WITH HIS CORRIEDALES AT 10,000 FEET

Press, 20 August 1976, Page 12

WITH HIS CORRIEDALES AT 10,000 FEET

KELVIN SANDERSON, the writer of this article, is a Lincoln CoHege graduate who is serving a second term as an overseas adviser in Tanzania. He is on leave from the Berl Consulting Group, Wellington, while employed by the Food and Agricultural Organisation as a livestock economist in the Tanzanian Ministry of Agriculture, Dar-es-Salaam.

Alt Barwell. of Dunsandel, does not need crampons to go around his Corriedales at 10,000 feel, but a utility 'chicle or a good New Zealand hack helps. Alf is a farm consultant with a farm at Dunsandel and at present he is working for the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under “aid.” on the Kitulo Plateau sheep and cattle ranch of about 80.000 acres in southern Tanzania. East Africa.

The Kitulo Plateau is a volcanic pumice plateau at an elevation of 7000 ft to 10.000 ft and is 9 degrees south of the equator. It overlooks Lake Nyasa and Malawi in the south and the broad Usangu cattle plains of Tanzania in th* north. In the mid 1900 s the Tanzanian Government asked the United Nations, through the Food and Agriculture Organisation, to develop a wool-sheep scheme on the plateau. About 6000 acres of pastures of perennial ryegrass, cocksfoot and white clover were established and Cor-

riedale sheep were imported from Kenya. The breed had been importd to the Kenvan highlands from New Zealand and other countries many years ago. In the F.A.O. team was a North Canterbury man. Rod Heard, and a few Corriedale rams were flown into Kitulo from North Canterbur.- in 1968-69. The scheme was handed over to the Tanzanian Government-owned National Ranching Company in the early 1970 s and still has two main problems which the F.A.O. scheme identified but did not completely solve. These problems are low productivity coefficients in the animals and the problem of marketing a small, isolated clip of wool. All the other sheep in Tanzania are hair sheep — like goats — but generally fat-tailed.

As part of the increasing co-operation between Tanzania and New Zealand, following the Kirk/Nyerere meeting in Ottawa, New Zealand was asked to help with these problems. Terrv Ludecke. from Lincoln College. was sent over for a short visit and concluded that some practical applied research and husbandry advice from * New Zealand farmer could help. And so Alf Barwell was recruited bv Foreign Affairs and he and his wife. Thelma, and two children, are now living on Kitulo Ranch for two years.

After talking to Terry Ludecke. Alf put some cobalt and selenium in his suitcase and started some trace element trials on the wether lambs soon after he

arrived in early 1975. The productivity of the flock is very low and lamb survival to weaning is only about 54 per cent of the ewes put to the ram — a far cry from the 130 per cent Alf gets from his Corriedales at Dunsandel. This means that

culling is virtually impossible, and in fact the breeding flock is declining. The procession of international “experts” who have passed through Kitulo over the years have often talked about trace element deficiency, and the original F.A.O. team found cobalt drenchinc and mineral licks essential. However, these practices have not been consistently applied. The result is that when

Alf took 125 wether lambs aged four to five months in May, 1975, and gave groups of 25 of them a drench of cobalt, copper or selenium and one group a mixture of the three, he got a spectacular growth increase over the remaining 25 lambs in the “control” group. He drenched and weighed them monthly and the liveweight increase after four months of drenching and the wool weights after six months of drenching are shown in the table* Wether Lamb Trial

He also weighed the carcases and showed a similar effect. The six months of cobalt treatment lifted carcase weight by about a quarter, from 12.7 kg to 15.8 kg. The trace elements would give a big lift to profit from the lambfattening alone. Alf is now trying these trace elements, and iron and zinc, on the ewe hoggets to see what effect he will get on two-

tooth lambing percentage and growth of their lambs. ' Alf has enlisted my help in doing the statistical analysis and some budgets > to prove the economics, and now the Kitulo management intends to topdress cobalt and copper with the super on the improved grass. In the last season Alf has also been able to help them plough and sow down 1000 acres in new grass and some oats, Italian ryegrass and turnips for greenfeed. Probably even more significant have been his trials which have very successfully brought back some six-year-old run-out pasture with a little superphosphate and sulphur, and have shown that legumes can be established in the natural pasture by broadcast oversowing. New Zealanders have got a good name for getting on with the job and helping practically rather than writing reports. With his practical trial work and general husbandry advice, Alf Barwell is helping the Tanzanians to make the large Kitulo Ranch work. The problem of an isolated wool sheep flock remains. (To be concluded)

Control. Weight Fleece Increase Kg 4.1 Increase Kg 2.5 Cobalt 8.0 3.0 Copper 6.3 3.1 Selenium 5.2 2.6 Co + Cu + Se 8.3 2.9