WIDE INTEREST

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31239, 10 December 1966, Page 8

WIDE INTEREST

In spite of favourable seasons for dryland farming there is still considerable interest in irrigation in the province, according to Mr W. R. Lobb, superintendent of the Winchmore irrigation research station.

Mr Lobb told visitors to the station for a field day this week that it had been a splendid season for dryland farmers—possibly a dream season for dryland fanners. This might give the impression that irrigation was not necessary but there were those who were committed to high stocking rates who still regarded irrigation as a necessary adjunct to farm management under those conditions in this area. Up to late in November Mr Lobb said that a further 1000 acres of land had been borderdyked for irrigation so that now 45,095 acres had been border-dyked in the five schemes in the province. There was also interest in irrigation in the Malvern and Paparua counties and at Glenavy and in the lower Waitaki and there had been numerous inquiries from private persons in a number of districts. From these facts it was apparent that there was quite an interest. In the area served by the new irrigation association formed in the area of the Ashburton-Hinds drainage scheme Mr Lobb said that 30 per cent of farmers were operating spray irrigation

plants. This represented a high investment in irrigation plant and it was possibly true that the investment in irrigation plant was greater in the area outside the 200,000 acres commanded by irrigation schemes than within the area. It would not be economic to continue to develop in this way on areas that could be border-dyked, Mr Lobb said. Referring to the level of production achieved with irrigation on the property of Mr G. B. Henderson at Lyndhurst, who was this year’s winner of the A. C. Cameron memorial award for the outstanding young farmer in the South Island, Mr Lobb said he was quite certain that this performance could not have been achieved without irrigation and it was doubtful if farmers elsewhere were achieving comparable results. Such performances, he said, must give great confidence in the future of irrigation. It had been said that predictions that they had made about production under irrigation were absolutely absurd and were the work of impractical scientific madmen, but now they were being asked to increase production levels further. This was good, but he was willing to bet that it would be harder to get the next 501 b of meat than it was to get the last 1001 b. It would involve changes and different approaches to the use of the resources of land and water, but it was a challenge that he thought that they would be able to meet and it was his feeling that irrigation would have an increasing part to play in raising production further.