PIG PRODUCTION

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 9, 5 October 1940, Page 17

PIG PRODUCTION

Sugar Beet An Ideal Crop

SHANNON EXPERIMENT

Town-dwellers, for the most part, unless thev are very keen gardeners, need think only of the morrow; the farmer, on the other hand, must think and plan at least sjx months ahead, says an article by the Wellington District Pig Council. The cycle of seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, moves inexorably on, each season with its particular problems and tasks. Especially is this so for the live stock farmer, who must prepare well in advance for the winter months when the bounty of grass-laud is at its lowest.. Most farmers have achieved a routine in fodder conservation, fitted to local conditions, and the numbers of stock carried over the year. But this year is not a normal year—it is a war year when Britain needs tons of thousands ot extra, tons of our animal products.

Particularly in the field of pig production will an extra effort have to be mad®

to provide for the several hundred thousand pigs that will be carried through next winter to make bacon in 12 months' time. The late summer litter is no problem if you provide for them now, but it wifi be useless next May to bewai,! a pack of half-grown, unfinished porkers if you have no feed for them, and they have to be sold for only half their true value in an unsympathetic market. Xow is the time to make provision for your yet unborn pigs.

-■ Choice of Crop. The questions resolve themselves. \\ hat shall 1 grow aud how much shall I grow? .You have a choice —pumpkins, swedes, mangolds, carrots, sugar beet, and even potatoes, are .first-class for wintering pigs if they are running in good pastures, sleeping in dry, draught proof quarters, and getting some meatmcal, at least ill), per any. Of the choice, sugar beet is perhaps the most promising. This is the experience of a prominent Shannon farmer who grew a 40-tou crop of sugar beet last year, lie fed it along witn lib. of kibbled barley and )ii> of meatmeal per pig per day, to a line ot 701 b. store pigs which were worth at the beginning of the winter no more than 15/- apitce. Over a period of two montlm they ate less than 10/- worth of concentrates and half a ton of Sugar beet each and grew at the rate of a pound a day into 1301 b. pigs worth at least -15/- each. The gross return per acre for the sugar beet could not have been less than £BO aud the net return at least £6O, after making allowance for labour in growing and feeding out the crop. This is indeed a handsome return for any farm crop. These Shannon pigs were interesting in another way. They were something more than the hungry appetues for separated milk that many farmers seem content to carry through to the spring. They were big, well-grown pigs carrying plenty of bloom and they needed only five to six weeks on separated milk to turn them into prime baeon. The average 701 b. store wintered on mangolds and half a pound of meat meal will reach only 901 b. by the time milk supplies are available and need the best part of 10-12 weeks on milk before they reach 'bacon weight. The consequence is that they will drink an extra 160 gallons of milk as compared with the Shannon pigs. Though heavy winter stores may cost a little more to produce than light stores, they pay more than proportionate dividends because you can fatten at least three 1301 b. stores on the milk that is required to take two 901 b. stores to bacon weight.

Weight Not Ail. Sugar beet has < tily half the cropping power of mangolds but, weight for weight, it has double the dry matter .-oiiteut and so the yield of food per acre is about the same for the two crops, grown under identical conditions. Sugar beet, however, has a very .substantial advantage in that a young pig has a very busy day eating enough mangolds to keep body and soul together. Furthermore, it dissipates a greater proportion of the food value of mangolds in mastication and digestion while it uses up further heat in warming up a large bulk of cold food to its own tody temperature. The consequence is that sugar beet has a greater food value per acre, as compared with mangolds, than one would expect from chemical analysis. The question arises, how much sugar beet will need to be grown?. On good soil where an 80-ton mangold crop can be grown, a 40-ton crop of sugar beet can be expected, but a more likely crop wid be in the vicinity of 30 tons per acre. A mature pig will require a ton of beet, and each store pig about two-thirds of a ton. A man with one boar, five sows, and twenty-five stores, will need in all about 22 tons of roots, say about three-quarters of an acre. Do not be afraid, however, of growing beyond the needs of wintering, because surplus roots are very useful in conjunction with milk for topping off pigs in the spring, while your dairy cows will relish any sugar beet, you have beyond this. Grow No Mangels.

The crop requires similar cultivation to that given mangolds. It is best sown on land out of pasture which has had deep and fine cultivation. On account of its deep-rooting nature, sowing on the ridge is advantageous. A seeding of 51b. per acre is sufficient, while manuring should follow that given mangolds—on most sods 5 to 6 cwt. of super per acre is recommended. It is an easy crop to grow, but on some Manawatu soils it is subject to the borax deficiency disease, mottle-heart, and for this reason a dressing of 201 b. borax to the acre is advisable. MidOctober is recommended as the best time of seeding in the Mannwatu district. Though the main theme of this article has been the advocacy of sugar beet for winter feeding, other root crops are not to be despised. It is quite probable that there will be insufficient sugar beet seed available this year, and so for many, a choice will have to be made from other root crops. The special virtues of alternative crops will be dealt with in a subsequent article. The concluding thought, whatever your intentions may be, is that roots must be grown for next autumn and winter if you are going to achieve your objective of a baconer for every cow. Spring-time is seeding time, the harvest comes later.