REPLACEMENT OF TALL FESCUE BY PASPALUM.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XXX, Issue 6, 20 June 1925, Page 378

REPLACEMENT OF TALL FESCUE BY PASPALUM.

The Northern Wairoa flats, which comprise an area of approximately 120,000 acres, are more or less subject to periodical flooding. Around Ruawai there is a considerable extent of country covered with tall fescue. Of recent years, where the flood-waters have remained on the ground for a couple of weeks, the tall fescue has been killed out and paspalum has replaced it. The paspalum recovers after floods, whereas other grasses common to the district, including tall fescue, are killed out. This replacement is going on naturally, and is not being deliberately carried out by farmers. Where paspalum has charge on these areas it withstands, stocking better than English grasses, which are often killed out after floods and their place taken by such weeds as pennyroyal. Even where paspalum has been poached through being stocked after heavy - rains and floods it holds and even improves. The: interesting point, and one of economic value, is the replacement of a bad weed grass (tall fescue) by a very useful grass in the shape of paspalum.

T. H. Patterson.

1, Instructor in Agriculture, Auckland.