WINTER FORAGE CROPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18471, 7 August 1923, Page 10

WINTER FORAGE CROPS.

V MANGELS RECOMMENDED.

; CULTIVATION AND USE.

FIELD CARROTS AND SWEDES

Advice on the growing of winter forage .;,?crops was given by Mr. P. W. Smallfield, assistant instructor in agriculture, Auckland, at the, Ruakura dairy instructors' farm school. In approaching the question of supplementary forage crops, ho said, consideration had to bo given to the farmers' immediate needs. In tho North, farms could be found where no supplementary feed was grown. The farms, generally speaking, were large, and were under-stocked. It depended largely on tho size of the farms what crops could be grown. Fields on' which the grass had run out were usually chosen for. forage cropping. In certain systems'of farming, where a cash crop was an important feature' of the farm, the cost of supplementary crops was greatly reduced. For instance, the cost of the mangel crop was gr sat ly, reduced when potatoes were grown. - _ The mangel .crop was. not- cultivated to anything like the extent it should be by dairy farmers, the probable reason being tho labour involved and the high, - cost per acre. Mangels did (veil in dry seasons, when the turnip crop often failed, provided they got a good start. They gavij a higher yield, and better food value than swedes, keeping well into the spring, and providing excellent food for cows to milk on when feed was scarce. Mangels would do well on most soils other than those of a thin, hungry nature. They did . best in. deep loams well supplied with vegetable matter. Clay loams gave good crops, provided they could be brought to a fine seed bed. Mangels Following Grass. Mangels did well after grass owing to the large amount of vegetable matter stored in the soil. - The cultivation must be early and thorough, to have the vegetable matter well decayed, and the seed bed well consolidated before sowing. The usual procedure was to plough early in the winter/ and cross-plough again in the early spring. If the ploughing out of crass was left until early spring, the turf must be thoroughly broken up a month or two before ploughing by heavy discs or a disc plough. On heavy land it was often a good practice to plough in the autumn, set the land up m ridges, and allow it to weather during the winter. It should then be cultivated, rolled, and worked down to a seed bed in spring. Seed was best sown in October, in 28 inch drills, either on ridges or on the flat. Any well-rotted stable manure available should be applied to the land before . ploughing. Artificial fertilisers at the rate of four to six hundredweight per acre should also ;be distributed. On a .small area, intensely cultivated, a slightly heavier dressing would be beneficial. Precautions in. Feeding. ; Mangels responded well to intensive inter-cultivation with the horse bee. ; If - grown on ridgos, it enabled the work to be begun much earlier than when planted on the flat. Before feeding, mangels must be lifted and stored in a pit to ripen. If fed while still growing, or in an un- . ripened state, they were liable- to cause scouring, and in many instances serious cases of tympany and abortion had occurred through feeding green ; mangels. If they were, not pitted, they should be pulled, and allowed to lie for at least a fortnight before feeding. It'-was advisable to pull the tops off and leave them in the field, as they vrce of poor feeding value, though they contained considerable amounts of manurial constituents. The tops from an average crop of mangels coifcv tamed as much fertiliser as was contained in four to five hundredweight of blood, one and a-half hundredweights sulphate of potash, f; and one hundredweight of superphosphate. . • Another - useful supplementary food was carrots, continued the lecturer. The cultivation required for the carrots was riuch the same as tihat required for the mangels. The BarribaU variety of red carrots was easily lifted, and red carrots , were rather more nutritious than white • carrots. ; Carrot seed should be mixed with two or three times its bulk of damp sand for six days. The mixture should be turned daily. '- On the sixth day the ' seed, sand, and manure should be sown together. This practice would give the .-, carrots a start, and enable them to keep ahead of the weeds. From If lb. to 21b. i of seed to the acre should be sown. The manure often used was one of super., one of rock phosphate, and one of bone, and . from three to four hundredweight to the acre. The ration should \be limited fc - 301b. per day. It was unwise to" feed too. • 'much, for carrots affected' the kidneys of the stock. X ■. i' . . ' : . Advantages of Swedes. Swedes formed the most profitable root crop provided the season was favourable, said Mr. Smallfield/, They were easy to . grow, and did not require so much intercultivation as other crops. Swedes were more suitable for a man with a large . farm rather than for the man with a small place, because of the uncertainty of the seasons and the chance of disease damaging the crop. - For the small farmer, " mangels and carrots were advisable. Fertilisers advised for -the growing of swedes • should be almost entirely phosphatic. | From eight ■to twelve' ounces of seed should be sown in 14-inch drills, and from .... one to two pounds in 28-inch drills, and thinned. /■ ;-' ■ 'p''.'■■ ■ ■•"" ■ ' Dealing-', with the question of i cereals, Mr. Smallfield said that it was not worth while sowing a small quantity of' vetches with oats, because the' cost of vetches seed was high, and the feeding value would not be returned to the farmer. It might pay the farmer to arrange a crop of oats and tares for hay. The advantage of this crop was that the farmer got a high yield per acre, and the crop was invaluable in cases where he 'wanted to crowd twitch out of the ground. A sowing of one and a-half bushels of Algerian oats and one bushel of vetches made an ' ■ excellent hay crop. The oats kept the vetches off the ground.