INTENSIVE FARMING

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6849, 2 March 1929, Page 12

INTENSIVE FARMING

New Zealand Experiments

Intensive farming has often been advanced as a solution to New Zealand’s problems. Important experiments in field crop work, under Mr A. W.' Hudson, have produced remarkable results with grass land and point the way to a quicker climb to peak production in the milking season

Though necessarily incomplete, the conclusions which Mr Hudson has just placed before the Department of Scientific and Industrial Eesearch are very interesting. Areas of from 4to 10 acres on each of 90 dairy farms, five of which are in the South Island, are now under a system of intensive management. This involves strict rotational grazing so far as this can bo carried out • without impairing production of milk and butter-fat. On each farm one area is treated with phosphates, and another area, as nearly similar as possible, is under the same phosphate treatment, plus three or four applications of lewt. of soluble nitrogen per acre each year. Eecords of stocking with dairy cows and dry stock are being kept to determine the carrying capacity of the differently treated aieas. Up till now, records are to hand concerning two applications only, and while no complete analysis of data is being attempted until after the milking season, present indications are that early application of nitrogen (about July) does considerably hasten and increase the production of grass.. This increase in the early spring is important, as it enables the peak of production to bo reached earlier in the milking season. Aplications of nitrogen made as late as September, although stimulating growth to a noticeable extent, do not appear to have increased the carrying capacity appreciably. Increased growth in October and November is not so important as earlier and later in the season.

It is considered too early to draw conclusions regarding the economic use of nitrogen on grass land in Now tZcalami. Ecsuits do not appear to be as marked in the British Isles. Generally speaking, also, nitrogen stimulation of poor pasturo is not considered to be economically worth while The most significant feature of the woTk has' been the generally high but-ter-fat production on the areas intensively grazed, quite apart from whether they wero nitrogen ones or not. This would . have been even more striking .if the . experimental areas could have been managed in a really satisfactory manner, so that all grass production could have been converted into butter-fat.

In addition to these trials, a farm of 50 acres in the Waikato is under a system of intensive management. It has been shown that management is fully as important a factor as manure application, and that the full benefit of phosphates cannot be obtained until management problems have been mastered.

Sheep pasture is being experimented with at Marton experimental farni, an area of 10 acres having been divided into eight blocks, four of which are under phosphate and four under phosphate and hydrogen. Temporary sheep are on the ground at present, but in the autumn a start will be made with a lino of sheep, which will be kept for a period of three or four years. Measurement of carrying capacity, and wool and lamb produced, will be made. During the spring months this area carried 14° dry sheep to the acre on the areas treated with nitrogen, and 11 to the acre on the sections treated with phosphate alone.