GRIMM LUCERNE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVII, Issue LXXVII, 2 August 1918, Page 2

GRIMM LUCERNE.

Mr A. Macpherson, Government Fields Instructor, is preparing an article on Grimm lucerne, a specially selected strain •which had its origin in the State of Minnesota, U.S.A. The variety takes its name fronr a farmer who was responsible for its greater cultivation in America. Mr Macpherson has, for comparison purposes, had photographs taken of several specimens of lucerne grown in New Zealand and of the Grimm variety, which has been cultivated at an experimental plot where the ground is a sandy loam, with sandy clay sub-soil. One root grew so well as to show a nine, feet three inch spread of lucerne when the second crop was cut, and it weighed 161b. Some of the branches were 75 inches in length. Mr Macpherson has been endeavoring for several years to introduce this variety. Experiments conducted in America show that it is one of the hardiest known forms of lucerne. It has borne a temperature as low as 38 degrees Fahr. below zero, and has been cultivated below sea level and at an altitude of 13,000 feet. The j reason the Grimm variety has not been introduced into New Zealand is on account of the scarcity of the seed. In 1913 the Agricultural Department received two drams of the seed, and the cultivation of this was subjected to various severe tests, surviving them all in the most astonishing manner.