FLUCTUATIONS IN HIGH COUNTRY STOCK

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32393, 4 September 1970, Page 7

FLUCTUATIONS IN HIGH COUNTRY STOCK

“I believe, as I indicated in my address to the Lincoln College farmers’ conference, that every 7 run and every runholder is in some sense unique,” said Professor K. F. O’Connor, director of the Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute and professor of range management at the college, in commenting on a paper that he and Mr J. G. Hughes, management officer of the institute, gave to the sixth New Zealand Geographical conference last week.

Professor O'Connor had lust completed a review of fluctuations in sheep num-

bers on Canterbury high country runs between 1900 and 1965-67. and in doing so he noted that the differences in movements were between regions and sectors and were not necessarily between runs. The "awareness to trial” period and the “trial to adoption” period varied greatly between individuals, he said, in indicating the variation between runholders in trying out and adopting new practices. And it was only by having field staff in management available to reach individual runholders, understand their particular problems and opportunities as parts of a whole, that the institute would be able to, provide the kind of service that many people expected of it Professor O’Connor and Mr Hughes presented to the conference details of the distribution of stock on about 300 runs in the region in the South Island which derives the bulk of its income from wool. This information was based on surveys made by Mr Hughes for in most cases the 196566 and 1966-67 periods. Professor O’Connor said that the adult sheep equivalents carried per acre in the two sectors of the wetter country—the gorge runs—were of the same order at 0.15 to the acre. The sectors were Canterbury and OtagoNorth West Southland. In the medium rainfall zone the stock carrying levels were similar in Canterbury at 0.29 to the acre, Otago at 0.29 and Southland at 0.30, but in Marlborough there were only 0.12 adult sheep equivalents to th* acre. Mr Hughes and he had speculated as to why this should be so. If the Marlborough sector was reduced by excluding Molesworth and Tamdale * runs the stocking level was still only raised to 0.16 sheep to the acre. They wondered whether this difference was due to the nature of the topography, the incidence of scrub and the lack of economic markets for sheep in the past, which might have contributed to 90 per cent of runs in Marlborough having cattle and these runs having an average 310 cattle each, which was double the number on runs in the similar climatic zone in Canterbury, where 79 per cent had cattle and the average per run was 160. But the reasons for the situation in Marlborough were not known and it was suggested that this was something that geographers might find worthwhile looking into more closely as there was a special interest

in the geography of Marlborough. The gorge runs had a high proportion of cattle and well established herds. Professor O’Connor said. In the Canterbury sector of this sort of country 94 per cent of runs had cattle and the average was 311 per station and in the Otago-North West Southland sector 95 per cent of runs ran cattle and their average cattle herd was 346. In the Otago-South Canterbury dry zone and the remainder of Otago only about three quarters of the runs had cattle and in this case the number per run was little more than 100.

University of land tenure in Canterbury high country, Professor O’Connor said they had compiled sheep populations for eight zones for the period from 1900 to 1952. The zones were the Waitaki semi-arid, Waitaki subhumid. Waitaki humid, the Rangitata-Ashburton combined, the Rakaia, the Waimakariri, the Hurunui and the Waiau-Clarence, excluding the freehold runs and those such as St James, St Helens and Molesworth which had switched wholly or largely to cattle. The initial decline in sheep populations in this period had generally reached its low point in the early 19205, but the decline in the Waimakariri, Hurunui and ' Waiau-Clarence regions was earlier and also more rapid than elsewhere. And this decline was least in evidence in the Rakaia and in the three zones of the Upper Waitaki. All zones had showed a recovery in numbers during the depression years from about 1929 to the mid 19305, but this recovery was least noticeable in the Waimakariri. Again all zones had shown , fairly steady declines in the late 1930 s and through the 19405. However the recoveries in numbers recorded during the period from 1952 to 1965-67 had not been uniformly spread. Substantial recoveries in numbers had been registered in the Waitaki sub-humid sector and on the small group of runs surveyed in the Waiau-Clarence. The recovery had been less in the Waitaki semi-arid sector, in the Waitaki humid sector

The success of cattle tn the relatively low moisture Molesworth region had not by 1967 been matched by a widespread swing to cattle in similar dry and medium moisture regions of Otago. This broad geographic picture of the present distribution of stock on the country deriving its income mainly from wool was only the beginning of the analyses to come out of these surveys, he said. Professor O’Connor said that the committee of management of the institute had agreed to the appointment of a field officer to assist with repeat surveys of this pastoral high country and also the several hundred runs on tussock hill country. From data gathered by Miss A. Walls, in a geography study at Victoria

and the Rakaia, and only a very small recovery had been shown in the Waimakariri. The RangitataAshburton zone had remained stationary and the Hurunui had continued to decline. While he felt that the resurgence of sheep numbers common to all regions during the depression years could be attributed to a reaction against depressed Merino wool prices after the relatively good price levels from 1923 to 1928, this economic criterion could not account for the variation between regions in timing and extent of these movements. It seemed most likely that these differences could be attributed to regional differences in climate, soil and terrain. The northern regions of Canterbury had reached lower levels of stocking by 1952 than the South and Mid-Canterbury regions and this might be a reflection of the greater vulnerability of these northern environments to depletion of vegetation, weed invasion and perhaps erosion. “It would also seem that the recoveries in sheep numbers since 1952 have been not unrelated to the different opportunities for top. dressing and oversowing in different sectors, and these differences may also not be unrelated to the intensity of research and advisory effort in tussock grassland improvements in different sectors." It was then that Professor O'Connor also referred to the personal differences in runholders in testing and accepting new developments.