Grass Drying Future And Claims For New Process

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19070, 18 July 1936, Page 13

Grass Drying Future And Claims For New Process

IMPORTANT scientific testimonies to the value of the mechanical drying of grass were given at the demonstration of the process held on May .13 in Wiltshire, England.

There no fewer than ISOO farmer? assembled from, nil parts of the British Isles to see the process in operation and to listen to papers read on the subject l>}' such eminent men as Professoi Scott Watson, Oxford University; Professor R. G. Stapledon, probably the world's greatest authority on grasses, and Dr. S. .1. Watson, an authority on nutrition.

Professor Watson expressed himself as satisfied as to the future for grass drying. By Artificial drying, he said, it was possible to preserve nearly .100 per cent of the food value of fresh grass without substantial loss eithei of dry matter, digestibility, energy value or vitamins. Expressed in terms of cash, one ton of dried grass had twice the nutritive value of a ton of average quality hay. With average summer rainfall and fairly liberal manuring, yields of about three tons per acre of dried grass could be ob tinned on good land, suggesting a big increase in the production capacity ot our home agriculture. He advocated a rotational system of management whereby a field would be cut one sea son, grazed the next and used foi hay, or two or three cuts only in the third. Permanent Grass Obsolete.

Grass drying had a futui'Cj hi claimed, particularly in districts ,0.l high rainfall, where a big tonnagi could lie produced regularly and where farmers had more loss in hay-making There were rumours of a new type o. grass drier in which the moisture wa: pressed out by rollers, the solic. residue being dried and the juice evaporated down to a "cream oJ grass" with a high vitamin Value. Professor .Stapledon said that tin grass drier must remember that he was carrying off a highly eoneentratec. product and therefore making heavj drains on his soil. "I want every farmer in Great Britain to dry grass,' said Professor Stapledon, "for gras; drying is the most sane and sensibh proposition that has ever been put be fore the farmer.

"In my .opinion grass drying am. improved strains of grassland plant: have united to render permanent gras. —except the very best —obsolete. Tin methods of grassland farming which have held the field for the last 150 years are, I say, obsolete, and fatuous to boot!"

Dr. S. J. Watson stressed the fad lh-.t artificially dried crops were concentrates, not roughage, and there fore must be fed accurately by weight. They retained almost the whole of the nutrients of the fresh crops and in digestibility and composition gave almost identical values. They held minerals in readily assimilable form:-. The, vj.lamin content of fresh gras,-* was retained on drying. Cows fed fa: .17 weeks on a -ration containing Sib. per head daily of dried grass, had pro duced milk above the legal standard in solids"-uot-fat, whereas the centre, milk had been below standard throughout. Dried grass enabled summer quality milk to be produced in winter. Rapid rattening.

Dairy herds, lie added, were already being successfully maintained on nothing but dried grass and hay. It was also excellent, for the rapid fattening of young animals, giving an average daily live weight increase throughout the year of 2\ to L'ilb. fed at the rate of 8 to 121 b. with good oat straw ad lib.

As regards sheep, he maintained, it was valuable for flushing ewes at the back end of the year and for ewes at and after lambing. Deficiency dis-

eases, e.g., bent-leg, a calcium deficiency, and pining, an iron deficiency, could be remedied by its use. High qualify ground dried grass, supplying 10 to 15 per cent, of the total ration, was used successfully for pig's, which grew rapidly and were therefore liable to acute forms of deficiency diseases.

In trials where 30 per cent, of the rations of hens had been fed as ground dried glass, the birds had laid well and the yoke colour had been improved. For horses, it should be used to replace hay in part. A ration for working horses containing dried grass was similar in effect to a feed of beans.