GRASS THAT PAYS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16376, 25 June 1927, Page 10

GRASS THAT PAYS

MR. A. H. COCKAYNE'S ADVICE SCIENTIFIC GRASS FARMING Permanent grass land varies in composition according to the fertility of the soil, and the type, of grassland that is maintained will be an exact reflection of the soil fertility, declared Mr. A. H. Cockayne, director of the Fields Division, at the recent farm school at Hamilton. Classes and clovers vary in their suil fertility requirements, and unless the conditions are made sufficiently fertile for any particular grass it will tend to disappear and be replaced by others of lower production and feeding value when the fertility conditions are'reduced, and by better grasses and clovers where the fertility conditions are improved,, quite irrespective of what seed was more originally sown. YOUNG CRASS ESSENTIAL. No grass can in l permanently maintained when the soil fertility is below that demanded by it, but by renewal it can be temporarily kept going and then gradually become replaced by an inferior one. So far as grass laud is concerned it is the fertility of the top two or three inches that determines its composition rather than that of the lower layers of the soil, and it; is to maintain the increase in soil fertility of this top layer that all the skill of the grass farmer must be directed. The great reason why the fertility of the actual surface soil is of such great importance is owing to the rooting habit of grasses. With regard to all of them tho essential feature in production and maintenance is that fresh sets of roots should be regularly developed. It is from these fresh sets of roots that young, vigorous growth is developed, and young, vigorous grass is the essential. .The majority of our better permanent grasses and clovers develop root systems at ground level, and unless they at once penetrate into fertile surroundings diminution in production and replacement is the result. Certain grasses that form fresh root systems at well below ground level can be maintained under unfertile soil conditions, and when surface fertility fails, such grasses, generally inferior, obtain dominance and what is called deterioration sets in. Such grasses, when conditions are very bad, still can maintain themselves, but their production is both low and of a low nutritive standard. Lncrease, however., the surface fertility conditions and thej' will become vigorous. Increase it still further and they will become replaced by higher yielding and more nutritious plants. The adoption of methods that will increase the ability of pasture plants to re-root readily and at all times, thus insuring fresh young growth should be the aim of the grass tanner. Drainage, top-dressing, Mining, avoidance jf overstocking, surface cultivation, spreading of manorial droppings, and rotational grazing are the primal factors tending to fresh root development. Improvement in surface fertility and adequate re-rooting young shoots is the basis of grassland production, but production is only one of the factors involved in' scientific grass farming. Utilisation of as large abortion as possible of the total production in a young, vigorously-grow-ing condition must follow any methods that are directed to pasture improvement. ..QUESTION OF CROPPINC. It is just here where the real difficulties of the grass farmer arise. Grassland product's an overplus of feed at certain seasons, and insufficient in others. The great development, of the exploitation of wet stock with a high summer feed requirement and a low winter one has been the greatest move made by farmers to cloal with the summer over-supply of grass, but this alone is not sufficient, and tho extensive growing of supplementary (-tops for winter and late summer feeding has been for many years constantly emphasised. Nevertheless per 100 cows or 1000 sheep far less supplementary feed is now grown than two decades ago, and manipulation of grassland rather than special growing of crops is the significant feature of grass-land management to da v.

The grass that pays is young, vigorously growing grass used as such. It is leaf and not stem that produces meat and milk most efficiently, and the development of leafy growth for a long period is the essential lire-requis-ite for successful grass-land utilisation. Luckily all those methods that encourage increase in surface soil fertility and ability to develop fresh root systems mean some young leafy herbage, and in addition really small subdivisional paddocks, and the mowing of all got-away g\ass made either into ensilage or hay coupled with real rotational grazing represent the basal features of management whereby young grass growth is increased and made real use of.

An ever-increasing use of phosphates for top-dressing appears to be the greatest single factor bound Up with scientific grass farming. Phosphate to begin with must be made the medium whereby liming, subdivision, and the later use of some expensive fertiliser may be paid for.

THE FUTURE

"The time will surely come," added Mr. Cockayne, "when all grass fanners will realise that young, vigorously

.owing leafy grass is the most vaia able crop mat, grass-land can produce, ami when tnal day arrives yrass.anc' will bo used for nothing else and wi hay, ensilage, winter and summer .-.peciui teeds will be grown by special crops, but that stage in the develop .uuu ot scientific grass farming is for :he future. When phosphaue top-div.-Miig is already being carried out I'ory extensively on the farm the uuesiion as to whether nitrogen ■diouiti not be lurgciy included is one i> uicii recent English and European .■xpeneiice has opened up. l'ersou:i\v i am not greatly in favor,, as I

am inclined 10 Uiiuk that the u-vpicila-.,oii oi ciover development by wii} oi increasing phosphaue dressings has by no means yet passed its optimism stage. This point is one, however, that the department intends to investigate in the near future, but phosphate, subdivide, lime, and herd improvements appear to me to be the cardinal principles of present-day scientific grass farming, for when all is said and done scientific grass farming means maximum production of young, vigorously-growing grass and its adequate utilisation in that condition."