GRASSLAND RESEARCH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 77, 1 April 1938, Page 5

GRASSLAND RESEARCH

NEED FOR CO-ORDINATION THAT SECTION STILL A “CINDERELLA” VIEWS OF THE DIRECTOR (Special to "Chronicle.”) PALMERSTON N., March 31. The necessity for the co-ordination of grassland research with animal husbandry was emphasised by Mr. A. H. Cockayne, Director-General of Agriculture, in the course of an address at the opening of the new building of the Grasslands Division of the Plant Research Bureau at Palmerston North this afternoon. Mr. Cockayne, who was the pioneer of grassland research in New Zealand, and the Director of the Plant Research Station until it was transferred to the Scientific and Industrial Research Department two years ago, performed the opening ceremony in the absence of the Minister ot Scientific and Industrial Research, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan. “It is unfortunate that neither the Minister in Charge of Scientific and Industrial Research nor the Minister of Agriculture is able to be present with us to-day," said Mr. Cockayne, “and it has therefore fallen to my lot to open the new buildings of the Grasslands Division of the Plant Research Bureau. It is not in the capacity of Director-General of Agriculture or that of chairman of the Plant Research Bureau that I wish to perform this ceremony, but rather as the individual representing in its entirety the original staff of the old biological laboratory ot the Department of Agriculture, from which has developed the Plant Research Bureau with its numerous divisions, of which the Grasslands Division under the directorship of Mr. Bruce Levy represents from some angles at least its most important unit. "For a moment I shall have to go back in retrospect. Thirty-four years ago I entered the Department of Agriculture to take charge of the department's biological laboratory. It was housed in a single room 16 feet by 12, the salary of its staff of one was £175 per year and £lOO a year was allowed for its maintenance. It has grown into a scientific organisation consisting of five divisions, grasslands, agronomy, botany, plant diseases and entomology with a staff of eight-live and an expenditure of over £33,000 per annum. I was intimately connected with the Plant Research Station until two years ago, when the Plant Research Bureau, under the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, was established, and the organisation built up from the aid biological laboratory of the Department of merged into that chairman I s' i •..-sing intei

Grassland Division, whose first permanent home after many vicissitudes ! we are opening to-day, amounts to a • little over £lO,OOO, and at first sight it might be thought that research in grassland would be adequately catered for, and the achievement was one for reasonable pride. But is it? Farming is often termed the backbone of New Zealand. That may or may not be true—l do not know—but what I do know is that grassland is not only the backbone but also the flesh and blood of New Zealand farming. It brings into being over £60,000,000 worth of production annually, and completely dominates our international livelihood.

“Proud as I am of the present status to which the Grassland Division has reached, 1 feel it is still a Cinderella, but let us hope not for long. Take our wheat industry for instance. In this industry for every pound’s worth of production id is spent, a total of about £5OOO. One half-penny for every pound’s worth of grasslands production would mean £120,000 petannum. We have a good way to go, but surely we should travel along the road more rapidly than in the past. Let us dwell for a moment on the example of wheat. Its capacity for extension in New Zealand is limited, and even a doubling of production, which is extremely unlikely, would add only another two or three million pounds. A doubling of grassland production would add thirty times that amount, namely £60,000,000. Such doubling on a reducing cost of production basis can be made practically possible only by scientific research. Hence 1 wish to emphasise the point that the work of the Grasslands Division is not only scientific but also essentially practical, and it must be etxended if our economic resources are to be fully exploited. “Problems in grassland farming we have in plenty and, although we are proud—perhaps rightfully so—of our grassland farming in comparison with that in other countries, it is in the economic solution of these problems that our future lies. In our actual grassland work pertinent to soils of high fertility or potentially so, we are in fair shape. On this type of land top-dressing, strain development of high-producing grasses and clovers, and actual grassland management are achieving profitable results, but in the maintenance and improvement of our more difficult grassland, the tussock areas and much low-grade hill country, the position is far from satisfactory, and cries aloud for research.

“Perhaps the most serious aspect so far as grassland is Hie lag that has taken place in the proper co-ordination of research Irom the animal aspect as distinct from the pasture aspect. A.-inhere I want to say that if we ere going to develop full utilisation of our present and future grasslands, u is reasearch into grasiWd farming in its entirety, the soil, the plant, the animal BkMfhe farmer are all taken into that must be developed. I ild for a word or two ot conI the director and staff

of the Grasslands Division—firstly on their attainment of a home, secondly on the excellence of that home, and thirdly on the real service to grassland farming that they are performing. With the best of luck for the