The Cultivation of Rape

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 198, 4 August 1928, Page 12

The Cultivation of Rape

Part 11. The Inter-cultivation Method

Guarantees Profitable Crops

7 By

“SUNDOWNER”

(Written for the “Tribune”- All Rights Reserved.) Inter-cultivation, or "dry-farming” as it is more generally called, is not by any means a new and untried system. In most of the older countries, and especially on continents where the rainfall in the interior is scant, dryfarming has been adopted with the most remarkable results. The old method was to allow the arable land to lie fallow every second or third year and the reserves of moisture thus stored had to last the crop throughout its growth. Now, with more thorough and continuous cultivation through the growing crop, it has been found that, not only can the land in these dry areas be cropped every year, but one hundred per cent, heavier crops are secured.

METHODS OF PLANTING. The method employed is to plant the crop in close together double straight rows, and between these double rows a space of from eighteen to twenty inches of unplanted soil is left. The soil is thoroughly pulverised at sowing, and after each shower of rain, or whenever the surface shows signs of becoming crusted or compasted, an implement which cultivates three or four rows at a time is run through the crop to stir the soil. THE PURPOSE OF INTERCVLTIVATION. These implements, which are so constructed as to be able to work the land without damage to the crop even when it has grown to a very con siderable height, serve tho triple purpose of aerating tho soil, breaking up the capillary action and thereby conserving the moisture which would enter with every passing shower, and lastly of desroying weed growth, which tends very considerably to drain the soil both of its nutriment and moisture content RAPE WOULD RESPOND 'O INF TERCULTIVATION. Of all plants, rane probably demands more moisture from the soil to supply its rapid growth than any other. In most parts of New Zealand the rainfall is sufficient to provide for the full development of the first crop provided the preparatory cultivation has been thorough, but when it has reached maturity, and has been fed off with a large number of lambs the surface soil is so compacted tfiat rapid evaporation takes place, and nothing remains for the plant unless a fortunate shower of rain chances along.

INTERCULTIVATION ENSURES SECOND CROP.

If regular intercultivation to keep down weed growth and break up surface crust, is applied throughout the growing period of this first crop, not only is the first feeding greater in bulk than where it is close-drilled and uncultivated, but, because the sunlight gets to every leaf and stalk of the growing plants, the rape ha« far greater fattening qualities. Grown in strong robust plants, fully exposed to the light, the rape is also less übjcct to the attacks of blight and other disease, and having abundant moisture at its roots, can withstand any dry spell which comes along. AVOIDS TRAMPLING AND SOILING FEED. When the feeding-off of a closesown rape paddock is commenced, a very considerable portion of the crop is trampled, soiled end spoilt, the ground becomes hard packed, and subsequent growth depends entirely on propititious weather conditions.

Where the crop is sown to allow of intercultivation, immediately the crop is fed off the cultivators can be applied, and whatever weather ensues the farmer is assured of a second’

and with the same method continued a third crop. With wide-sown rows of rape, the sheep have room to walk and camp without trampling the plants even although each individual plaflt is two or three times the size of those seen in the ordinarily good crop of rape as grown to-day, and every leaf of every plant contains double the nutritive value. INTERCULTIVATION PAYS WITH OTHER CROPS. With mangolds, potatoes and many other crops, we recognise that no success ean be expected without interenltivation, and we are prepared to do this without complaint. With rape, the increase in crop, and espeei- * ally in the second and third feedings isinfmately more marked even than with mangolds, but in spite of this we stick to the old method of closesowing and no further cultivation.

ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MOISTURE It must be remembered that plants drink itheir soil food. With out the mosture in the soil to dissolve the mineral plant food, they will die of starvation in the 'richest land. Eighty per cent, and sometimes more of the gieen, growing plant is moisture drawn from the soil and while some of this is thrown off into the at mosphere by the plant, the balance, is enriched by elements drawn from the air and sunlight, ana Becomes highly nourishing juice.' This water, tlieii. which we can so easily imprison in the soil by continuous cultivation is the most valuable fattening fodder we hnve on the farm, but because of the labour of occasionally running the cultivation between the row-s, wc allow it to evaporate and become lost to us.

INTERCULTIVATION MUST COME There is not much margin between profit and loss in fattening lambs on rape these days—there is just the question of whether we will get rain at the right time to bring the later summer growths away,—and although this suggested method of making sure that the crop will be profitable may fail to appeal to the already hardworked farmer, it is based on com-mon-sense and world-wide experience and must, sooner or later, become the accepted method of cultivation. EXPERIMENT THIS YEAR. Wc need to try every avenue of increasing our fat’ lamb output, and alongthese lines of bettor rape' crops lies one of our brightest prospects of increasing output and profits. This coming year, as a test, each farmer who is sowing rape could wdl afford to plant out or two acres in rows so that they could be cultivated with the ordinary email horse-cultiva-tor to be found on most farms. One test such as this if thoroughly carried out will convince any rale grower of the benefits of intcrcu'.lvntion.