Farmers want in-depth look at subjects

Press, 24 April 1980, Page 13

Farmers want in-depth look at subjects

The big turn-out for the first day. of the fencing seminar and exhibition at Lincoln College this week seemed to bear out a comment of the college principal, Professor J. D. Stewart, at the opening of the seminar that fanners wanted to look at specific subjects in depth these days.

• Many of those attending the first seminar session in Gillespie Hall on Tuesday had to stand because all of the seating was taken up. The comment was heard that the attendance of 300 or 400 was as big as would often be seen at the farmers’ conference at the college. . Professor Stewart said it had been found out in recent years that what farmers wanted in the way of advice or extension tended towards specialist field days or seminars at which particular topics were handled in depth. This was something that he believed others involved in advisory work were also finding. Farmers wanted to feelthat when they gave up work on the farm for a day to attend such a session they would find something that was useful. This sort of thinking was behind the two-day session this week, he said. The two days took the form.of papers lasting not much more than an hour in the morning and also in the afternoon, with plenty of time before and afterwards and also in between to look at about 50 exhibits mostly closely related to fencing, and sometimes including working demonstrations, arranged around a paddock.

had anything to do with fencing, it was there. There were droppers, stakes, wooden and concrete posts, coils of wire, wooden, metal and netting gates,- post drivers and post pullers, wire strainers, . electric fencing S. including the grass > some powered by solar panels with special storage cells, an air-oper-ated stapler that had a report like a pistol as it banged home staples, log peeling and pointing, gates that could be opened without _ dismounting from a vehicle or farm bike, recommended knots for joining high tensile galvanised wire, post hole diggers and wire reels, windbreak cloth, chain saws, deer fencing materials and a deer pen and timber treatment methods. In the centre of the arena sheep grazed in a paddock surrounded on four sides by different types of fences — a soil conse r v ation fence, a North Island _ boundary fence, a four-wire electric fence and a post and netting fence — which spectators were told ranged in cost from • $460 to: $2OlB per km. The cost of fencing, it was said, was a critical factor, but account, too, had to be taken of stock handling ability, durability and appearance.

Underlining the import--ance of the topic, Mr G. Garden, a senior research officer of the Agricultural Engineering Institute, told one of the seminar sessions that about $6O Mwas spent annually on new and replacement fencing. Electric fencing featured prominently in the exhibition and Mr W. Fletcher, of Gallagher Electronics, Ltd, commented at the opening of the seminar that electric fencing was a fact of life now for sheep and cattle men. It was proven and applied around the world.

Talking about fencing costs, Mr Fletcher said that for electric fencing they talked about $14.50 per chain for all labour and materials, although in very bad country it could reach $25, but anyone would be unlucky if it reached that level.

A competition for fencing inventions and methods sponsored by the “New Zealand Fanner*' magazine attracted 17 entries, which Mr Boyd Wilson, the magazine editor, who judged with Mr J. S. Dunn, of the Agricultural Engineering Institute, described as being of a very high standard. Among them was even one from Australia. Two. entrants whose inventions reached the standard set by the judges shared $2OO in prize money and will receive certificates for their inventions. Messrs V. S. and MP.P. Shadbolt, of French Farm, took one of the awards for their anchor plate for tie downs, and tie backs, and Mr Jack Hardie, from Dobson, was the other award winner for his economical timber treatment method, which has already been described in these columns, and which he claims enables the transition to be. made from growing ' tree to treated post in an hour with little or no capital cost being involved.

The $5O special prize for a method that was “the best using existing methods” went to Mr M. Webster, of Northland, for a line marking system for locating posts on broken country.

Perfect weather contributed to the success of the first day jointly organised by the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural Science, the New Zealand Agricultural Engineering Institute, the fencing industry, the Ministry of Agriculture and the college.