GRASS MANAGEMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22058, 14 September 1933, Page 3

GRASS MANAGEMENT

CARE OF PASTURES MAKING THE MOST OF GROWTH In a broadcast talk from Station IYA, Auckland, Mr W. Alexander, agricultural adviser of Kempthorne, Prosser and Co. s New Zealand Drug Company, Ltd., provides useful and seasonal advice on the subject of pasture management. According to the latest available statistics covering the agricultural and pastoral industries carried on within the Dominion, there are some 31,500,000 acres in pasture; of this area 17,000,000 acres represent sown or cultivated grasses and the balance approximately 14,500,000 acres represents native grasses, tussock, etc. -The total area in arable, that is really undercrops of all kinds including orchards, is 1,250,000 acres so that the whole occupied area in the Dominion, 75 per cent., is in grass, and only 3 per cent, in all other crops. From these figures it will be realised that the care and treatment of pastures constitutes the most important task undertaken on the farm lands of this Dominion. It is the pastures of the country that carry the live stock which in turn converts crops and grasses into marketable commodities in the form of meat, wool, and dairy produce. It is perfectly true as stated on one occasion by bis Excellency the Governor-General, that we New Zealanders live on grass. Ao matter how much importance we attach to the growing of other crops, and undoubtedly they are important, grass will always be the staple food of this Dominion. , , ... Whilst it is not suggested here that farmers should concentrate all their energies on the improvement of grassland to the exclusion of all else on the farm, it is suggested in all seriousness that time and money spent in that- direction will quickly produce very profitable results. There are many men, particularly those of the old school, who still go to no end of trouble in the preparation of land for the growing of root crops, but who more or less leave the grassland to look after itself. .... In Taranaki great interest is taken in the annual root-growing competitions conducted under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture, and there is_ no doubting the fact that these competitions have been responsible for some outstanding crops of swedes, mangolds, and carrots. A perusal of the reports covering these discloses the fact that elaborate cultivation and the_ application of fertilisers, sometimes in excess of lOcwt per acre, are' factors making for success. Have you ever considered what would happen to your pastures if by any chance you_ could be persuaded to treat them ns liberally?— and yet I see no reason why you should treat your annual crops a bit better than you should treat your pastures. _ If five or six or even lOcwt of fertiliser per acre is profitable ,on swedes and mangels, it would be equally profitable on grass. ASSORTED PASTURES.

One of the very great difficulties associated with any discussion on the care of pastures is the widely varied nature of the pastures themselves. Just look around you and take stock of the different types of grassland in your own neighbourhood; or better still, look at the problem as we have to look at it, that is as a provincial or as a Dominion one. Even now there are probably a score or more different types of pastures represented by those of you who are listening in, and each of you is, at least I hope you are, waiting to get some point of interest or of value out of my talk to-night. I think you will agree that, a general talk on the care of pastures would not be of much use if it did not take into consideration the different specimens you have to work with. It seems to me that we want to adopt a policy of “ levelling upwards” to the end that, you will all have first-class pastures, or at least know how to get them, before we can safely got down to generalities regarding treatment. For all practical purposes we can subdivide our pastures into groups as follows:—

1. Purely native pastures on rough country. 2. Surface sown after bush burns. 3. Deteriorated pastures. 4. Cultivated pastures.

The first-named we can leave out altogether as the very nature and extent of the country involved makes control measures, other than control by stock together with the elimination of rabbits, almost impossible of application. This is not the class of pasture we want to consider at this stage.

