WELSH CLOVER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3854, 24 January 1928, Page 58

WELSH CLOVER.

EXPERIMENTS IN NEW ZEALAND.

LONDON, December 14. Mr J. E. Davies, formerly of Llanfair (instructor in agriculture under the New Zealand Government) has forwarded to the Montgomery County Times an account of experiments with clovers on the State Experimental Farm in New Zealand, which he remarks should prove of interest to Montgomeryshire farmers, as New Zealand farmers have been greatly impressed by the value of Welsh clovers. The report states that a 10-acre field was selected to test out the feeding and persisting qualities of “ ordinary imported ”; “New Zealand grown”; “ Vale of Clwyd ” ; “ Cornish Marl.” and genuine “ Montgomeryshire Late Flowering ’’ red clovers. All the clovers with the exception of the ordinary imported established well. The latter, both in autumn and spring sown was a poor take, patchy, and throughout appeared stunted as compared with the other clovers, although the seed gave a laboratory test of over 90 per cent, germination. Montgomeryshire Late Flowering and Val e of Clwyd were similar in appearance. Both varieties had a characteristic spreading habit during the early stages of growth, this being very noticeable, spreading rather than upward growth, while shorter than other clovens at thi s stage. The Montgomeryshire Late Flowering and Vale of Clwyd were fully six weeks later in flowering than the ordinary imported and New Zealand-grown varieties: thus there was a longer growing period, and this produced much more feed. These two varieties throughout the winter had made continuous growth and stood much more grazing than the other clovers. They appeared palatable, and it was noticeable that stock congregated on their areas. To the casual observer the area under these clovers, compared with the others under ordinary imported and New Zealand varieties, suygested that they are of tho former had been heavily top-dressed with fertilisers and the latter left untreated. Yet the whole field has been treated in exactly the same manner. The trials are now in their second year’s growth, and so far, thg Welsh varieties stood out conspicuously and very promisingly. Their .usefulness in temporary leas was undisputed, but i>s regards permanent less information depended on the experiments being continued for a few more years.