PASTURES ON SAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 116, 17 April 1939, Page 5

PASTURES ON SAND.

AUSTRALIAN EXPERIMENTS. A reecntlv-issued bulletin of tbe Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (Australia) discusses the establishment of pastures on deep sands in the upper South-East of South Australia. The bulletin gives the results of investigations that were carried out over a period of five years, and concludes that tho objective can be best obtained by the inclusion of fodder species such as lucerne, subterranean clover and “Wimmera” ryegrass with the first, second or third cereal crop, depending on the local conditions of .soil fertility and the effectiveness of the initial clearing. It appears to bo unquestionable that, whether in Australia or New Zealand, deep-rooting grass and legume species— especially the latter — are the only ones likely to prove permanent and profitable on sandy, pumaceous and similiar porous soils in which the level of soil moisture is deep and the plant food scarce in the surface areas.

Legumes are particularly valuable on account of the humus and nitrogen which they introduce to the soil, enriching it so that nutritions shallowrooting plants can. later establish and thrive.