New Hopes For Linen Flax Industry

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32381, 21 August 1970, Page 14

New Hopes For Linen Flax Industry

The linen flax industry in New Zealand today is only a shadow of its stature during World War 11. Once there were 17 factories in the South Island processing the flax. Today only one remains—at Geraldine in South Canterbury. However, even if there are

But the chairman of the Linen Flax Corporation of New Zealand, Mr P. L. Harland, of Christchurch, notes in the latest annual report of the corporation, that while like some other natural fibres the industry seemed to be in a state of decline a few years ago, there are today new prospects and signs of a possible revival. The development that possibly gives most hope is that of a process which enables linen flax fibre to be blended with natural fibres like wool and also artificial fibres to produce lightweight textile materials for summer use. An Irish organisation, Kirkpatricks of Ballyclare, put five years work into research and development of a process called Linron, which involves the bleaching and purification of the flax producing what is claimed to be a stable fibre retaining the essential properties of linen and with a standard of quality comparable to synthetics. New Zealand mills have imported some of the. treated flax, but Mr Harland says that these have been mainly on a trial basis and as yet there are no prospects of linen flax being treated by the process in New Zealand. This would involve expensive machinery but if Australia as well as

New Zealand manufacturers showed sufficient interest in the product then such a project might conceivably be brought much nearer, as although it had a war-time industry also, Australia no longer produces linen flax. The future of this development will depend very largely on what the textile industry does in the future. Adding a note of caution about too high hopes being held on this score, Mr K. E. C. Shaw, manager for the coporation at Geraldine, who has been with the corporation since 1940 except for about two years, noted that it was a characteristic of natural fibre industries to go through periods alternately of elation and depression about their future. He nevertheless produced samples of light-weight fabrics made by Alliance Textiles out of 70 per cent wool and 30 per cent Linron. This company is still continuing to evaluate the linen flax fibre. A man who is keen on seeing processing of flax taken further in New Zealand and who believes that the time might be opportupe to encourage production of another natural textile fibre when the current trend is towards a slowing up of use of synthetic fibres and a

return to natural fibres is Mr H. D. McCrostie, now a director of the corporation who joined the industry at its inception and was general manager of the corporation up until about 1967. After making a trip round the world he had approval from a former Minister of Industries and Commerce, Mr Nordmeyer, to launch an industry to produce initially about 250 tons of tarpaulins a year for the Railways Department, but this fell through when a change of Government took place.

immediately no great local or world markets for linen flax fibre in textiles, there is at home scope for expansion of the industry to meet the fibre requirements of its main customer, Donaghys Industries, Ltd. Mr Harland. Mr Shaw and Mr R. S. Hammond, of Te Moana, Geraldine, who is chairman of the linen Flax Growers’ Association of New Zealand, all believe that the local Industry is at present only filling about half of the firm’s requirements and while confirming that this would be roughly about true the general manager of Donaghys, Mr D. R. Stewart, however pointed out that they imported grades of fibre other than those produced in New Zealand and if they were to use much greater quantities of New Zealand fibre it would have to be of higher grades. To that end Mr Shaw said this week that the local industry would be experimenting this coming season in pulling flax at early and mid-maturity stages, as well as at full maturity, which was the present practice when there was maximum fibre content but the fibre might not be as soft and fine as it would have been earlier. The aim was to provide Donaghys with a wider range of fibres than hitherto and to also produce softer and finer fibres. Donaghys now use linen flax fibre in Auckland in mainly seaming twines and in meat rolling twines and polished twines for rolling bacon. There are a number of other smaller outlets.

An interesting development last year was the export of about 100 tons of tow, which consists of short and rubbishy fibres, to Japan for use in yarn manufacture blended with synthetics .and possibly cotton. Japan has indicated interest in long term contracts for the supply of this material and also long fibre. The representative of a Japanese manufacturing company who recently visited this country was wearing a suit made of a mixture of terylene and linen flax fibre. Although the indications are that from the grower’s point of view the crop compares favourably with other spring-sown crops as far as profitability is concerned, Mr Hammond says that growers have been losing interest in it recently because of the amount of handwork, and hence labour, involved in it He says that handling of this crop has not kept pace with developments in the handling of grain crops like wheat and oats. The harvesting of the crop had, until recently, changed little since the war with the flax being pulled, hand stooked and then left to dry for about three weeks before being loaded on to trailers and carted to the factory where it was stacked.

However important developments are now in progress to mechanise the handling of the crop both on the farm and at the factory end, which promise to be mutually advantageous to growers and the corporation. A quarter of the crop harvested this summer was carted into the factory on wooden pallets. Two pallets sitting on each trailer were loaded from the stook on this occasion. The flax was then stored at the factory on pallets awaiting processing instead of being stacked.

A factory spokesman said that whereas it would take about 12 or 13 hours to build a 20-ton stack the same amount of material could be loaded on to pallets in only about one hour. Here there is an obvious saving in time and labour. Maximum use of the forklift vehicle, which lifts toe pallets about, is also being made in shifting < bags of seed on pallets and also straw, which after retting to facilitate separation of fibre from the woody core of the plant, has been dried in toe open.

In the coming season, if all goes well, it is expected to bring in the whole of the crop on pallets and on this occasion, subject to favourable weather, the flax pulled by the automatic selfpropelled pullers from Belgium will be tied in slightly smaller sheaves and these will be left about four days to dry before they are loaded directly on to toe pallets. These will then be moved to a suitable place, possibly in the corner of a paddock or clear of toe harvest paddock, to enable it to be worked up again, where they will be covered, if necessary, against the weather, and the flax will cure before the pallets are loaded on to a trailer for movement to the factory. At toe factory the pallets will be stored in barns or in the open under covers and it is proposed to compress toe pallets to conserve space and covers.

