Lincoln’s soils, plants contribution

Press, 4 May 1978, Page 24

Lincoln’s soils, plants contribution

By

PROFESSOR T. W. WALKER,

professor of soil science at Lincoln

College, who will retire at the end of the year. He has been on the staff since the beginning of 1952, apart from two years back in Britain.

The amounts of meat, milk and wool produced in New Zealand have been greatly increased by improving the soils, the plants that grow in them and the control of pests and diseases. Lincoln staff and graduates have made important contributions in these areas and no name is more illustrious than that of Hilgendorf who is best remembered for his wheat breeding. Jack Calder, appointed as Hilgendorf’s

assistant, also worked on oats, cocksfoot and red clover and with E. R. Hudson was responsible for subterranean clover work at Ashley Dene. The early work on legumes which has meant so much to New Zealand agriculture was also advanced by L. W. Gorman, an old student who worked under Bruce Levy and greatly improved our strains of white clover. Chris Iversen’s name will always be linked with lucerne and its significance in dryland farming. Lincoln’s interest in biological nitrogen fixation has been strongly upheld by the soil science department. Following the earlier work of W. R. Lobb (yet another old student), the establishment of clovers in the tussock country was shown to depend on sulphur and molybdenum as well as phosphate. Inoculation and pelleting of seed with lime was also studied and Bill Lowther, who did his masterate in this area, has become the leading researcher on this problem, which has also been vigorously pursued by Jim White at the college. Perhaps more than anyone else, Doug Campbell, who did a masterate on red clover at Lincoln, could be called the father

of aerial top-dressing, which has made an outstanding contribution to the development of hill country, through the oversowing of clovers and fertilisers. Work on legumes still thrives at Lincoln, and includes high protein production by grain legumes such as lupins, the phosphate economy of legumes and their tolerance to soil acidity. Old students such as Alan Nordmeyer recognising the pioneer role of nitrogen-fixers in nature, have studied the establishment of legumes and nodulated non-legumes on our eroded mountains.

Study of the wheat crop has also been intensified in recent years by Professor Langer and his coworkers, and also by Terry Ludecke who has followed the soil nitrogen supply to the wheat crop. All told, we now have a very detailed picture of the factors affecting wheat yields and can identify most of them.

As Lincoln is responsible for teaching soil science in the Forestry School at Ham, there is much current work on the West Coast on the effects on soil and run-off of burning cut-over bush and establishing radiata pine. In addition, there are studies on nitrogen fixation and gaseous losses of nitrogen from urine, clay minerals, evapotranspiration, soil variability, erosion on the Port Hills, pollution, nitrate levels in waters, the composition of soil organic matter and the retention of sulphate by soils. There is also a renewed interest in weed biology and chemical control through growth regulators.

lan Blair is remembered particularly for his work on soil microbiology and cereal diseases and a string of post-graduate students who have made their mark throughout the land; one need mention only Roy Thornton and Harvey Smith, directors of the Cawthron Institute and Crop Rearch Division of D.S.I.R. respectively. The fleece (just like soil or water) was shown to be a habitat for microorganisms by Paul Mulcock, who found some wool discolouration to be due to bacterial pigments. Virus and fungal diseases of agricultural and horticultural crops have been studied intensively by Ron Close, and other major areas of research are on the microbiolgica] contaminations of soil and ground water, solid waste disposal and the production of alcohol to reduce our dependence on oil. Entomolgy has been part of Lincoln College for 75 years and Hilgendorf’s first papers were on bees and other insects.

In the last 20 years, under Professor Harrison, there have been three major research streams, namely, in-depth studies on pesticides, population dynamics and the development of programmes for pest management. Work in these areas includes the study of insect resistance to synthetic pesticides and the genetics of such resistance and the development of new materials, the best known of which are sex attractants for grass-grub beetles. The use of mite predators to replace mite sprays in the control of these orchard pests has been particularly successful.

The contribution of Lin-coln-trained men to New Zealand agriculture is nowhere better exemplified than in the entomological field, where 27 men fill one third of all full-time professional posts in New Zealand universities and Government research departments.