The second group, namely, bush burns, j does sometimes lend itself to treatment, particularly where the country is not too steep. It is the common experience of settlers on country of this nature that the pastures sown after a good, clean burn do very well for a few years, then they begin to go back until finally the good grasses die out and low fertility species and fern come in. Briefly, the reason for this retrograde movement of pastures on burnt country is this —the burning of the original bush left a substantial deposit of ash rich in mineral plant, foods, particularly lime, phosphates and potash, and for some years after sowing the grasses and clovers had this supply to draw upon. During this period the new pastures probably carried a good lot of stock, and they in turn consolidated and manured the land to the benefit of the pasture. As the supply of minerals was shortened through steady consumption by pasture plants, the high fertility species weakened and gave way to lower fertility species, a process which was reB' sd until finally the country found its in the danthonia, brown top, fescues and fern which are in possession of much of the deteriorated land to-day. To prevent this deterioration taking place it is necessary that supplies of lime, and phosphates at least be applied to the bush burn pastures before they start to go back—it is never just as successful after the deterioration has set in. The necessary treatment is not expensive and could easily be applied to a very large proportion of bush country now in grass. Lise as a top-dressing just a simple mixture of lime and super and the grasses you want will remain dominant. Of course a good deal of the deterioration that set in was due to the poor class of seed used on many bush burns. It is notorious that any old mixture of weeds and grasses that cannot be separated will always find a market as “ special for bush burns”; buyers would be well advised to keep off that sort of stuff for the simple reason that if you use it your future pasture is doomed the day you buy the seed. DETERIORATED PASTURE. The question here is how can this be brought back? Well, the question cannot be answered just as easily as it is asked. Of course, it is largely a matter of soil fertility, and the first step in the direction of improving the sward is to build the plant food content of the soil. Never forget, however, that the fertilisers used in the building up of fertility cannot change danthonia into ryegrass nor bid-a-bid into white clover. Fertilisers can and do improve the feeding value of the pastures to which they are applied so that top-dressed danthonia will make a better pasture than will the same grass without top-dressing. If cultivation were possible, the quickest way to better pastures on these deterioate’d areas would be to plough and re-sow in permanent pasture species, but on most of the country concerned ploughing is out of the question. The most that can be hoped for is that the stock-carrying capacity can be increased to the extent that fern can be controlled and the pastures generally cleaned up. Top-dressing with super is likely to prove the most efficient and most economical means of improving carrying capacity. Stock can be moved about from ridge to ridge simply by the use of super; this fertiliser will so influence the quality of the feed that stock will concentrate on where it has been used. It should not be necessary to state here that complete recovery cannot be attained with one solitary dressing of about 2cwt per acre; each dressing applied will make for more improvement, and one must be patient and not look for miracles when starting out to improve deteriorated hill pastures. A common fault on much of this deteriorated hill country is that the paddocks are far. too large to permit of heavy concentrations of stock. If control by means of cattle is to be successful, you must be able to hold the cattle just where you want them, and this is possible only where fencing is adequate. 1 CULTIVATED PASTURES.

By cultivated pastures, I mean all that area of grassland sown out in the best of English grasses and clovers which provides the bulk of the pasturage for our dairy herds and for ewe flocks where fat lamb raising is the leading industry. The area so represented runs into many .millions of acres, and extends from Kaitaia to Bluff. There are no rainfall boundaries of importance to this type of pasture, nor are there any important limiting factors in the way of soil conditions or altitude. From cogst to coast, from sea level to mountain ranges, and almost, .if not actually, from the equator to the poles we find conditions that seem to suit grass. No other single crop is so adaptable to local conditions of soil or climate, and no other single crop is .so versatile in the matter of uses to which it is pub as is grass. No wonder we value it, and no wonder it now occupies such an important place in the fields of science and research as well as in the fields of everyday practical agriculture. Grass as a name is applied loosely to a wide range of pasture. plants: rye, Timothy, cocksfoot, dogstail, fescues, fog, poas, danthonia, brown top, and numerous others are all included in the general terra “grass.” It is an association of grass and clover species that goes to make up our pastures, and those pastures are just as good and no better than the individual species contained therein. One of the difficulties associated with pasture establishment is that comparatively few fanners are able to distinguish between the various species of plants in their pastures, with the result that they go on treating a poor one as though, it were- a good one, and sometimes abusing a good one as though it were of little value. No doubt every man on. the land has his ideal pasture in his mind’s eye, but very few have them where they can make use of them. THE IDEAL SWARD.