It is expected that by this method toe factory will receive a superior product in that there will not be toe discolouring of toe flax that occurs as it stands out in the stooks. This should be of advantage to the corporation and toe farmer. There will also not be the seed loss that occurred in the past as a result of the depredations of birds. It will also reduce toe possibility of the loss of crop in the stook, that happened in some cases last season when the crop virtually rotted in the stook after harvesting as a result of a few points of rain falling daily for about three weeks.

In that harvest, one crop that was almost totally lost could have been saved had It been possible to cart it in on about three occasions, but then trailers were otherwise engaged. Under the new system the crop could have been loaded on to the pallets and would have then been safe. However it will depend on the weather how far the elimination of stooking will be able to be carried and it is anticipated that possibly about 50 per cent of the crop will be able to be loaded directly on to the pallets without stooking. Growers are to be given an immediate monetary benefit from the savings expected from the new handling techniques. Mr Harland said last week that growers would receive an extra $3.25 per ton of crop, which is attributable solely to the reduction in handling costs. This will mean that they will not pay for the pulling of the crop. It will be equivalent in a good average crop yielding about 2.75 tons of straw to the acre to almost $9 per acre and should lift the gross return to about $B5 an

acre. This arrangement will apply for at least the coming season. The corporation has also been able to hold the price of fibre tn its major customer for the last three years. The last increase in price was made on August 1, 1967. As far as profitability to the farmer is concerned Mr Hammond produced figures for the 1967 and 1968 seasons to show whereas in 1967 the gross margin per acre for linen flax varied from $l3 to $Bl per acre and averaged $42 that for the best barley crops, peas and linseed on comparable country were $5O, $6B and $5O, and in 1968 while the margins for flax varied from $25 to $9O and averaged $5l the top barley crops gave a gross margin of $5O, peas $6B and linseed $5O. As well, growers of linen flax enjoy some other advantages. The seed is delivered to them in the paddock for sowing and corporation staff will, if necessary, set the drill. Surplus seed is also taken back by the corporation and the fanner is not charged for the seed until the crop is harvested. Furthermore a $4 per acre advance is made to the grower by the corporation once a crop has been satisfactorily sown and in the event of a crop being a failure from an act of God this advance is not recalled and no charge is made for the seed. The use of the self-pro-pelled pullers also means that it is no longer necessary for a drill width to be left unsown around a paddock as was the case when the pullers were drawn by tractor and sections of crops can now be harvested separately if, for any reason, it is desired to keep parts of the one crop separate. These same machines, of which there are two—and a third may be in use by next harvest—can also be used at the factory site for turning flax that is out drying in the open after retting and they can also tie this flax again preparatory to further processing. Mr Hammond says that the crop is best grown under soil conditions which are not excessively high in fertility and it follows well after barley or wheat, but should not be grown after peas, potatoes or brassica crops because the nitrogen status is too high. He has found that fertiliser application is no advantage. The ground may be satisfactorily prepared out of grass in only two weeks for sowing and when the crop is no higher than four inches it may be sprayed for weed control. Mr Hammond, in fact, favours this type of treatment even if weeds are not too much of a problem to check the plants and encourage fibre production. Payment is made for flax both on the weight of the crop and also fibre content and quality. A paddock with bad willow weed infestation is not favoured for the crop but a preemergence weed-killing chemical is to be tested in the coming season. ■ A crop may also be treated with a chemical defoliant before harvesting. Weira. a Dutch linen flax variety with a white flower with a high fibre content and resistant to lodging, which does well under conditions in New Zealand is the standard variety grown at present but in the coming season an improved strain of Weira and also Reina, also from the Netherlands, which are claimed to have high fibre content and ' disease and lodging resistance, are going to be tested in trials conducted by the Department of Agriculture and at the Crop Research Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at Lincoln. Some 40 acres of these varieties will also be sown on farms throughout the growing area. Mr Shaw says that there are up to 50 growers in the district and Mr Hammond says that because of the handwork required in the past the average area in the crop has been about 20 acres. Amalgamation of holdings has been a factor in less casual labour now being available. In Mr Shaw’s memory of the industry going back to its inception—he was manager at Fairlie for about 17 years before serving as man-

ager at Geraldine for the last 12 years—he says that the last harvest was the worst. In an area separated by only about eight miles as the crow flies he says that crops were affected on one hand by drought, so that there was very slow germination and then a mass of weeds with the straw then being short and having little fibre content, and further inland there was so much rain that crops grew unduly tall and lodged and machines could not get on the ground to handle them. The position is now that the factory is short of straw and had a normal rate of processing been maintained it would all have been handled by now. As it is staff that has left the factory has not been replaced.

While Mr Shaw has been at Geraldine, according to the amount of straw needed, the area sown to the crop has varied from about 500 to 800 acres. In the last season the area was about 500 acres. In the coming season the aim is to have about 600 to 700 acres. For two seasons during World War II when there were 17 factories through the South Island, including eight in Canterbury, more than 20,000 acres of crop were sown. The first moves towards the establishment of an industry in this country were, however, made before the war in 1936 as a possibility for diversifying agricultural production. Subsequently this developed along the lines that there could be a place for an industry within the British Empire to free Britain of undue dependence on foreign sources of supply as World War II approached. Then in June, 1940, after the German invasion of the Netherlands, the British Ministry of Supply requested New Zealand urgently to grow 15,000 acres of crop in the following spring. Rapid expansion of the industry followed and up to the 1945-46 season New Zealand grew more than 80,000 acres of

flax for the British Govern-

ment and exported fibre to the value of almost s4m. When the corporation came into being after the war on April 1, 1946, it took over six factories—all in Canterbury except one at Winton—and a by-products factory at Washdyke.