Specialist or catch crop

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33680, 1 November 1974, Page 7

Specialist or catch crop

Everyone knew how to grow a crop for seed, but in fact no-one seemed to have done very much research work on it — the number of published definitive investigations seemed to number only about three — Mr K. R. Brown, a scientist with the Grasslands Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, said at a field day at Kirwee last week. People, he said, thought about closing up paddocks for seed crops in about September. The main question at issue was whether small

seeds production was a specialist undertaking or a catch crop. Last season he said that they had done some background work with Tama ryegrass, and where the area had not been grazed at all the seed yield had been 75 per cent higher than where it had been grazed. The indication from this, because the difference was so great, was that, in fact, seed production was a specialist enterprise. An important goal in seed production was to be able to produce good seed and a pure line, otherwise new plant introductions did not mean very much.

In dressing a line of seed it was desirable to get rid of the light seeds as it was the heavy seeds in a line that produced the plants. Just how important was fertiliser use in seed production? The division had an experiment from which they would learn something about this. In seed production they were not seeking to produce leaf or too much bulk. They wanted a good tiller that would produce a good fertile head, but again fertility was something that was also obscure. Seed quality was something that needed defining. For certification, in particular, ways and means of growing crops that were free from contamination also needed to be found.