Perennial ryegrass of a leafy, truly permanent type, in the proportion of about 70 to 75 per cent., a sprinkling of Timothy and Poa Trivialis, and the balance a selected type of persistent white clover is probably the nearest thing we know to an ideal permanent pasture. Many farmers have set themselves out to sow such a pasture, but through purchasing seed from poor type strains-they have not secured what the/ were after. The fault does not always lie with the farmer, as he has bought his seed, on the understanding that he was getting the right'stuff, but there are other occasions when buyers have definitely sacrificed quality to price and have been paying for it ever since. Sometimes the land is at fault; it is either too raw, too sour, or too wet to sustain satisfactory pastures. Here it becomes first a question of draining and liming ns a preliminary to the sowing down of permanent grass. A good pasture, properly manured and carefully handled, will in a district of moderate rainfall yield up to, and possibly over, 18 tons of green matter per acre in 12 months. The treatment necessary to maintain such a yield is an annual application of carbonate of lime at the rate of from scwt to Bewt per acre; an annual application of super given, in two dressings—March and November —of 2cwt per acre each time and a dressing of potash where necessary. In addition to this, the grazing must at all times be kept under strict control; the pastures should not be eaten right down to the ground, nor should they be permitted to get too far away before being stocked. For sheep, the ideal stage at which to stock up is when the ryegrass is from three to four inches long, and for cattle when it is twice that length. Such grass has the feeding value of a concentrated food like oil cake, and so long as the essential mineral constituents are kept up to standard stock will thrive on this feed. Regular harrowing to spread the droppings is an important feature of pasture management, BELOW PAR.

There is a substantial area of grass land that is just below par and which could be substantially improved at little cost. It may be that an original poor type of ryegrass has left the pasture low in this particular constituent, with a correspondingly greater percentage of low fertility grasses. It may be that too much cocksfoot has been sown in the mixture, or mixtures containing a number of poor species have been used. Of course, such things as cutting every season for hay, being allowed to get away from stock, starved for fertilisers, or grazed without harrowing may have played a part in lowering the standard of a pacture. Whatever the cause, the fact remains that we have a few million acres of below-par pasture, and we want to improve them. This job calls for drastic harrowing to open up the surface and to pull out or destroy as much as possible of the poor stuff. This job of harrowing should not be don'e by the owner himself unless he is fully conversant with the results to be expected; far better to employ someone to do the job for you, and when you think he has knocked your paddock about sufficiently, tell him to start all over again and then go away and leave him. When the paddock has been harrowed almost to breaking point give it a dressing of carbonate of lime, and fol-

low this a week or two later with 4cwt of super, through which- you have mixed half a bushel of certified perennial ryegrass seed per acre; a further stroke ot the harrows to cover the seed, and then shut the gate. Possibly the autumn is the best time to carry out this work of renovation, but quite good results may be secured by doing it now. WORK FOR THE PLOUGH. Then we have that sort of down-and-out collection of twitch, weeds, and bare spaces that is sometimes called a pasture and from which impossible things ax - e expected. There are some plans that do not respond even to good fertilisers simply because they are more at home in what might be termed the rural slum areas. Agrostis, rib grass, cat’s ear, copeweed, fescues, all seem to live on, where better stuff would fail, but then that is usually a matter of soil conditions. Land that is cold, sour, and hungry cannot be expected to carry other than poor pasture plants; such plants yield nothing to the wealth of the farmer; in fact, in time they .would turn him cold, sour, and hungry also. There is only one thing to do with that sort of grassland, and that is to put the plough into it, as in doing so you will put new life into it. It’s no use wasting time and money trying to bring, that sort of pasture back into something worth while by top-dressing and harrowing; it will be quicker to do it by ploughing. Turn it over during the winter and let it lie fallow so that the weather can get into it to sweeten it. _ Work it up during the summer, lime it, and take a crop of early roots or green fodder out of it, and then put it back into good pasture in the autumn. If you don’t want the roots or fodder crop leave it to fallow right through until the autumn; it will bo all the better for it, and then you can look forward to a good pasture in the spring. Don’t stint the manure either when you sow the paddock down or later, as hungry land cannot do its work satisfactorily. Remember, the better the pasture the better will bo the response to the fertilisers used on it. If you want ryegrass standard in your pastures you must give them ryegrass treatment, not allowing them to get cold, sour, or hungry.