DETAILED SOIL SURVEY OF FLATS TO BE UNDERTAKEN

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22663, 14 June 1948, Page 2

DETAILED SOIL SURVEY OF FLATS TO BE UNDERTAKEN

PRELIMINARIES UNDER WAY

Within about six weeks, as soon as air photo maps are available, a start will be made with a detailed soil survey of the Gisborne flats, according to a statement made today by Mr. I. J. Pohlen, senior pedologist. Soil Survey Division, Soil Bureau, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, who is visiting Gisborne engaged on preliminary work.

Mr. Pohlen is officer in charge of soil surveys on the East Coast and is stationed at Hastings. In his preparatory work he has been mainly concerned with the identification of the main soil types in order that the men in the field, when they start mapping, will know more or less what to expect.

1940 Soil Survey The whole of the Gisborne district, including the flats, was covered by a reconnaissance soil survey in 1940 and maps of the general soil survey, Mr. Pohlen said, were at present being printed on a scale of four miles to the inch.

“This survey is sufficient for the purposes of the hill country until the staff is available to carry out a more detailed survey of the hill soils similar to the surveys of Hawke’s Bay,” he said.

“However, for the flats the reconnaissance survey is quite inadequate and it is proposed to make a very detailed survey on a scale of 20 chains to the inch with the aid of air ’photo maps. “This survey will be printed on a scale of 40 chains to the inch. Every paddock will be investigated and we expect that it will take about two and a-half years before the final maps and bulletin are printed. “If it is practicable a survey of the Tolaga Bay flats will be included in the present survey, but we cannot be certain until the Gisborne survey is well under way,” Mr. Pohlen continued. He explained that the Soil Bureau had been anxious to make a survey of the Gisborne flats for the past 10 years and at the May conference of the soil research officers the Gisborne survey was listed as having highest priority on the East Coast. Staff Employed on Work

The staff engaged on the survey, he said, would include two pedologists working in the field and at the same time a soil chemist in the Wellington soil laboratory would be allotted to the work for the purpose of carrying out all the analyses that were necessary, of which there would be several hundreds. In all, a substantial staff would be engaged in the work in Wellington. "Frm our experience of soils similar to those on the Gisborne flats, we expect them to be well supplied with lime, except in the case of some of the wetter soils on higher levels,” said Mr. Pohlen. “With the exception of these soils on higher levels the soils are likely to be relatively high in phosphate and potash, but this does not mean that the application of superphosphate is not necessary. "The soils vary a great deal on the flats and it is already apparent that there are fertility problems associated with some of the types that have been examined so far. Arrangements have been made with Mr. H. deO. Chamberlain, Fields Diivsion instructor. Department of Agriculture, Gisborne, for that department to co-operate in the work by analysing agricultural data in relation to the soil types which will be published in the final bulletin,” die concluded.