Farm Notes.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXIII, Issue 3250, 13 February 1933, Page 6

Farm Notes.

(From Journal of Agricuture.) Preparation for Autumn Sowing of Pasture. An important summer task on many farms is the preparation of ground! for the autumn sowing of pastures. At times those carrying out sueh work seem to appreciate very imperfectly the value of the thorough preparatory cultivation needed to ensure a fine firm seed-bed. Some evidence of tho value of firmness in the seed-beds Unpasture seed mixtures is provided in tho tact that the best pastures often occur round the headlands or along tracks where there has been the greatest amount of consolidation by the passage of stock and of machinery. Consideration of the relatively small size of the seeds of certain important species of pasture plants should servo readily to make it clear that in lumpy ground a proportion of sueh seeds is likely to be buried so deeply as to lie unable to reach the surface with ITitfir shoots, should they germinate. In districts where the ravages of thq grass-grub have been prominent during- recent seasons it is advisable to avoid the sowing down of any pasture in land whieli \in the immediate past has been occupied *hy a cereal or In- grass. On the othler “hand, the more land was bare of a covering of plants in the period from November to January, during which the eggs that develop into the grass grub are deposited in largel numbers, the more likely is tiie land to be free troni the grub in tiie following twelve months. Autumn Top-dressing. Some of the grassland on many farms may well be dressed with phosphates in February or a little later. When the amount of moisture in the soil is sufficient to admit of active growth provided the supply of plantfood material is ample, then the application of phosphates at tho stage mentioned is likely to increase tho production of fresh growth from shortly after the phosphates are distributed until well into the winter, and thereby strengthen the feed position not only for the later poi‘ti/in of the curernt season, but also for the coming winter and spring. In addition, the stimulating influence of phosphates, including superphosphate, so applied will continue during the following spring and summer, but will not then be so intense as if the phos•phates were applied in winter or early spring. In brief, application of phosphates in the autumn ordinarily tends to a more even rate of growth of grass throughout the year, and this assists in minimizing the critical seasons which are characterized bv scant supplies of feed and which are the prime cause of much of the ineflic-ieiit feeding c-T stock that occurs.