IRRIGATION WORK.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20483, 8 December 1934, Page 20

IRRIGATION WORK.

Scientific Tests Prove Its Value. FURTHER EXPERIMENTS. Irrigation trials held at Seafield, near Ashburton, were the subject of considerable discussion at yesterday’s meeting of the Council of Industrial and Scientific Research. The nature and effect of the irrigation on the light lands of Canterbury were brought before the council bv the Lincoln College Farm Advisory Department, which conducted the trials for the Research Department with the co operation of the Lands and Public Works Departments. These experiments are to be continued and the experts who are conducting them are to deal with soil survey and its significance to irrigation, to make yield trials with and without irrigation, and to investigate the possibilities of seed production on irrigated land. The type of pasture

which is worth irrigating will also be considered. The results of the Seafield experiments for the second year of their existence were explained to the council by the chairman (Mr G. Shirtcliffe), who said that through the abundance of rainfall in Canterbury for the 193334 season, conditions were not favourable towards showing up the difference between irrigated and non-irrigated pasture. Nevertheless, during the months of November and December the carrying capacity of irrigated fields grazed by ewes and lambs was 5.5, compared with 1.7 for non-irrigated. and during the later period of January to May, the corresponding figures were 6.1 for irrigated and 4.8 for nonirrigated. For the period from Septemi her to May, the carrying capacity was ■ increased from four to six sheep an acre. The hay yield from an irrigated pasture was almost four tons an acre. - while from the non-irrigated area, one 1 and one-third tons were cut. Lucerne - hay yielded three tons an acre from 1 irrigated land and one and one-third - tons from non-irrigated. 1 Effect on Grazing. 2 In the grazing trials, said Mr Shirt-

cliffe, irrigation was applied to fields which had been sown down with good stands of permanent ryegrass and white clover. Some less exact tests were made on poor brown top pasture. Mere the sheep-carrying capacity was doubled in consequence of the application of water, but the total carrying caoacity, even with this increase, was not an economical one. when compared with six sheep where the water was applied to good pasture and four sheep where good pasture was used without irrigation. An essential requisite of successful irrigation on grazing land was to ensure that the sward was composed of good strains of grasses and clovers. Mr Shirtcliffe said that the response of red and white clover to irrigation 1 and manuring on the comparatively 1 poor soil used in the trial was remarkably good and indicated that ■ there were distinct possibilities for : clover seed production in watered [ “ Altogether, the results for this un- • favourable year indicate that there may be distinct possibilities for the more extended use of irrigation in the drier parts of the Dominion,” he added.

! “ This, of course, is subject to a knowledge of the methods being disseminated.”