THE IDEAL SWARD

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 106, 1 November 1933, Page 17

THE IDEAL SWARD

In the "Taranaki Herald" Mr. W. Alexander writes concerning (1) bush burns and. deteriorating pasture; (2) paspalum; and (3) cultivated pastures. Under the latter two headings, , he states: — . Paspalum occupies a very prominent place in pastures in the Auckland province and its economic importance is no longer in doubt. Pasrjaluin is unquestionably a valuable pasture plant so long as it is kept under strict control. Its 'chief period of usefulness is, of course, during the dry -weather period following the New Year and extending into the late autumn. PASPALUM AND RYE. A paspalum and ryegrass combination is very hard to-beat as a, high producing pasture as the two species are not competitive. Kyegrass gives of its best during the winter, spring, and early summer, fading away as the dry ■weather period advances when paspalum comes forward' to take over the load. With the approach of winter frosts and cold weather, the paspalum in turn gives way to the ryegrass which, from then onwards, takes up the running. Now this desirable state of affairs can be maintained on'y so long as the paspalum is kept strictly under control. There must be no such thing as allowing paspalum to get away to seed and finally dying down on the, paddock; if that sort of 'thing is permitted the ryegrass is simply smothered out of existence and: very soon the pasture becomes almost entirely paspalum. Paspalum pastures wan!; plenty of harrowing, not merely a tickling of the surface to spread. manure, but a heavy, penetrating, root-prun-ing harrowing that will definitely prevent its forming a matted surface or that will break up such a surface once it has been formed. Paspalum should also be kept short grazed and if\ necessary the mower should be used at the first sign of its wanting to run away. Treated in this way paspalum will not be looked upon as a curse, as is sometimes the case where control measures have not been applied. A disappointing feature of paspalum pastures is the time; they take to come away in the spring; well, this plant is definitely not an early grass and no amount of manuring seems to bo ;

able to make it change its nature. The only thing to do here is to harrow very severely, during the winter months and then introduce some certified perennial ryegrass—up to one bushel per acre —as this is the only grass that will show an early spring growth in response to top-dressing fertilisers. Heavy harrowing in the winter time, heavy stocking in the summer, the use of. the mower where necessary, and liberal top;dressing are the important factors iii-retaining complete control over ( paspaluin swards. CULTIVATED PASTURES. By cultivated pastures, I mean all that area of, grassland sown but in the best of English grasses and clovers which provides the bulk of the pasturage for our dairy herds and for ewe flocks where fat lamb raising is the leading industry. The area '■ so represented runs into many millions of acres and extends from Kaitaia to Bluff. There are no rainfall boundaries of;importance to this typo of pasture, nor aro there any important limiting fae-^ tors in the way of soil conditions or altitude.. From coast to coast, from sea level to mountain ranges, and almost, if not actually, from the Equator to tho Poles, we find conditions that seem to suit grass. No other single crop is ao adaptable to local conditions of soil or climate, and no other single crop is so versatile in the matter of uses to which it is put as is grass. No wonder we value it aiid no wonder it now occupies such an important place in the fields, of science and research as.well as in the fields of everyday practical agriculture. , Grass as a name is applied loosely to a wide range 6f pasture plants; rye, timothy, cocksfoot, dogstail, fescues, fog poas, danthonia, brown-top,, a|iid numerous others, are all included in the general term "grass." It is an association of grass and clover species that goes to make up our pastures, and those pastures are just as good and no better than tho individual species contained therein. ■ One of the difficulties associated with pasture establishment is that compara^ tively few farmers are able to distinguish between the various species of plants in their pastures, with .-the result that they go (in treating a, poor one as though it was a good one, ,and sometimes abusing a good one as though it was of little value. No doubt every man on tho land has his ideal pasture in his mind's eye, but very few have them where they can make use of them1. Perennial ryegrass of a leafy, truly permanent type, in tho proportion of about ,70 to 75 per cent,, a sprinkling of timothy, and' poa trivialis, and the \ balance a selected type of persistent white clover is probably the nearest thing we know to an ideal permanent ■pasture. Many farmers have set themselves out to sow such a pasture, but through purchasing seed from poor

