MR IVERSEN RETIRES

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31256, 31 December 1966, Page 8

MR IVERSEN RETIRES

AIR C. E. (Chris) Iversen, m who has ended a 20-year association with the teaching staff of Lincoln College, is one of the members of the staff who is best known to fanners. A frequent speaker at college field days with a colourful and persuasive turn of speech, Mr Iversen’s particular contribution to farming has been in the field of light land development. In a farewell tribute to him just before the end of the year Professor R. H. M. Langer, head of the plant science department at the college; noted that parents frequently idolised their chidren—Mr Iversen’s particular baby was lucerne. He possibly did more than anyone else to encourage fanners to grow lucerne and to this and to almost everything that he did he brought a boundless enthusiasm. One can recall him talking at a field day at Ashley Dene about two years ago when he claimed that lucerne was about four and a half times as good as perennial ryegrass and to him, like Cassius Clay, “the greatest” in the realm of pasture plants.

His work indicating the high level of production that can be obtained from lucerne under a rotational type of grazing system has led to the thus far highly successful ex-

periment at Ashley Dene where five ewes are being run to the acre on a virtually all lucerne farmlet. Mr- Iversen has also devoted considerable time to lucerne I breeding and Prof essor Langer said that his glutinosa lucerne now under test was likely to be a most useful plant. In a wider field Mr Iversen is a former president of the New Zealand Grasslands As-> sociation and at this year’s conference of the association, Mr I. H. Wardell paid a public tribute to him. He is also a former secretary of the New Zealand Weed Control Conference and was a member of the Consultative Committee on Agricultural Education that sat a few years ago. In his teaching at the college, Mr Iversen has also shown the same sort of enthusiasm as he has shown in his association with fanners, and he will also be remembered for his warm hearted interest in students as individuals and in their problems. A former member of the governing body of the college he also served on the farm committee for a number of years and of course his association with the college goes back to the days when he was also a student. Like lucerne, Rugby football was also one of his great interests and at one time he served on the management committee ot the Canterbury Rugby Union.