30, there are still about 150 on the place. While cattle produce no more meat per acre and do not grow any wool, Mr Wright says that with fencing and topdressing already being done in any case, they can be run without any increase in labour, whereas with an extra 1000 ewes it would be necessary to have another man and to build a cottage for him. It would take the return from 600 of these ewes to pay for the extra man. Mr Wright buys in calves in the autumn and the heifers are sold from about this time of the year, after their first winter, when there is a good demand for veal before lambs come on the market. As the steers become more valuable as they put on more weight they are held as long as possible, possibly into the following autumn. Beef production rising to more than 40,0001 b is now making a significant contribution to the over-all meat production of about 801 b an acre, which has quadrupled in the last 10 years.