AND SOME OTHERS

THE PLACE FOR THE PLOUGH

strains they have not secured what they were after. The fault does not always lie with the farmer, as he has bought his seed on the understanding that he was getting the right stuff, but there are other occasions when buyers have definitely sacrificed quality to price, and have been paying for it ever since. Some-' times the land is at fault; it is either too raw, too sour, or too wet to sustain satisfactory pastures. Here it becomes first a question of draining and. liming as a preliminary to the sowing down of permanent grass. A good pasture, properly manured and carefully handled, will, in a district of moderate rainfall, yield up to, and possibly over, 18 tons of green matter per acre in 12 months. The treatment, necessary to maintain such a yield is an annual application of carbonate of lime at the rate of from 5 to Bcwt per acre; an annual application of super given in two dressings—March and November —of 2cwt per acre each time, and a dressing of potash where necessary. I" addition to this, the grazing must at all times be kept under strict control; the pastures should not be eaten right down to the ground, nor should they be permitted to get too far away before being stocked. For sheep the ideal stage at which to stock up is when the ryegrass is from three to four inches long, and for cattle when it is twice that length. Such grass has the feeding value of a concentrated food like oil cake, and so long as the essential mineral constituents aro kept up to standard, stock will thrive on this feed. Regular harrowing to spread droppings is an important feature of pasture management. . BELOW PAR. There ,is a substantial area of grassland that is just below 'par and which could be substantially improved at little cost. It may be that an original type of ryegrass has left the pasture low in 1 this particular constituent with a correspondingly greater percentage of low fertility grasses. It may bo that too', much cocksfoot has been sown in the mixture, or mixtures containing a number of poor species have been used. Of course, such things as cutting every season for hay, being allowed to get away from stock, starved for fertilisers or .grazed without harrowing may have

played a part in lowering th.c standard of a pasture. Whatever the cause, the fact remains that we have a few million acres of below-par pasture and we want to improve them; This job calls for drastic harrowing, to open up the surface and to pull out or destroy as miich as possible- of the poor stuff. This job of harrowing should not be done by the owner himself unless he is fully conversant with the results to be expected, far better to employ someone to do the job for you and when you think he has knocked your paddock about sufficiently, tell him to start all over again and then go away and1 leave him. When tho paddock has been harrowed almost to breaking point, give it a dressing of carbonate of lime and follow this a. week or .two later with 4ewt of super through which you have mixed half a of certified perennial' rye-grass per acre; a further stroke with the harrows to cover the seed and then shut the gate. Possibly tho autumn is the best time to carry out this work of renovation, but quite good results may be secured by doing it now. Then we have that sort of down-and-out collection of twitch, weeds, and bare spaces that is sometimes called a pasture and from which impossible things aro expected. There are some plants that do not respond even to good fertilisers simply because they are more at home in what might be termed the .rural alum areas. Agrpstis, rib grass, cats ear, copeweed, fescues, all seem to live on where better stuff would fail, but then that is usually a matter of soil conditions. Land that is cold, sour, and hungry cannot be expected to carry other than poor pasture plants; such i plants yield nothing to tho wealth of the farmer,, in fact in time they would turn ■ him cold, sour, and hungry also. There is only one thing to do with that sort of grassland, and that is to put the plough into it and in doing so you will put new life into it. It's_ no use wasting time and money to bring that sort of pasture back into somethiv|; worth while by top-dressing and harrowing; it wili bo' quicker to do it by ploughing. Turn it over during the '"winter and let it lie fallow so that the weather can get into it to sweeten it. Work it up during the summer, lime it, and take a crop of -early roots or green fodder out of it and then put it back into good pasture in the autumn. If you don't want the roots or fodder crop, leavo it to fallow right through until tho autumn, it will be all tho better for it, and then you can look forward to a good pasturo in the spring.; Don't stint tho manure cither when you sow tho paddock down or later, as hungry land cannot do its work satisfactorily. Remember the better pasture, the better will bo tho response to the fertilisers used on it. If you want ryegrass ..standard in your pastures, you must give them ryegrass treatment not allowing them to get cold, sour, or hungry.