FIELD NOTES FOR MAY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 3 May 1928, Page 7

FIELD NOTES FOR MAY.

(By J. \V. Deem, Instructor in Agriculture, Wanganui.) The rain that has fallen during the last day or two Inis done a wonderful lot of good bath to pastures and the softening of the land to allow ploughing- and other cultural operations to proceed. May is a splendid month for sowing oats for early spring feed and far cutting later for hay or chaff. Algerians should be sown. Quantities aii,i suitable manures were dealt with last, month. STUBBLE LAND The ploughing of all stubble land should be pushed ahead. The stronger types of land are greatly benefited bv' a* winter fallow and where this is intended the furrow should be laid up rough, so as to depose as great a surface as possible to the weather. The lighter lands, that arc inclined to leach with the heavy winter rains, should be sown in pasture or if required for crop-, ping again next year in a quick growing cereal, like Black Skinless, Russian or Cape barley, or mixtures of ryecorn, oats and barley to hold the lrm.l together and incidentally provide spring feeding. PREPARATION FOR ROOT CROPS Where it is intended to use lea or virgin land for the mangel or carrot crops next spring, it is good practice to plough it lightly now and let it lie all the winter in fallow, to be followed with a good deep ploughing in the spring. There is not much danger of this land leaching to any extent, as the sod will hold it to-gether. TOP-DRESSING. This subject was fully discussed in notes for March and April. May is a splendid month for this work, particularly for the application of slag, basic super and mixtures of super-nauru and super bone. Super may also be put on, but if not applied before the middle of May, so as to help a little with late autumn growth there is no hurry, unt-i, July and early August. PASTURES. On many pastures, particularly dairy farms, there has been considerable accumulation of droppings during the past three or four months, and now that sufficient rain has fallen to soften these, the fields should have a harrowing with the tripod and chain harrows to'seatter the manure.' This harrowing should not be too severe, .just enough t-.i scatter the manure about. Later in the winter these harrowings should be as severe as possible. FEEDING ROOT CROPS. In most districts the root crops are going to be limited this year and every care should be taken to see that there is as little waste as possible. Where there is any danger of a shortage, farmers would be well advised to pull and cart out instead of turning- the stack on the fields, to waste a great deal by over gorging and tramping the roots into the mud. Swedes crops should be carefully watched for dryrot and, if there is signs of this spreading rapidlv, it is -best to get the roots

into the stock rather than let-them rot. in the field in the endeavour to hold them for late winter feeding. Generally, while roots are being fed.pasture is resting. 'GENERAL. This is a good month to give attention to gateway crossings and drains so that the water will get away as quickly as possible, when the real wet weather sets in. Special attention | should be given to drains, particularly I mole drains to see that the outlets are I free. If this is done water will get j away as fast as it filters in and save ' the water-logging one so often sees on i the stiffer lands. It should be recog- ' nised that there is little sense m having drains if the outlets are blocked.