PASTURE CONTROL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19344, 19 November 1932, Page 15

PASTURE CONTROL

GRAZING AND MANURING As stems develop in grass the quality and digestibility of the pasture begin to decline. The best pastures are those which retain a leafy type of herbage for the longest time. Grassland management is neither simple nor easy. Much prominence has been given in recent years to the question of intensive complete manuring and rotational grazing. The early Results have been highly successful, but where the system has been in operation for a number of years and careful observation has been made, changes are noted and difficulties experienced that cannot be desregarded. The nature of the grass changes with the manuring and with close grazing. At first all the grasses would appefir to respond to higher manuring; perennial ryegrass is usually predominant in early summer and bent grass (Agros-

tis) in late summer and autumn, says Mr William Lawson, Director of Agriculture for West Sussex, in the British Journal of Agriculture.” In practice the greater palatability of ryegrass results in the ready consumption of this grass in early summer, whereas the autumn growth of bent is less readily eaten and it consequently increases in vigour and in amount. Under such conditions the perennial ryegrass appears to get weaker and to give place to the less desirable Agrostis. This is a tendency that should be counteracted. Different types of pastures will be affected differently and will require a type of management suited to the particular conditions. Mr Lawson’s observations have been mainly made on good old pastures in the south of England, and from them it would appear that applications of nitrogenous manures to pastures should be confined to early spring, and that the first growth should not be too closely grazed. In the interest of the pasture close grazing should be specially aimed at in the autumn, and if the autumn grasses are well eaten off the ryegrass will increase during winter and will be ready to produce bulky and nutritious grass early in the following summer.