NOW TOO MUCH RAIN

Press, 14 July 1978, Page 6

NOW TOO MUCH RAIN

At the beginning of last week some of the province’s farms still had quite a lot of snow lying around. Since then fanners have had to contend with a good deal more rain in a situation where water tables were already high and the

result has been a lot of surface water about. There have been problems getting around properties for feeding out to stock on heavier land. Mr P. R. Hockey, senior adviser with the Ministry of Agriculture in Ashburton, this week described farmlands in the Lowcliffe, Wakanui and Eiffelton districts as being virtually under water. Paddocks are generally muddy and efficiency of utilisation of feed has declined under these conditions with quite a lot of wastage occurring, particularly where stock are feeding root crops like turnips. Mr D. D. Collie, senior adviser with the Ministry in Timaru, is hoping for an early favourable spring, for he sees a pinch period for feed around and just before lambing next month. He sees sleepy sickness being on the cards in some ewe flocks. Flooding in South Canterbury last week resulted in some stock losses—up to 400 sheep on one property. But losses do not appear to have been widespread. In some areas pasture and feed crop growth has

slowed right down, but Mr Hockey said this week that on light land areas grass was still growing as wet conditions had resulted in an absence of frosts. Winchmore irrigation research station had reported soil temperature levels as being higher than at this time last year. The conditions have held up crop sowings and in some areas parts at least of crops have been drowned out. Mr M. J. Batey, of the Ministry at Darfield, said this week that one farmer who still had 80 ha of crop to sow reported that he had not been able to do any tractor work for five weeks now, and because of the stage of the season he was now planning to sow Karamu wheat where be had been proposing to sow Kopara and barley where he had planned to put in Karamu. The wpather has also held up crutching, but life must go on and some early lambs have appeared in Mid-Canterbury. Last week-end’s rains resulted in quite a lot of "slipping” in hill country areas.