ART OF THE FARMER

Waikato Independent, Volume XLIV, Issue 6093, 25 August 1947, Page 6

ART OF THE FARMER

WELFARE OF ALL STOCK GOOOD PASTURE MANAGEMENT The welfare of both pasture and stock is wrapped up in the way the pastures are managed. The higher the level of production from grassland—be this due to high fertility, use of the best-quality pasture seed, or both—the more important does management become. Nothing can take its place.

There is a happy medium at which to aim—to allow the plants to retain sufficient leafage for their manufacture of plant food sufficient for the rapid growth of root and shoot, and a little over for food reserves. This is best achieved by rotating the herd or flock round a portion or all of the farm, and allowing, a rest period from grazing for each field in turn. Therein lies the art of the farmer. It is his responsibility to the pasture, and in turn to the animal. Without some such scheme it is difficult to see how pastures can be maintained more or less permanently in a thriving condition, and how partial starvation of stock can be avoided at some periods of the year. . Pasture management need not involve capital outlay on a normally well subdivided farm. It depends for its success solely on the ability of the farmer to do the best he can in the matter of controlling his pasture growth. The fundamental principles are simple, and are related primarily to the response of the pasture plants to the grazing animal. When pasture plants are continually closely grazed they are prevented from building up food, reserves to tide them over difficult growth periods. The consequence is that, with a depleted root and shoot system and no food reserves, they fail to stand up to rigorous competition; and so weeds —flat weeds that are more able to withstand such .treatment—take their place. On the other hand, where pasture is too leniently grazed, especially in spring, the herbage becomes too mature and loses much of its feeding value. The result is bad for both stock and pasture. The natural tendency for grasses during late spring is to run up to seed heads, and when once seed has been produced they tend to die back and enter into a period of dormancy unfil autumn. These plants are slower to commence autumn growth than those which have not been allowed to seed. In addition, too much top-growth, if allowed to persist, opens up the pasture, as the light is kept away from the lowergrowing plants or shoots. This can also permit the invasion of weeds.