Lucerne harvest to start this week

Press, 23 October 1978, Page 14

Lucerne harvest to start this week

Harvesting of Canterbury lucerne for production of pellets for stock feed for export to Japan will begin this week. Contractors are expected to move on to properties in the Pendarves and Wakanui districts in Mid-Canterbury on Wednesday to cut the first 400 tonnes. The manager of Fletcher Lucerne, Mr J. J. M. Lubeck, said that the full harvesting season was expected to yield about 15,000 tonnes of dehydrated or sun-cured lucerne, nearly all of which would be processed into stockfeed pellets and exported to the giant agricultural co-oper-ative, Zen Noh, in Japan. Mr Lubeck said that in spite of poor spring weather and a later-than-usual start to the harvesting season the company was hopeful that the season would be a good one in terms of tonnages available for processing. In April the company announced that it would be offering a base price 33 l/3rd per cent up on last season to a maximum of $4O per dry tonne for yields of 10 tonnes and more per hectare. Mr Lubeck said that they were satisfied with the con-

tracts they had signed with growers since these prices had been announced, but there would still be capacity at. its Winslow plant to handle “spot” cuts from growers who had deferred signing contracts pending finalising their own needs for lucerne stockfeed on their farms.