Dried Grass Experiments By Government Departments

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19130, 26 September 1936, Page 13

Dried Grass Experiments By Government Departments

niilED grass, about which there have been several encouraging reports from the Old Country recently, is to be tried out in Xew Zealand by the lit'scarch Department and the Department of Agriculture.

A special plant is not being' imported lor the purpose, though this noil hi have been the most satisfactory way of approaching the question, for, judging by scientific English opinion, the food value of dried grass is ineontestably proved, and Xew Zealand experience is, therefore, hardly required.

'fhe departments referred to are to make dried grass, or, rather, to preserve crass in the dried form, by using a casein drying plant I'or the purpose, tinder tiiTMiigotneiil with Ihe New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company. The proposal is to use the casein drying plan! when il is ordinarily not in use —on Sunday. The result will be awaitetl with interest.

The value of dried grass, from the nutrition viewpoint, was recently well expressed by Dr. 'S. .1. "Watson, the well known English authority on nutrition, lie stressed the fact/thai dried grass was a concent rule, and, therefore, .should be fed accurately by weight. Dried grass retained -almost the whole of the nutrients of the fresh crops, and in digestibility and composition gave almost identical values, ft. hold minerals in a readily assimilable .form. The vitamin content was retained on drying, and Dr. Watson gives this interesting fact: Cows fed for .17 weeks on a. ration containing Sib. per head daily of dried grass had produced milk above the legal standard in solids-not-fat, whereas the control milk had been below standard throughout. Dried grass, therefore, enabled summer milk to be produced in winter. English dairy herds, he said, are already being successfully maintained ,on nothing but dried grass and hay. It is also excellent in the fattening of young animals, giving an average daily live weight increase throughout