One of best seasons on college farm

Press, 24 April 1980, Page 12

One of best seasons on college farm

We are indebted to G. F. (Graham) Tate, senior lecturer in rural extension at Lincoln College, for this report on the harvest on the college’s cropping farm.

The Lincoln College cropping farm seems set to have one of its best seasons in spite of the most difficult harvest period for many years. Harvesting of white clover seed finally finished on April 4 after six frustrating weeks when damp, dull coastal weather conditions limited threshing operations to an hour or two per day on 10 days out of the 38-day period during which the clover crop was mature enough to harvest but not fit to thresh. Yields at this stage are in most cases provisional with cereals stored in bulk and many small seeds not yet machine dressed. From the bulk estimates

64 hectares of Kopara wheat yielded 330 tonnes to average a very good 5.1 tonnes to the hectare. No fertiliser was drilled and generally no artificial nitrogen applied to 49 hectares of first crop wheat which yielded an average of 5.4 tonnes to the hectare. All of the second crop wheat was drilled with 250 kg to the hectare -f Flowmaster superphosphate and received up to 250kg/hectare of sulphate of ammonia in the spring. Including one paddock badly affected by takeall 15 hectares of second crop Kopara averaged 4.1 tonne/hectare. Ah though takeall was present in several paddocks, with ample moisture over the grain filling season, yields and grain quality were much better than expected. Some 15.5 hectares of Mata barley drilled on October 19 yielded 5.8 tonne/hectare - with only three per cent screenings. In the 1979 harvest 57 hectares of white clover averaged 513kg/hectare machine dressed. John McCartin, the farm manager of the college cropp-

ing farm, felt that the 1980 harvest offered even better prospects. However, the harvest weather again proved the old adage — “don’t count on your white clover until it’s in .the bag.”

From the 1980 harvest of 57 hectares of white clover 27 tonnes of field dressed seed have been delivered into the store. Through having to thresh out-of-condition crops the sample is dirtier than

John McCartin would like. Even if the machine dressed yield should prove to be as low as 63 per cent of the field dressed, an average of 300kg/hectare machine dressed will be achieved. This is historically a very good result for the college, helped by a heavy seed set following the prolonged flowering in the wet January. Much of the credit for eventually harvesting the crop is given by John McCartin to the use of a Busattis double knife mower fitted with Heslop rotary dividers. This low cutting, smooth running mower was very gentle on the crop and its new dividers laid the swath evenly without bulky butt ends to inhibit what little drying was available.

Some crops had to be undercut and again the double knife mower proved very good for this purpose. Its gentle action displaced a minimum of seed.

Other crops grown on the college cropping farm this year included Matua prairie grass sown in late

September, 1979, on a very wet paddock. The first seeding came up in December but was topped and dumped because of heavy weed infestation. A second seeding was windrowed on February 16 and lay in the paddock for 15 days until the - weather cleared enough to harvest it. From 4.9 hectares 4180 kg were threshed but the sample is very dirty. Despite a late sowing and difficult harvest at least 400kg/hectare of machine

dressed seed should result. Next year it is hoped to get two and possibly three harvests from the paddock.

Two- paddocks of process peas yielded 7.4 tonne/hectare and 4.8 tonne/hectare respectively. These yields were well above normal. Not all crops this year were as successful. Gales in early December flattened particularly promising crops of tick beans and kale seed. The finalyields of these crops were a disappointing 2.4 tonne/hectare of saleable tick beans and 535kg/hectare of machine dressed kale.

A paddock of Tama ryegrass seed yielded 876kg/hectare machine dressed. The new 1460 International Axial Flow header purchased this year by the college, after some problems in getting the correct settings, has performed very well. John McCartin says it is an excellent machine to operate and produces a good sample of both grain and small seeds with a very gentle action.

Costs on a cropping farm are always a worry, but given good yields and the incentive of a substantial rise in price for wheat next season the outlook for the cropping farmer is not all gloom.