Pakihi needs priority

Press, 2 August 1985, Page 21

Pakihi needs priority

Pakihi soils should receive top priority in any move to reduce fertiliser applications, Mr Jeff Morton, a scientist with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Greymouth, told the West Coast Farmers Conference. Withholding fertiliser from pakihi soils would

result in a much larger reduction in yield than on other soils, said Mr Morton. Because recent farm budgets had indicated that there would be sufficient finance to apply fertiliser to only part of farms in the coming season, Mr Morton advised farmers to prepare a priority list for fertiliser. This would ensure the fertiliser was used on the soil types or parts of a farm that would give the best return. Assuming that maintenance fertiliser had been applied in recent years, terrace and recent type soils would show only a small reduction in annual pasture field if no fertiliser was applied for three years. From the fourth year onwards, the loss in yield on recent soils got greater and was expected to be similar on terrace soils. Withholding fertiliser on pakihi soils was a lot more serious with yields declining by 23 per cent in the first year rising to 74 per cent in year three.

After pakihi soils, Ahaura types were next on the priority list for fertiliser, followed by hay and silage paddocks, paddocks with low soil phosphorous levels, and then recent and Ikamatua soils. On some farms where more than adequate amounts of fertiliser had been used in the past, maintenance rates could be reduced, said Mr Morton. These maintenance rates should be based largely on the feed demand from thd number of stock carried and in many cases there was scope for using less fertiliser than in the past without effecting stock performance. He recommended the best way for farmers to make a rational decision on fertiliser was to use the M.A.F. fertiliser recommendation scheme. This used on-farm information such as stocking rate, pasture utilisation and stock type, together with soil testing, to give a maintenance fertiliser recommendation for specific paddocks.