SHEEP FARMERS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 158, 5 June 1937, Page 7

SHEEP FARMERS

INSTRUCTIVE LECTURES. EWES AND ROUGH FEED. Tile annual gathering of sheep farmers was continued at Massey College yesterday, the course of lectures being proceeded with. The meeting concluded in the afternoon after sessions which had lasted from Wednesday. .Mr E. A. Clarke, of Massey Agricultural College, opened the day’s programme with a lecture on “Rough Winter Feed in Relation to the nourishment of Ewes in Lamb.” He treated his subject with a series of slides which showed tiie results of various experiments and investigations into the ana-lyses--'of pastures. The extra requirements of the owe were very slight, lie said, and the process of reproduction was not a great strain until the last month. The lecturer showed that when pastures became “stemmy” the animal did not secure all she required, and that meant that in the winter she lost weight. The result was that at lambing the ewe had very little bodily reserve to call on. “Stemmy” pastures and very inferior types were thus not the kinds of feed which gave the ewe the greatest benefit. There were two types of roughage, that which had a preponderance of leaf material, this being a proper feed, and that which did not fulfil its requirements because it was too “stemmy” with overgrown material.

Professor G. S. Peren said the lecture showed that putting owes on to too much “rough” pasture meant that they wore under-nourished. To bring that about was asking for trouble at laiiibing time. Premature births were likely to follow, and the next, trouble was* a large number of weakly lambs which would die in bad weather; also, the ewes would not “do” the lambs well. On poor country, where the owner had not (through financial reasons)' been able to use as many cattle in eliminating too much roughage, lambing percentages were low, the ewes likely to ho weak, and tiie lambs weak also. That could all ho traced to under-nutrition of the ewes on account of the feed value of the pasture not being sufficient. Replying to a question, the lecturer said that ewes in lamb at the college were fed on chop moeliier and bo thought that a run-olf of grass was a distinct advantage. Mr J. E. Hewitt detailed an experience on the subject, saying that it had been found that both tiie laintis and the wool from a flock fed on chon moeliier just before lambing, had not been as good as from another flock led on pastures. Professor Peren touched briefly on that subject and pointed out that stems which were of any age could not be fed off with advantage. He thought the best way of using the crop for sheep was to eat it right off oil 1 the first time round.” The steins wore then soft and nutritious. In reply to another question, Mr Clarke said that a cow in calf would suffer if fed on “stemming” material, but a store beast did not become affected to the same extent, although there was not quite sufficient nutritive content to supply the store-beast’s full requirements. HILL COUNTRY SOILS.

The causes of deterioration in hill country soils were dealt with by Mr A. W. V Hudson, of Massey College. Most of our soils, lie said, wore naturally deficient in phosphate. Ihe felling of bush and its burning _ off had usually put back into the soil a fair amount of mineral material so that the ash covering constituted a fairly concentrated mineral dressing. Nitrogenous material, however, was considerably lessened in the burning process. That was really the first step in the deterioration of much of our hill country, unavoidable though it was. With organic nitrogen being takeu off, a storehouse fof the growth of pastures was eliminated and the texture of the soil was altered to make it more readily eroded. ft was admitted that that was economically unavoidable, but the loss was there nevertheless. The speaker emphasised the importance of restoring that organic matter in arresting the decline and in building up fertility. Among the benefits given by a burn was the partial sterilisation of the soil. The accumulated fertility in the form of asli gave only a temporary fertility. As that reduction in fertility went on, cocksfoot, white clover, and ryegrass were replaced by brown top. sweet vernal and other typos which were not of the species demanding high fertility. No matter how well fanning was carried on, or the stock managed, it was inevitable that there would be a gradual decline in fertility. It did not mean that there was reached a position of no fertility, but there was a stage oi low production. The speaker advocated the use of leguminous plants which accumulated nitrogen. Clovers, as legumes, wore all the time taking nitrogen from the atmosphere and passing it on to the other constituents of the pasture. Subterranean clover was particularly promising on lull country, and with phosphatic lertihsers was more likely to bring back fertility than with top-dressing only. "When the pastures had gone back to dantlionia and brown top, it appeared to be hopeless to use top-dressing alone—there should be introduced some fairly vigorous leguminous crop. OTHER LECTURES. Intensive rotational grazing carried on at the college was the subject dealt with on Thursday afternoon. Professor G. S. Peren gave a lantern lecture on the subject and the gathering then repaired to the farm, where an inspection was carried out, the ; party being accompanied by Messrs , Hudson and A. C. Morton. On Thursday evening Mr C. H. Williams, of Gisborne, spoke on tim- , bers for station plantings and their j uses. Of any type, the speaker . showed a preference for cucalypts, and < he stressed the value of trees. Tney . were an increasing asset and it was only a short time after they were j planted that they became a real as- , Tn the evening also an officer of the State Forest Service. Mr J. S. Reid, gave a lecture on timber preservatives, dealing principally wit.i the value ot creosote.