Earthworm Could Be Made To Function On Every Acre

Wanganui Chronicle, 27 November 1948, Page 6

Earthworm Could Be Made To Function On Every Acre

The opinion that it would be physically possible to have the earthworm functioning to a greater or less degree on every acre of land in the North Island within a period of lb years was expressed by Mr. R. O. Montgomerie, of Kakatahi, in evidence presented to the Royal Commission on the Sheep Industry in Wanganui yesterday.

The higher the rainfall, the greater the rapidity with which the earthworms would secure results, said Mr. Montgomerie. It was in the higher rainfall areas of the North Island where the most serious deterioration had taken place and these areas would most quickly respond to Inoculation.

“Providing an initial 'colony' of two wormed turfs 10 inches square and four inches in depth were provided for every thousand acres of hill country, in four years that worm colony would cut enough wormed turf to inoculate that 1000 acres at the rate of one turf to the acre. In my own case in six years after inoculation, an average of a acres for every wormed turf would be brought back into English grasses. It becomes a problem then of providing these initial colonies on every farm to complete the worming of the whole island iv 10 years.

“In my mind.” said Mr. Montgomerie,” the very most that such turf to the acre inoculation would cost is 2s an acre. This cost would reflect to a very great degree the extent to which the initial colony or colonies were placed in relation to the packing out of the squares of turf. Ten generous turfs can be quite a load for a pack horse on the wet hills In winter and spring. INOCULATION BENEFITS. “In my own conditions, in three years after inoculation one can ‘imagine’ that there is a ‘difference’ in winter colour at the point of inoculation. At the fourth winter there is ‘evidence’ of a marked stepup of fertility and in the fifth year the proof is definite and overwhelming.

“As to increased productivity and carrying capacity after the worms have retrieved hill country, there is always scope for doubt and for crediting fluctuating carrying capacities to the varying seasons. In my own case in a partnership where two partners are actively contributing to farming operations, a diversity of opinion inevitably creeps in over the liner points of management. Under conditions of more complete pasture control I would claim that this property has greater winter carrying capacity todav, than it had 10 years ago when we cropped for roots and cut both hay and ensilage. Some three vears ago I packed a turf to the acre over some seven hundred acres and on this 700 acres I will be very surprised if in another three years there is not approaching a 50 per cent, increase in the winter capacity on this country. “In two paddocks shut uo when the drought broke last autumn, for grazing with cattle alone, two paddocks which did not differ very greatly in area, there has been at least three times the grass growth in tne larger, based on cattle wintered (mostly wormd country) than in the case of the smaller and only lightly wormed paddock. These two paddocks were separated from each other bv a gully which runs between them. There is a difference of one year in the period

they have been in grass, 36 and 37 years respectively. Where I refer to three times the grass growth. I have measured this on the basis of the difference in the head of cattle wintered in the slightly larger paddock and the condition of these cattle. “ILL HEALTH OF SOIL.” “Germaine to this question of worm inoculation, is the vastly important question of whether the moderi ills of man, in the face of vast achievements in medical science, have ’heir source in the main, in some inferred ‘ill-health,’ in the soils in which man’s food is produced. Compost Club members tend to vigorously condemn all artificial fertilisers, even to basic (reverted) superphosphate. I have a personal preference for sepentine super and I would suggest that it is not the ‘super’ which does the iiarm, so much as super used without the earlier foundation of worm inoculation. From careful personal experience he would make the following claims for the earthworm: — That fully wormed pastures defy the coldest winter weather and grow right through the winter. That wormed pastures are the last to succumb to dry weather and droughts. That wormed pastures .ire the first to respond to summer rains. That wormed pastures are-the first to recover from a drought, once the rains come. That where phosphate >s used on wormed nastures, a far greater result is secured.