800 Northland Dairy Herds Now Under Test

Northern Advocate, 30 November 1939, Page 3

800 Northland Dairy Herds Now Under Test

With approximately 800 testing members, the Northland Herd Improvement Association, with headquarters >in the A.M.P. building, Whangarei, has come through a difficult period of establishment successfully. Following a severe winter, the outbreak of war coincided with the birth of the new movement.

But, despite these handicaps, the membership has been maintained at the level reached by the individual county associations, now merged under the one control. In some districts there have been increases, notably in the Bay of Islands. Bureau of Information, “This has become the channel through which information p'asses to the fountain head,” said the manager of the association (Mr G. E. Durney) today. < He was referring" to the wider scope made possible under the association, which, in addition to testing, is

endeavouring to accumulate facts and figures regarding almost every phase oi farming enterprise.

Part of the herd improvement plan is to assist the Dairy Division in a Dominion-wide investigation into the incidence of disease, extending the work begun last year in relation to mastitis (mammatis).

Special attention was being given to the genetic side of the picture, Mi Durney said, and an effort was being made to survey as many sires as .possible and locate foundation females from which to breed.

Stock Identification. A prerequisite of this investigation was a thorough and up-to-date system of stock identification. Unless blood relationships could be traced authentically, the value of this movement, which was of great value to the farmer, would be lost. Northland farmers were shortly to be circularised asking them to identify and register their stock, Mr Durney intimated.

They would act wisely by asking the sampling or testing officer visiting their farms to identify all calves —a service for which no charge was made. The association was co-operating closely with the Dairy Board in this genetic research, which it hoped to extend very materially in the near future.