CORRESPONDENCE

Taranaki Daily News, 11 August 1932, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE

THE GRASS GRUB. (To the Editor.) Sir, —For over 20 years, owing to the presence of enormous flocks of starlings, the coastal areas have been fairly free from grub until two years ago, when the starlings disappeared, and consequently the grub is ravaging the country. Many a time I intended asking through the Daily News where these birds had gone to, and even a family of them that haunted my roof for years has cleared out, though latterly a medium-sized flock is occasionally seen. No known remedy is any good. A prewar discussion in the old Canterbury Times showed that a ten-ton road roller, rolling a paddock until it was hard as concrete, had no effect, I know of some infected land that was flooded for three weeks, and the grubs were as active as ever when the land dried, and in To Aroha the other day I heard of a 12in. square block of ground from Manawaru alive with grubs that had been in the freezing chamber for two weeks (frozen solid) and the grubs not killed; all were alive when thawed. An Ashburton sheepfarmer after the sheep had been in the yards had their droppings collected for his garden, being put away in kerosene tins out of the rain, and he wrote to say when he came to use them, that they were alive with the grub. I was ploughing one day, and when fixing the skeith I noticed something moving, and this was a nest of young grubs crawling in a hollow in a piece of sun-burnt cow-dung. I wrote to America for information re grub and was advised to try Kainit. I did so, and cold water would be equally effective. At Stratford the grubs don’t seem to be so damaging to pedigree ryegrass as they are to the common strains, but in some autumn sown grass of mine, where the grubs are on one side of the paddock, the 235. 6d. per bushel stuff has not stopped them, and only paspalum will do that. In the Waikato one evening about 8 o’clock (January) in a large apple tree about ten yards from the house, the beetles that produce these grubs were in thousands, buzzing as loud as bees swarming. To stop the plague, in my opinion, in December and January shallow tin containers filled with water on which kerosene is floating should be put out, with a small lamp in each one to aTiract the beetle, which would be smothered in the kerosene bath. The Farmers’ Union could arrange for a portable plant to go from farm to farm with containers and lamps, which would be connected where possible with electricity by a wire. Any returned man who laid out field telegraphs could fix it up. Twenty-five years’ study of the pest convinces me that it is either starlings, paspalum, lamp baths or 30 per cent, off your carrying capacity,—l am, etc., W. R. WRIGHT.

Rahotu. P.S.—-Some idea of the severity of the grub’s ravages was given when a South Taranaki farmer advertised a clearing sale through loss of grass by grub, and his place was nothing to Manawaru. —W.R.W.