AN AMERICAN VIEW

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31832, 9 November 1968, Page 10

AN AMERICAN VIEW

To grow a new crop was one thing but to fit it into the agricultural programme of an area was another, Professor H. M. Laude, professor of agronomy at the University of California at Davis, said at Lincoln College this week.

Professor Laude, who will return to the United States shortly after five months at Lincoln College, was discussing the interest in new crops in Canterbury and New Zealand to diversify agricultural production. In California, he said, there was Interest in growing soya beans and there could be yields as high as in some of the main soya bean growing

areas, but the.yields were not big enough to make the crop competitive with other crops. Referring to the search for new crops in New Zealand, Professor Laude said a limiting factor here could be that the summer was not hot enough or long enough for some of the crops that might be contemplated so that efforts might have to be directed towards crops that would grow with a degree of summer coolness.

Noting also that there was currently some interest in use of artificial nitrogert in New Zealand, he said that a use of nitrogen. that was

common in the United States was to apply it to increase growth just before the winter and also to stimulate growth before the spring. He understood that a few farmers in New Zealand were using nitrogen in this way. This seemed a sound practice to reduce the period of low production in the cooler season. “I think this would be a sensible area for use of nitrogen here.” The other place where there was a possibility for the use of nitrogen was in irrigated areas where moisture stress had been relieved and where the growth potential was increased. In rotations in New Zealand where crops followed pastures containing white clover, Professor Laude said there was probably not the same need for commercial nitrogen as in California, Where there was a trend to continuous cropping and where there were not as good legumes in the rotation as white clover. There were Mg areas of the world that were deficient in nitrogen, he said, and for that reason it did not seem likely that there would be worldwide overproduction of artificial nitrogen yet although there might be localised areas of overproduction. An American oil company was developing a sizeable plant in India, but it would not be meeting the total demand for nitrogen there. In some areas it was being found that nitrogen could be used in much greater quantities than had previously been envisaged once the moisture stress had been removed. This seemed to be the case in every area. Professor Laude’s main research interest is in crop physiology. He is interested particularly in the tillering of grasses, which is an interest similar to that of Professor R. H. M. Langer, who is professor of plant science at the college, and It was to work with Professor Langer that he came to the college. Coming from California where irrigation is widely practised—he has been surprised how ryegrass and clover pastures here remain so green and lush without irrigation—Professor Laude said he had been impressed with the potential of the Canterbury plains for irrigation. The water was there and the general slope of the land was

favourable.” It is a resource that is just waiting to be used,” he commented. He has also been impressed by the large numbers of sheep and that so much of New Zealand’s agriculture is based on this animal, whereas in California production tends to be more diversified. While believing that current interest of farmers in diversification was logical. Professor Laude said New Zealand was likely to be. always a primarily livestock-producing country because of its environment and type of land that lent itself to that use. Professor Laude said that over the last six years or so wafering of lucerne had been developing on an increasing scale in California, but as yet not more than 10 per cent of lucerne would be handled in this way. He said he had heard a farmer, who was an enthusiast about this method, say that the day would soon come when the hay baler would be obsolete, but he thought that this was a little premature. However, some farmers liked the watered lucerne, which was easy to transport and took less labour to handle, an important consideration these days. The wafering of the lucerne was done by commercial interests, he said.