Production Run At Lucerne Factory

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32118, 14 October 1969, Page 1

Production Run At Lucerne Factory

The lucerne-dehydration plant of Fletcher Industries, Ltd, at Winslow, near Ashburton, had a three-hour production run yesterday. The equipment functioned very well, after successful trials last week, said the factory manager (Mr R. G. Wilson).

The plant will work for short periods for the next three or four days, building up to full capacity at the end of the week. At the peak of the season the plant will run 24 hours a day. The export of lucerne pellets from the plant„to Japan is expected to begin in December.

The dehydrator is the largest built in New Zealand, and is fired by a highly specialised oil burner which uses up to 150 gallons of fuel an hour. The furnace, of New Zealand firebrick, is 20ft long and 7ft in diameter. To ensure uniform quality of the pellets, two silos have been constructed on the storage site, so that pellets with a higher protein content can be kept separate from pellets of lower protein, and later blended to maintain a consistent standard. The first lucerne processed was cut from stands on the company’s 450 acre research farm adjoining the factory. On the farm, production wells for irrigation water have been drilled and successfully tested. They will provide between three and four cusecs of water to irrigate the lucerne.

I The whole of the farm has i been cultivated and most of it r will be sown in lucerne this ■ spring. A comprehensive . series of experimental plots

Will be used to obtain confirmation of the trends Indicated by research so far carried out on lucerne. The data obtained will be accumulated for the benefit of the growers. At -Timaru the construction of a pellet-loading system and storage silo, designed by the Timaru Harbour Board, is well under way, and will be completed and tested next month to allow pellets to be stored before the first shipment leaves for Japan in December. Work on the Winslow plant began in July