Tobacco Notes Cultivation of the Ground

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 59, Issue 6, 15 December 1939, Page 501

Tobacco Notes Cultivation of the Ground

TOBACCO growers should maintain a thorough cultivation with the horse hoe once every ten days for at least three passages. By that time the plants will be almost covering the land between the rows. Horse work should cease as soon as there is danger of damaging the leaves with the machine or the traces. ” - Hand cultivation should be kept going i so . that the seedling weeds do not become strong and deep rooted. Care should be taken that the hoeing is not deeper than two inches, otherwise the hoe will damage the . tender roots. of the tobacco plant. Cuts or abrasions on the roots will allow of the entry of the germs or spores of the mosaic, disease when it is present in the soil. : A careful watch should be -kept for the first signs of the tobacco miner

grub. It attacks the small lower sand leaves first, and lives in the cell'tissue between the upper and lower skins of the leaf. It can feed only in an almost ripe leaf, and these small sand leaves are. ripe . and fit food for the miner at a very early date. Whenever an infected leaf is seen it should be picked and the spot crushed ■ between the fingers before throwing on the ground. - There are three cycles in the ■ summer of ' this pest, and the grubs present . at this time are the grandparents of those which can cause immense damage to the crop in February just before harvesting tobacco. If these early miners are destroyed, very little will be seen of the pest later on! i ■ The miner hibernates in sow thistle and other weeds that live under hedges and on the headlands of tobacco plan-

t'ations, and is also found extensively on the wild cinerarias. —CHARLES LOWE, Tobacco Instructor, Motueka.

At Coal Creek, near Roxburgh, Central Otago, a serious amount of damage was caused to a number of stone-fruit orchards by a heavy cloudburst last year, • the. rush of water uprooting trees and leaving an accumulation of boulders and other debris. Government assistance was promptly made available to the growers affected, and men were engaged clearing away the rocks, etc., and otherwise restoring the damage as far as it was considered economical to do so.