TO KILL TWITCH.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 112, 14 May 1914, Page 6

TO KILL TWITCH.

One of the worst pests the Canterbury, agriculturist has to fight is. twitch. In many parts of the province (says a writer in a Christchurch paper) the cost of cultivation is doubled and trebled on account of the working rendered necessary by this weed.

There are quite a number of grasses with the, Switch habit of growth, and in the early days they were' sown with the idea of incorporating them with the permanent pastures. Couch grass or '"triticum repens," to give it the botanical name, is a curse altogether buti is not so often met with. It is ten times worse than ordinary twitch, and is next to impossible /to eradicate. A few of the fescues, a "post" or two, aiwl the "agrostis," usually known as fiorin or creeping bent, have a ( firm hold of much of our better class agricultural land. There is but one way of successfully dealing with the pest —that is, by working the land. On pastoral lands these grasses havo grown / and nourished, but as they give a bite of fairly good nutritive value they are not altogether out of place, more especially upon some bf our poorer lands. No doubt many farmers have tried to rid their land of it by turning a deep furrow, with the idea of getting the twitch buried many inches deep. Such methods are invariably unsuccessful. The result is to give the twitch a much stronger hold upon ,the land and to render it very much harder, to eradicate. Upon a deeply turned furrow the subsequent working with discs and tine harrows, and sometimes even fthe grubber, simply scratch the top, , leaving the twitch roots beneath en-; tirely undisturbed. . -Probably a good ' seed bed was formed, but the roots of whatever crop was sown could not penetrate through the solid mass of twitch, roots underlaying the seed bed. On the: other hand, th© old twitch roots were given every opportunity to make new growth. The few inches of well-worked soil gave the twitch a start th^t often enabled it to attain the mastery, and often effectually ' choke out the' sown crop whether it was roots or cereal.

The, better plan, (then, is to keep the roots as near the surface as practicable.. The twitch roots as a rule do not run deep. The nature of the plant is mat closely upon the surface. A light skim ploughing should be the first move in tthe cultivation of a twitch-ridden paddock. One good" plan is to,/ s,kim the land in winter so that it may be.worked in the spring for rape to be followed by autumn wheat. Or it may be skimmed in summer, and then worked up for. autumn wheat. . Many favor jthe latter course, and it has much to recommend it, as a few summer nor'-west-ers are of .great assistance to the eradication of the weed. If the roots are turned up to the sun (the effect is splendid. When left some time the paddock (might be given a few strokes of the itripod harrows. , The disc plough might well be called into use here, and a cross ploughing with this implement will leave the furrows well exposed to wind' and sun. In most agricultural work the weather has to'be followed to a great extent. It is quite useless to attempt to work a twitchy pad- i dock unless the weajther conditions \ are favorable. There is nothing so effectual in weed-killing as sunshine and dry winds. This should always kbe borne in mind. Where a disc plough is not available, a good substitute is to cross plough with an ordinary plough, setting the skeith well down on the share so that the iurrows will be cut (through. It is desirable to leave the land in |as rough a state as possible, and this the disc plough does. Should it ba too rough for subsequent working a couple of strokes of the tripod harrows will level it down so that the (team can get over it. A stroke of the tripod every few days, and now and then the grubber or cultivator run over, will have an excellent effect, provided the weather is of a good weed-killing order. If the roots havo been exposed long enough and the land has been culti-vated-after this fashion the -twitch roots would be fairly well killed, and should leave the land in a good condition for seeding. A■* stroke 91- two of the discs, or another ploughing, if necessary, would repay in the improved crop such cultivation as ensures.