TOP-DRESSING ECONOMY

Taranaki Daily News, 13 July 1935, Page 12 (Supplement)

TOP-DRESSING ECONOMY

RELATION TO PRODUCTION. AN IMPORTANT QUESTION. A question which continues to be asked very often is whether expenditure on top-dressing is one of the items which it is advisable to reduce, remarks Mr. R. P. Connell, of the Fields Division, Palmerston North, in the Agricultural Journal. The general answer given to the question by farmers is in favour of continuance of top-dressing. This is indicated by the relatively heavy top-dressing programme which has been maintained during recent difficult trying years. Certainly some decline in top-dressing has taken place, but often farmers adopted a policy of straining their resources, in order to obtain the assistance which they considered top-dressing would give.. That such a policy has undoubted merit is indicated by data published in the. report of the Dairy Industry Commission. A table on that report indicates that:— (1) When the butterfat production was under 751 b an acre the expenditure in fertilisers was 5s 8d an acre, and the cost of fertiliser per pound of butterfat was 1.193 d. (2) When the butterfat production ranged from 1251 b to 1501 b an acre the Expenditure on fertiliser was 10s 9d per acre, and the cost of fertiliser per pound of butterfat was 0.943 d. (3) When the butterfat production ranged from 2001 b to 2251 b an acre the expenditure on fertiliser was 14s Sd an acre, and the cost of fertiliser per pound of butterfat was 0.839 d. (4) When the butterfat production was 2501 b an acre and over the expenditure on fertiliser was 18s lOd an acre, and the cost of fertiliser per pound of butterfat was 0.803 d. These data, which relate to the 1933-34 season, are based on the information supplied to the Departmen t of Agriculture by 550 North Island glairy farmers. Information typical of the industry was sought, and the results that were considered proved to be typical ones, being however, somewhat better than the average. The farms reviewed were located principally as follows: 144 in Wellington province, 86 in Taranaki, 144 in South Auckland, 115 in North Auckland. Summed up, on the farms covered by the survey liberal use of fertiliser was associated with substantially increased production and decreased overhead in respect to the cost of fertiliser as an item in the cost of a pound of butterfat. It may be noted, for instance, that in the comparisons cited above the overhead for fertiliser is 48 per cent higher with light use of fertiliser than the relatively liberal use (1.193 d in the former case in comparison with 0.803 d a pound of butterfat in the latter case). While it cannot be deduced logically from the evidence under review that freer use of fertiliser always results in lower overhead costs in dairying it does seem clear from the data given that many farmers in their fertiliser practice do not even approximate the probable limitations in the amount of fertiliser that may be used profitably, and that indeed there are those who use fertilisers to such a restricted extent that they hardly provide themselves with proper evidence about the results obtainable from judicious top-dressing. It is relevant to the above considerations that the raising of fat lambs is ; analogous to dairying in that it ds based i primarily on the production of milk. As . is to be expected from this, experience shows'that the reaction to top-dressing is similar, whether the resultant supply of feed be devoted to the production of butterfat or of fat lambs. In fact, nor-: mally, the influence of fertiliser can be turned into cash more certainly and more readily in the raising of fat lambs than in dairying: this is because in raising fat lambs the season of the need of additional milk-producing feed often coincides more completely than in dairying with the, production of additional milk-producing feed due to top-dress-ing—much of the benefit of popular topdressing results in additional fresh leafy feed in spring and summer just when the crop of lambs need the nutriment obtainable from such feed either directly or indirectly through the ewes.