SERIOUS PROBLEM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27040, 26 March 1949, Page 8

SERIOUS PROBLEM

HIGH COUNTRY EROSION AERIAL SEED-SOWING EXPERIMENTS The Waitaki Soil Conservation Committee, in conjunction with the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council, Wellington, carried out another series of seed-sowing experiments for soil conservation purposes yesterday afternoon at the Tara Hills run, three miles from Oamaru. These experiments are the first serious attempt that has been made to deal with the increasingly serious problem of erosion in the high country, although experiments on a smaller .scale were recently carried out in the Blenheim district.

Yesterday’s sowings were carried out by a Ministry of Works plane. An aerial sowing was made at Tara Hills in the spring, and, together with the autumn one, the series should provide valuable data as to the best time to sow.

Sowings were made on badly eroded, steep, bare faces at 2000 feet’, on depleted and eroded tussock country at 3000 feet, and at 4000 feet in snowgrass country, where erosion is also severe.

Commenting on the experiment in Wellington yesterday, Mr D. A. Campbell, senior soil conservator to the bell, senior soil conservator to the Soil Conservation and Rivers Controi Council, said that a mixture of cocksfoot, yarrow, Chewings fescue, and white and subterranean clover was to be used on every depleted tussock area which had been sown with a similar mixture last spring. Reasonably satisfactory results had been obtained in the spring though the success of the trial was limited by the following dry summer weather.

Yesterday’s sowing was planned at the rate of 71b to 81b per acre. The sowing was experimental as grasses were much more difficult to sow from the air than clover. The aerial sowing of clover gave a better distribution than hand sowing.

Mr Campbell said that 600 acres in the Wither Hills, Marlborough, was sown from the air with clover and trefoil yesterday. The plane for both sowings was fitted with a hopper to carry 250 to 3001 bof seed. It was specially adapted for the work by the Aerodrome Services Branch of the Ministry of Works. Mr Campbell added that the Tara Hills, Omarama, a sadly depleted sheep run of about 8000 acres, was taken over about a year ago. Irrigation had been developed on some of the fiats so that more feed could be grown to relieve pressure of grazing on the hills till the pasture there revived. He emphasised the practical nature of the experiment. The conservation reserve was being worked as a unified farming nroject. the work being done as cheaply as possible to see just what it would cost to bring the area back. As a result of similar work, the Wither Hills area had double the carrying capacity of any other land in the district.