THE CHEMIST TRIUMPHS

Taranaki Daily News, 6 May 1930, Page 10

THE CHEMIST TRIUMPHS

■ eradication of ragwort EXPERIMENTS IN TARANAKI.' ■ SUCCESS ON WAIPUKU FARM, “It is wonderful. I see its effect daily, but still find it hard to believe that such a small quantity of solution can destroy the weed so completely, so permanently, and yet so harmlessly to the surrounding pasture.” In these words Mr. W. Hooker, of Croydon Road, Waipuku, summed up the result of ragwort eradication experiments on his farm conducted with the new chemical spray under the direction of a fields officer of the Department of Agriculture. These experiments have been in progress for. over six months. They have been applied to all sorts and conditions of ragwort, flowering and otherwise, ovet a. large area, ’ and there seems, no room to doubt the complete effectiveness of the solution as an easy method of eradication. ’Yesterday a Daily News representative visited the farm and found Mr. Hooker at work with his spray.’ He mixed about', two-thirds of a round tobacco tin of sodium chlorate chrystals with a benzine tin of water and transferred the solution-to an ordinary knapsack -spray. With this strapped to his shoulders he strolled ‘through the rag-, wort, directing the .spray, briefly upon the foliage of each plant. That is the whole process. He can climb hillsides, or slide down gullies. A fizz of the spray and he passes on to another noxious plant. Nature and the constituent of the solution do the rest. Some weeks before Christmas sodium chlorate spray was first introduced on . a sloping paddock absolutely riddled with ragwort. Then it was impossible to step two yards without encountering a sturdy weed. To-day there is not a sign of a treated ragwort within the area. Through the middle of this paddock a narrow strip was left unsprayed, but the weed here was conscientiously grubbed out. To-day it is thicker than ever, thus proving the futility of cutting or grubbing. ■- It is rather strange ,to note the thickly strewn clumps of ragwort within tlie strip and their entire absence outside, the .boundaries of . the strip being as cleanly defined as though marked with a tape. Where Mr. Hooker was at his wits’ end to. know what to do with his . paddock, he now has a fine sole of clean grass, for the solution has no injurious effect upon pasture grasses. SPECIMENS "ON VIEW. In a portion of this paddock sprayed at a later date, the reporter secured at random a number of specimens of -the dead ragwort; which are now displayed in the -window of the Stratford office of the Daily News. . If the stalks are handled at all roughly they crumble to powder, while the foots, even to the tiniest suckers, are dead and brittle. If bent they snap at once. The whole plant is as. lifeless as the proverbial dodo.

In another paddock,, a strip was also left unsprayed, but here it was cut a couple of times with the mower. The result was exactly similar to that onthe grubbed strip. Ragwort, that strange, tenacious plant that thrives, upon cutting, grubbing or pulling, readily gave up its life to a solution that could not turn a leaf of ordinary rye grass. Moreover, the solution is nonpoisonous, and Mr. Hooker’s herd of milkers was actually grazing in the area he was spraying. While he spoke with the reporter a cow scented a dainty morsel and devoted some time to caressing the spray and utensils with her tongue. Mr. Hooker did not even bother to chase her away. When asked about the permanency of the eradication, he said an official of the Cawthron Institute recently visited the. farm to trace the” effect'of the solution throughout the sinuous lengths of the fibrous roots.. He found the remedy had done its work extremely well, and-that the weed would never seed again. .It was explained that the reason why the solution is injurious to grasses is. that there must be a fairly large leaf foliage to absorb spray into, the veins of the plant. Thus, the spray will kill out ■such weeds' as docks, thistles, and even ox-eyed: daisy, but will leave grasses completely unaffected; in fact, pasture grasses' were noticed growing rqbustly in'the actual holes left by the dead ragwort -stalks.” ”

Mr.’ Hooker is very enthusiastic over the hew solution, but in general conversation (expressed a doubt, as to whether the supply of sprays in New Zealand ■would be. equal to the. demand that was. •bound’to set in once the chemical became obtainable. To obviate this, and, as a possible solution to New Zealand’s .great social problem, he has evolved a scheme for assisting unemployed by en-’ .gaging them to spray ragwort. He suggests...that where.an individual farmer is unable to .meet the expense, it should be- tl|e duty of the Government to provide finance, recovering the amount from the settler later on when the destruction of, the ragwort will have enabled him substantially to increase his production. ..The work .is easy, and it does not; require a particularly strong constitution to carry the spray. ELTHAM BOGEY GOLF MATCH. A bogey match was played by members of the Eltham Golf Club during the week-end, the best scores being:— A Tiplady (18), • 1 up; H. Gibson (11) all square; Rev. Hegarty (13), all square; L. Gi'bson (18), 3 down; R. Darling (9), 3 down; J. H. Morton (12) 3 down; A. 0. Casey (13), 4 down; R H. Free (15), 4 down; J. Quin .(l), 4 down; S. Cooper (18), 5 down; L. Phillips (7), 5 down; P. de Launay (11). 5 down; F. Clemow (8), 6 down; R. Putter (17), 8 down; E. Carte’r (17),' 9 down; B. Oldfield (18), 0 down.