PALATABLE BRACKEN.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1415, 13 October 1923, Page 7

PALATABLE BRACKEN.

SILO METHOD UNSUCCESSFUL. A stock writer in the Melbourne “Australasian” discounts the theory put forward by a New Zealand paper that by a liberal application ot' superphosphate to bracken-infested land the pest has been converted into a palatable fodder. During the war, when labour was scarce, land was left out in grass, and the early attempts of the bracken to make headway were not checked as they would have been if the young farming population had ■been still on the land. With the idea of encouraging grass to grow between the bracken stems so that in grazing off the grass and the bracken would be bruised and killed, the land Was given a liberal dressing of superphosphates, and when the cows were turned into the paddock they fed down the bracken as close to the ground as they could. The inference is that the composition of the bracken has been so changed as to make it a valuable fodder. Thirty years ago a theory was propounded in Victoria to the ef r feet that bracken put into a silo would be converted into a very nutritious fodder. Few stock owners could be persuaded to try the experiment, and one season was enough to explode the theory. This New Zealand report has a somewhat similar flavour about it, though the fertiliser certainly improves the palatability of grasses. A practical method for destroying bracken is to mow it down, and, when in about ten days the shoots appear, the land is heavily stocked with sheep, which will eat the shoots before they uncurl, but not after. The continual cropping by sheep exhausts the plants, and this process is aided by sowing vigorous grasses. No doubt a good dressing of fertiliser will invigorate the grasses and help to choke out the bracken; and this is perhaps the greatest function the fertiliser can perform. On pasture land which has become exhausted of phosphates by continuous grazing, the best fodder plants are driven out by weeds. When phosphatic fertiliser is liberally applied the nutritious plants return and drive out the weeds. This has been shown by almost every experiment on the top-dressing of pasture land. The underground stems or rhizomes of bracken are steadily eaten by pigs, but previous to the New Zealand report no animal was known to have a liking for the mature plant.