GOOD DAIRYING SEASON

Southland Times, Issue 23840, 10 June 1939, Page 18

GOOD DAIRYING SEASON

High Returns In Southland HERD-TESTING FIGURES LEAD IN DOMINION The dairying season in Southland is steadily drawing to an end and within a short time all factories in the province will have closed down. The yield of milk during the latter part of the season has, however, been unusually good and the intake at the factories has been considerably higher than in recent seasons. The total production for the season is now expected to show an improvement on last season by a fair percentage in spite of the fact that the milking period did not open well. The favourable position of Southland in comparison with other districts is strikingly illustrated in the herd-test-ing returns for the last few months. Southland occupied a satisfactory position at the beginning of the season, but production improved steadily and for the last few months the average production of cows under test in the province has been the highest in New Zealand.

The returns for April, which have just been published, show that the Southland and Otago Herd-Testing Association had a considerable advantage over other associations. The average production in Southland for the 4723 cows under test was 28.31 b butterfat compared with 25.51 b for the small West Coast Association, 23.61 b in South Canterbury and 22.91 b in Canterbury. The Taranaki average was 201 b and the Waikato and Auckland province figure was 16.91 b. The Dominion average for the month was 17.91 b compared with 21.41 b for April last year. These figures illustrate the serious effects of the drought experienced in the North Island during the late summer and autumn. The South Island appears to have been free from these effects and returns from all southern associations are higher than in the north. To some extent this is usual at the end of the season because of the later beginning of the South Island dairying season, but the drop in the Dominion average of 3|lb indicates a bad season. The New Zealand Cooperative Association, covering the Auckland province, shows a reduction of 31b compared with the previous season ana nearly 71b compared with two years ago. The Waimatuku II group in the Southland Association has been testing particularly well this season and during April had an average production of 30.711 b butterfat for 458 cows. The next group is Edendale with an average of 30.181 b butterfat for 1127 cows. The highest herd in the group is in the Edendale group with an average production of 491 b butterfat.- Three cows in different groups exceeded 701 b butterfat for the month.