COVER CROPS

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 8 February 1923, Page 6

COVER CROPS

NELSON EXPERIMENTS Much interest is being taken in the experiments conducted by the Cawthron Institute on Messrs Bisley Bros.’ property at Milford, Nelson. The experiments are a continuation of the cover crop experiments which were carried out during the winter The cover crop experiments included plots of lupins, horse beans, and tares with oats. The object of the experiments was to ascertain how the crops eiuid be successfully grown, and also their relative merits for use in orchards on the Moutere Hills. The .cover crop experiments demonstrated that the use of two tons cf ground limestone and 5 cwt of superphosphates per acre was essential as an initial treatment of the land in securing the best results with horse beans and Scotch tares. In the case of lupins, it was found that lime was not so essential, but the use of phosphatic manure such as superphosphate was necessary in order t. obtain a .satisfactory growth. The need for soil inoculation for both horse beans and tares yas

clearly proved, but in the case of blue lupins it did not appear so necessary. Oie interesting feature of the winter exper.mer.ts was the good results obtained with horse beans and tares with oats. Both of these crops gave much higher crop yields than was the case with blue lupins, Frw-> this fact, it might be expected that bou: tare and horsebean cover crops would possess -a higher manurial rahe than the lupin crop.

One of the experiments which is now in progress has been designed to test the manurial value of the cover crops grown in the autumn. For this purpose oats t‘ve been chosen as the test crop. The cover crops were ploughed in towards the end of July, and the oats were sown at the beginning of September. The oats have made excellent growth over all the plot where good cover.crops have been turned in, but on the-untreated plots, where the cover 'Crops were •poor, the oats are correspondingly bad. The oats from small measured areas on the various plots have been .cut and weighed. The crop weights show that the tares cover crop has resulted in the highest increase in the. oats. Horse beans have given the next best and lupins have given the lowest increase in the yield of oats. In the ease of the plot where tares treated with two; tons of ground limestone and 5 cwt of superphosphates were ploughed in, the oat crop is four times greater than that obtained from untreated land.

Another experiment which will be I of great interest io farmers on Mou. i tere Hills soil is connected with the ; growing of fodder crops. A field of 19 acres has been set aside for this purpose. and a start has been made by conducting experiments on . a large scale with tares and oats, ; which were found to do so well under proper treatment in the winter cover crop trials. Although spring { sowings of tares with oats do not ' give such good results as autumn ' sowings, very good growth has been 1 obtained on of the plots, Tj )e t

following shows the green weights cf the crop -cut from plots treated in different ways: — Plot No. 1. —Treatment, untreated green produce per acre, 3cwt. No. 2.- —5 cwt Nauru rock phosphate, 12 ®>wt. No. 3.—4 J owt basic slag, 50 cwt No. A —4J cwt blood and bone mixture, 50ewt. The initial .cost of treatment of the land is high, but it must be remem- j bered that the lime will exert an influence on the soil for a period of eight years. It is anticipated that for the next three or four years land which has had the initial treatment will grow good leguminous crops with the annual application of 2| cwt superphosphate per acre.