PAMPAS GRASS ON HIGH COUNTRY

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 63, Issue 2, 15 August 1941, Page 113

PAMPAS GRASS ON HIGH COUNTRY

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W. T. BROWN,

Fields Instructor, Taumarunui

MUCH has been written in recent years about pampas grass, but most of these articles have been confined to pampas as a winter feed on low country or on heavy moist plains. This plant, . however, will thrive quite well on hill country where conditions are hard and soil conditions not of the best, but on the harder soils plants take a year or two longer to establish. Sheepfarmers need to keep fairly large herds of cattle to control secondary growth on high country, and, as few of these men are fortunate enough

to have good hay paddocks, the question of feeding these cattle over the winter is a difficult one. One of, the following methods is usually adopted: —- (1) Buying hay and feeding the cattle over the winter. (2) Starving the cattle over the winter, with many deaths in the late winter and early spring. (3) Selling the cattle on a poor market in the autumn and restocking at high prices in the spring. (All these practices are costly and uneconomic.) Or (4) Growing feed on which to winter stock. It is with this fourth practice that pampas grass can be used to advantage, and it has proved itself to be a

very economic and profitable species for this purpose. Pampas grass will grow on most of the high country soils, and, if given reasonable treatment for two years, will become established and produce a fair quantity of feed in the third.

Planting Out

Successful growers in the Southern King Country have had greatest success by buying seedling plants and planting them out in a nursery bed for the first year. The plants are planted out in rows 1 ft. apart and 1 ft. between the plants.

In the spring of the second year, after the frosts are over, the plants are wrenched out of the nursery bed and planted out into the prepared beds in the permanent site. The preparation usually given is to remove about 2 feet square of turf and cultivate the soil to the full depth of the spade during the winter about two months before planting out the young plants.

The holes should be 6 feet apart and in 6-foot rows. ' After planting out, the young plants should be kept clear of grass and rubbish for two years. „■.. This clearing needs to be done two or three times during the first summer and twice during the second. Several methods of clearing are used. One is to slice the

turf round the plants with a spade and turn it over. Another is to clear away the grass with a reap hook, slasher, or scythe, but the best I have seen is to scythe the whole area and collect the surplus grass for hay. In the second year, some farmers have fed off the area with calves, instead of clearing away the grass. This practice will not kill the plants, but is not recommended, as the check given to the young plants makes the difference of at least a year longer before the area is ready to carry fullgrown cattle. It has been found that plants established for four years and

fed off in the second year are not as robust and do not/throw as much feed as three-year-old plants which have not been fed until the third year. . ' Another practice which has given good results is to split up old plants into smaller sections, with three or four crowns each and with a fair portion of roots, and to plant these sections straight out into the prepared holes. With this method of planting it is found that the outer sections give much better results than sections from the centre of the old plants.

Carrying Capacity

An example of the winter carrying capacity of areas established by the nursery method is provided by the performance of the following three 1 stands: —One acre of five-year-old plants last winter fed 30 bullocks for six weeks. These bullocks were allowed one hour per day in the plantation, and were in good condition at the end of the period. This stand is in very high country, some of which is dry hard papa and sandstone country, while the lower portions are fairly wet due to seepages. On another small area fourteen seven-year-old plants,' with no other feed at all, fed six four-year-old steers for eight days. v . • On the same farm, using three- and -year-old plants, this farmer wintered 21 calves on one acre of pampas

and some hay from July 17 until the beginning of September. It is interesting to note that half of this stand is the area which was fed off as two- . year-old plants, and that to-day, as four-year-old plants, they are no further ahead than unfed three-year-plants on the same area. Another interesting farm is one on which there are two larger areas of plants which have been fed off with sheep. One of the blocks is 15 acres and the other 14 acres, and the plants are mostly two-year-old plants, along with five acres of -year-old plants. During last winter these two blocks were fed off with an average of about 300 sheep for five weeks. At this time the bigger plants - were „ only half eaten,' but the sheep had to be removed to save the smaller plants from excessive grazing. The farmer estimates that ' this area would carry at least 600 sheep for 10 weeks if the plants were all five years’ old. Although these figures are , not conclusive, they at least show that pampas grass produces a large bulk , of good winter fodder, and, as these plantations grow older and plants grow bigger, the carrying capacity of these areas should greatly increase.

gllllllllllllllll llillllllllllllf H Following last month’s article on J the establishment of pampas grass, I the following articles give farmers’ experiences with the plant as a J U valuable producer of winter fodder, g ■llllllllllllll : ? miiiiiiiiiiiii

jhmiiihimohiiimiiiiiw FREE POSTAL SERVICE. So that readers will not be obliged to mutilate the Journal” to take advantage of the free coupon offers provided by advertisers, a Free Postal Service is published on page 164. There is therefore no need to cut coupons from advertisements; just fill in the comprehensive coupon s on page 164. ''HIUIUIIIIIIHIIIUIUUIIIIUHIUIUHIUINIHHIiIiniNIIIM