GREATER FARM PRODUCTION

Southland Times, Issue 24153, 15 June 1940, Page 14

GREATER FARM PRODUCTION

Growing Of More Crops

PROFITS SECURED BY PLOUGHING

[This is another of the series of articles on increasing farm production contributed by the chairman of the Southland Primary Production Committee (Mr A. Stuart).] “No stock farmer will go wrong,” said the former British Minister of Agriculture, Sir Reginald DormanSmith, “if he grows as much as possible of his own concentrated feeding stuffs. ... If Britain is to be selfsupporting in food each farm must become more self-supporting in feeding stuffs for its own livestock.” With but slight change these remarks apply with equal significance to New Zealand conditions.

What does the New Zealand pig farmer Require to bring his pigs up to bacon weight and to take the place of skim-milk in the winter months? More home-grown feeding stuffs—barley, peas, maize, artichokes, sugar beet, mangels. What does the dairy farmer need to maintain the condition of his cows during the winter, to feed productively early calving cows, and to provide for drought periods? More home-grown feeding stuffs —mangels, swedes, sort turnips, chou moellier, carrots, oats, and barley. What does the sheep farmer need to fatten his cull lambs, to improve the weight and quality of his wool, and to tide his hoggets and ewes over the winter? Morzehome-grown feeding stuffs —rape, chou moellier, swedes, turnips, peas, mangels, green feed crops, lucerne. AREAS FOR PLOUGHING There are not many farmers in New Zealand who can say with conviction that their whole farm is covered with first-class pasture, and that it does not pay them to plough-up grassland. On the dairy farms there are those night paddocks which have been “plugged up,” those paddocks which have been cut for hay so often in succession that their swards have deteriorated and are unduly inferior, those paddocks which were sown with inferior seed or too late in the season and which have run out, that small area where the pig pens have been and on which the grass is so rank that stock will not touch it. On sheep farms there are those areas which are still in inferior grasses and weeds, those areas which have reverted to inferior grasses and those areas which have been ruined by grass grub. In addition to its being often advisable to plough up these areas on which the pastures are inferior, it may be profitable t- plough up even first-class pastures whenever a cereal or cash crop is grown in the rotation. WINTER PREPARATION The best time to prepare for the growing of crops for next season depends on the nature and use of the land. Run-out grassland, which will at any rate produce little over the winter, can be ploughed up now so as to lie fallow over the winter months. Further working, depending on the nature of the soil can be given in the spring and the ground thoroughly prepared for the spring sowing of a crop. Whether first ploughing is given in the early winter or the early spring, ample time must be allowed for the thorough preparation of a good seed-bed for the ensuing crop. To sum up, an important point which is quite clear may be stated thus: the growing of suitable arable crops can be made to contribute substantially and profitably to the promotion of farm production, over a wide range of conditions.

Information about just what should be done under specific conditions and how it should be done may be obtained from the various district officers of the Fields Division of the Department of Agriculture.