PUMPKIN-GROWING FOR SHEEP.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XIII, Issue 4, 20 October 1916, Page 266

PUMPKIN-GROWING FOR SHEEP.

A. J. FAULKNER,

Wairakaia, Gisborne.

The writer’s experience in growing pumpkins for sheep-feed has proved so satisfactory that a few notes regarding methods of culture, &c., may be of use to Journal readers. The advantages of pumpkin-growing, I have found, are the small cost of the crop, the practical certainty (in the Poverty Bay district at least) of a fair to good' yield, and, 'in my own case, the opportunity the crop affords for shutting up for a couple of months the hill country on which it is intended to winter hoggets, . thus giving, any cattle I may have in the paddocks a better chance. It also, gives the grass a spell, and leaves clean paddocks with sweet feed for the hoggets to go on. to.

My practice is to plough the land before the middle of August, if possible, and in September to work it down fairly fine, with

the idea of giving any weeds a chance to germinate, then about once a fortnight putting the tine harrow or cultivator over the paddock to destroy any weeds. Sowing is done from the middle to the end of October. I have tried various machines, but do not find them satisfactory. Sowing on the flat in rows 16 ft. to 18 ft. apart and in clumps of three seeds a yard apart in the row can be recommended. A man with a single-furrow plough can line out rows 16 ft. to 18 ft. apart at the rate of about 16 acres a day, and four men or boys can sow (if they keep going) 16 acres per day, using 4 lb. to 6 lb. of seed per acre. In lining out rows we try not to have the plough - furrow more than 2 in. deep. Transplanting for gaps is not necessary : it is better to fill in with fresh seed. In my case the crop is intercultivated twice with either single, double, or three-horse’ cultivator, the only hand-work being in the row between and round the plants. If manure is required, guano has given good results, putting a small handful with each , clump of three seeds.

The pumpkins grown are known in this district as ordinary sheep and cattle pumpkins, and by saving one’s own seed from the strongest strains those showing the best keeping and feeding - value properties the improvement in future crops is very noticeable.

When the sheep are first put on to the pumpkins they eat all half-ripe and soft-skinned ones. After about a week's time it is necessary to commence splitting the harder pumpkins. Splitting for 1,500 sheep takes about an hour a day.

The area of the paddock shown in the photograph is 17 acres, and besides the pumpkin crop it contained a 13-ton stack of lucerne hay, to which the sheep had free ’ access. Fifteen hundred ewe hoggets were put in on the 14th June, and were run five' days on pumpkins and one day on grass until the 15th August total of fifty days and twelve days respectively.

Hay is very necessary for sheep on pumpkins, and I myself prefer to let them have access at will to a . stack. This saves cost of carting, and there is really not a great deal of waste. In the present case, when the stack got well undermined and started to rock; we put a wire cable on to one corner, tied the cable to a dray drawn by three horses and screwed the stack half round. This made the stack settle down firmly, and in no way damaged the thatching.

The photograph was taken after the sheep had been on the pumpkins for a considerable time, when all leaves and foliage h ac i been pretty well trampled down.