Place For Bag Nitrogen?

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31143, 20 August 1966, Page 9

Place For Bag Nitrogen?

A FARMER, Mr C. A. Jamiex son, of Halswell, briefly participated in a discussion on the nitrogen cycle held last week by the Canterbury section of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural Science. The main speakers were Professor T. W. Walker, of Lincoln College, Dr. R. M. Allison, of the Plant Chemistry Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and Dr. J. N. Parle, of the Ruakura agricultural research centre. A user of bag nitrogen, Mr Jamieson said that one of the big questions was whether bag nitrogen triggered off increased carrying capacity. He said that he was inclined to feel that so much had been said about clover fixation of nitrogen that the stage might have been reached where people believed about clover fixation what they wanted to believe. Was a great deal more credit being given to its effectiveness over the year that it deserved? It was' his feeling that where a farmer was going in for heavy stocking there could be a need and room for use of bag nitrogen. In this context Mr Jamieson said he was talking about “up to eight sheep to the acre.”

Mr Jamieson said that as yet he had only used bag nitrogen in association with overdrilling of cereals. It was a waste of time doing this without nitrogen and even though this overdrilling was done into a clover dominant pasture. This week, he said further in this context, that he would not now put the drill into

the ground in overdrilling without the use of nitrogen, no matter what he was sowing. Mr Jamieson also looks on bag nitrogen as a possible aid to the farmer in stimulating growth at times of the year when growth is normally short. He does not believe in using it when clovers are fixing nitrogen satisfactorily, but he believes that use of bag nitrogen in the autumn and also the spring could have the effect of shortening the winter.

On his light land in Junction road, Halswell, which was once river bed, he indicated this week how he is using nitrogen in association with overdrilling to produce feed for early lambing. For instance, in the case of a fouracre paddock in lucerne, he overdrilled Garton Onwards oats at slightly under two bushels to the acre into this late in April with a 4cwt of nitrolime and about icwt of superphosphate to the acre. Apart from the fact that the seeding rate in this case was a little light, there is now a good bite of early lambing feed on this area, and Mr Jamieson believes that, on appearances at least, there is as much or more feed on it as on a trial area overdrilled with cereals about six weeks earlier but without nitrogen. Where nitrogen has been used the cereals are also of a healthier colour, but he adds that it still has to be remembered that the paddock where this has been done is one of the most favourable from a soil point of view on the farm

and superior to the trial area in this respect. Mr D. J. G. Davies, of the Department of Agriculture, commented this week that this area had made good growth considering that it had not been drilled until late April and the winter had been relatively dry. In other paddocks on the property Mr Jamieson has overdrilled in grasses and clovers, also to provide feed at this time of the year, and in two cases winter topdressings of 3cwt of ammoniated superphosphate have been given. At last week’s meeting Mr Jamieson said that it could be that criticism of the low palatability of perennial ryegrass in December and the browning off and rusting of this species was due to a lack of nitrogen. Dr. K. F. O’Connor, officer in charge of the Lincoln substation of the Grasslands Division, said that they had quite a lot of evidence of an increase in palatability of perennial ryegrass in the summer with the use of fertiliser nitrogen. He thought that their evidence at Lincoln also showed that they could always get an increase in herbage production by applying nitrogen at any time to a clover-based pasture, but he said that from an economic point of view its use was only advocated for overdrilling. But for the local climate, he said, the traditional legume, white clover, was nowhere near adequate in its fixation for what the climate was capable of producing in the way of herbage.