PROVIDING FEED FOR WINTER

Southland Times, Issue 23141, 6 March 1937, Page 14

PROVIDING FEED FOR WINTER

THE APPLICATION OF PHOSPHATES

On many farms some at least of the pastures advantageously may be dressed with phosphate in February or thereabouts, advises Mr. R. P. Connell, in The Journal of Agriculture. When the supply of moisture in the soil is sufficient to admit of growth, then the application of phosphates at this time usually increases the leafy growth of pastures from shortly after the phosphates are applied until well into the beginning of winter.

Hence the feed position during the critical winter and early spring period is strengthened. Further, during the following spring and summer, the stimulating influence of the phosphate continues, although not so intensely as if the phosphate were applied in the winter or early spring. The application of phosphates in the late summer or early autumn tends to a more even growth of grass throughout the year than does the spring application of phosphates, and therefore efficient grazing management of pastures can be obtained more easily under autumn application than under spring application of phosphates. More Even Production It should be bom in mind, further, that both autumn application and spring application of phosphates increase the absolute gap between the peak of high production and that of low production of permanent grassland, and that both, therefore, intensify the need for provision of special feed for use during the critical periods in which the amount of feed directly available from grassland is customarily below the current requirements of the stock, unless substantial understocking is practised. On many farms a summer task of prime importance is the preparation of ground for the autumn sowing of pastures. In this task many seem to appreciate but imperfectly the great value of thorough cultivation in the production in the seed-bed of the fine firm condition which so usefully fosters successful establishment cf seedlings. Value of Firmness

The value of firmness of seedbeds is indicated to’ some extent by the superior pastures that often are found along “headlands” of fields or along tracks where, there is greater consolidation than in the remainder of the field, this being due to additional passage of stock or of machinery. The advisability of. fineness in the seed-beds may be realized readily by considering what must be the fate of many of the small seeds used in pasture-seed mixtures when the soil is in a coarse or lumpy condition: any of these small seeds covered by lumps cannot with their limited supply of energy push their shoots to the surface. In districts in which the ravages of the grass-grub have been much in evidence during recent seasons, it is inadvisable to sow pastures in land which in the immediate past has been occupied by a cereal or by grass. On the other hand, the more land was without a plant-covering from November to December, the period in which the eggs which develop into the grassgrub are deposited in large numbers, the more likely is the land to be free from the grub during the following twelve months.