Province Facing Drought

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30534, 1 September 1964, Page 1

Province Facing Drought

Canterbury is on the threshold of another drought. Unless the recent run of frosts stops soon and there are growth - stimulating rains, a critical shortage of feed for ewes running with lambs might develop. The most pessimistic observers foresee the possibility of thousands of hungry lambs, and even lambs having to be killed because ewes cannot feed them.

Ewes over a wide area are now lambing—in Mid-Canter-bury lambing is about half way through. To give the new lambs a good start in life it is imperative that their mothers should be able to provide an adequate supply of milk, and for this it is necessary that there should be plentiful supplies of feed. The prospects for this at the moment are not bright. Winter feed supplies are now almost exhausted and as a result of the recent run of heavy frosts and the present dry soil condition there is little or no growth to support the lambing ewes. Officers of the Department of Agriculture, veterinarians and others close to the farming industry said yesterday that critical conditions had not developed yet on many farms where limited feed supplies were still available, but the position would take a turn for the worse in the next week to two weeks unless there was an easing in the severity of frost and good rains came.

Mr C. P. Whatman, senior farm advisory officer of the Department of Agriculture in Ashburton, said yesterday that the feed situation in the district was now worse than it was in July. Could Change There was agreement, however, that at this time of the year the position could

change almost overnight. “There is nothing that two days' good rain could not fix,” commented a veterinarian.

The fields superintendent of the Department of Agriculture in Christchurch, Mr A. R. Dingwall, said yesterday that South Canterbury was possibly the worst hit area having had less rain than districts further north. In Timaru, Mr M. L. Cameron, a farm advisory officer of the department, said that there had been only 10 inches of rain so far this year and no rain had fallen since July. All areas were very dry except for a narrow belt of clay downs country along the foothills. The district was now having the heaviest frosts of the winter. There was now little vrinter feed left, saved grass was on its last legs and there was no new growth Some farmers with ewes and lambs were now trying to get the ewes back on to concentrate feeding after having given them a taste of green grass when it seemed that the winter feeding crisis had passed, and they were not finding it easy to get the ewes to go back to this feed. Mr D. G. Reynolds, of the department at Fairlie, had a similar story to tell of the downlands about that centre. Apart from about two showers of little consequence there has been no rain in this area for about six weeks,, and in addition there have been north-westerly winds to dry out the country. Soil

moisture was probably as low as it had ever been at this time of the year. Farmers were not badly off at the moment for feed, he said, but in about two weeks most feed supplies would be exhausted. While they might again turn to supplementary feeding of grain or concentrates, already many farmers had spent 10s 'to 17s a ewe for this- purpose, significantly reducing the likely profit from each ewe. The prospect was that wheat crops would have to be fed off.

Mr Reynolds forecast that the areas shut up for small seeds this year were likely to be extremely small. South of the Warnau river in Marlborough in the Blenheim, Sedddn, Ward and Kaikoura districts rain is wanted, soon, according to Mr J. P. Beggs, of the Department of Agriculture in Blenheim. Lower Percentage Early reports on the lambing show that so far it has been relatively trouble-free favoured by the fine weather that is every day accentuating fears about future feed supplies. Percentages are geni erally believed to be below i normal and Mr Whatman said ■ that the percentage might be . down by 5 per cent in the i Ashburton area. In South i Canterbury, Mr Cameron said, i there had been losses with lambs not getting up during • the overnight frosts and ewes > were needing quite a lot of I assistance with lambing.