PASPALUM PASTURE.

Putaruru Press, Volume XI, Issue 268, 7 September 1933, Page 6

PASPALUM PASTURE.

FEED IN DRY WEATHER. Wants Plenty of Harrowing. Paspalum occupies a very prominent place in pastures in the Auckland province, and its economic importance is no longer in doubt. Paspalum is unquestionably a valuable pasture plant so long as it is kept under strict control. Its chief period of usefulness is, of course, during the dry weather period following the New Year and extending into the late autumn. A paspalum and ryegrass combination is very hard to beat as a high producing pasture, as the two species are not competitive. Ryegrass gives of its best during the winter, spring and early summer, fading away as the dry weather period advances when paspalum comes forward to take over the load. With the approach of winter frosts and cold weather, the paspalum in turn gives way to the ryegrass which, from then onwards, takes up the running. This desirable state of affairs can be maintained only so long as the paspalum is kept strictly under con r trol. There must be no such thing as allowing paspalum to get away to seed and finally dying down on the paddock; if that sort of thing is permitted the ryegrass is simply smothered out of existence and very soon the pasture becomes almost entirely paspalum. Keep Paspalum Short. Paspalum pastures want plenty of harrowing, not merely a tickling of the surface to spread manure, but a heavy, penetrating, root-pruning harrowing that will definitely prevent its forming a matted surface or that will break up such a surface once it has been formed.

Paspalum should also be kept short grazed and if necessary the mower should be used at the first sign of its wanting to run away. Treated in ,1 this way paspalum will not be looked upon as a curse as is sometimes the case where control measures have not been applied.

Treatment in Winter. A disappointing feature of paspalum pastures is the time they take to come away in the spring; .well this plant is definitely not an early grass, and no amount of manuring seems to be able to make it change its nature. The only thing to do here is to harrow very severely during the winter months and then introduce some certified perennial ryegrass up to one bushel per acre—as this is the only grass that will show an early spring growth in response to topdressing fertilisers.