PAMPAS EXPERIMENT

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1935, Page 24 (Supplement)

PAMPAS EXPERIMENT

CLAIMS FOR THE FODDER 50 TONS FEED TO THE ACRE. There is one great difficulty connected with grazing cattle in Taranaki’s back country. That is the problem of getting together when grass is in the flush sufficient stock to check the growth of fern and yet be able to supply, or arrange, sufficient winter feed to tide the cattle over until next spring, when their presence on the hills and in the tvalleys again becomes a necessity. Few farmers, eking out a living during present times- in the eastern Taranaki districts, can afford to buy additional heavy stock in October, when steers and stores are at a premium, and then have to throw them on a congested market after March.

Cattle have become a necessary part of farm operations in these areas. In fact their presence was never more essential if encroachments of fem and scrub are to be effectively and economically dealt with. Yet there are possibly fewer cattle of the desired type available and in use to-day than ever before. If a solution to this feeding problem could be found in a manner that could be easily. provided, and of practical value, then one of the biggest handicaps to the successful farming of 'thousands of acres would be well on the way to elimination. Perhaps a solution lies in the establishment of pampas grass plantations associated with each back country holding- . • Pampas grass is claimed to be an especially’ suitable fodder grass that will grow and develop under the worst conditions even ort steep hill sides. It will grow to a height of from 6 to 8 feet and no kind of weather is said to be detrimental to it. Pampas seems, moreover, to possess the facility of adapting itself to varying conditions of soil, so that once established a farmer should have no difficulty in Increasing his plantation. Free access to sun, wind and water is /desirable, but the grass does not do well under other trees. As it grows it provides its own . shelter, which may be advantageously used as shelter for young stock.

There is one, thoughtful farmer in the Whangamomona county who has made a careful study of this promising grass, and a year ago planted an experimental area. The plants are doing remarkably well, but it is proposed to allow them to develop for another year before allowing the stock to commence feeding. In this connection the farmer is definitely of the opinion that the plantation should be securely fenced, and the grass fed off in breaks. Nothing, he told a News rer presentative, will tend to destroy a pampas plantation' more quickly than the free access of stock. Animals have such a partiality for the nourishing leaves that they remain in the vicinity, with the result that strong healthy clumps are soon reduced to mere stubble by the tramping of heavy animals. On the other hand, properly tended and fed off with discretion, pampas is estimated to return feeding value equal to over 50 tons to acre after its second year of growth. One thousand plants may be established to the acre. Another use of pampas is aS shelter hedges? It quickly smothers fem, and, if suitably fenced, may be fed off instead of being cut back. Plants that have been eaten down to a foot high have been known to recover and send out succulent leaves up to 4ft in height within a few months.

Every section holder in the back country. of Tararfaki could well afford to experiment with a small area of pampas grass, experimenters say. The partiality of cattle to pampas is beyond doubt and, if plantations were extended' to the extent of supplying the necessary addition /to supplement such winter feed as is always available to active cattle, he should, within a few years, have found a means of saving the appreciable annual loss usually associated with the buying and selling of cattle so necessary in keeping fem and scrub in check. Pawn pas is not alone a fodder grass; it makes an ideal thatch for hay stacks, is fine for young stock, splendid as bedding for calves or farrowing pigs and. as a compost to bind farm-yard manure. rnsi’s-b3E,i!