PASTURE CULTIVATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 264, 6 October 1936, Page 5

PASTURE CULTIVATION.

ADVANTAGE OVER PLOUGHING

Following thorough grassland cultivation, pastures which are running out can bo rejuvenated almost more effectively than where they aro ploughed (says an exchange). This is so partly because a considerable proportion of the better survive the drastic tearing about which such a field should bo given, but chiefly because the consolidation of the soil is not seriously disturbed, and grass, to be permanent and flourishing, must have a well-consolidated soil. There is another very cogent reason why surface cultivation is superior to ploughing for the establishment of grass, and this is because the former encourages but does not bury, and so temporarily put out of action, the bacteria on which soil fertility depends. For this reason ploughed land should invariably be fallowed for some months prior to its being sown down in a comparatively shallow-rooted crop, such as grass. This permits of the re-establishment of bacteria on the surface. Deeper rootin gcrops such as turnips, swedes and potatoes are the only ones which will really thrive on newly-ploughed grass or fern-land, because their roots get down to the strata fertilised by the bacteria before it was turned under by the plough, also, of course, their roots penetrate sufficiently deeply to tap a constant supply of moisture from the soil below that which has been broken up in cultivation.