Insecticides

Te Ao Hou, June 1962, Page 57

Insecticides If you are in an area where grass grub, porina, army worm, or crickets damage your pasture, your best method of prevention or treatment is with insecticides, but remember that it is illegal to apply them without the consent of the Director-General of Agriculture. The one exception to this rule is that you may apply D.D.T. super providing that: (1) All stock are removed from the pasture. (2) Sheep and beef cattle are not grazed on it earlier than 4 weeks after application and dairy cows earlier than 6 weeks. (3) You do not apply it to more than ⅓ of the farm. (4) The pasture is grazed down to 1 inch in height for sheep farms or 3 inches where it is to be grazed by cattle. (5) You do not apply it at a rate exceeding that which is specified in the directions for use. While talking of regulations, you will note that recently regulations Gazetted made it an offence to supply to a factory, milk or cream from a cow until at least 6 milkings after treatment with antibiotics. If you use penicillin to treat a cow, use the milk from the next 6 milkings after the final treatment, for the calves or pigs. Do not allow that milk to go through the pipe line. With the cows coming in it is a good opportunity to check up on your milking technique. Mr Petersen discussed this subject fairly fully in the last newsletter. Extensive trials carried out at Ruakura have shown that good milking technique can increase production by as much as 32% in a herd. In other words you could increase your production from say 12,000 lbs butterfat to nearly 16,000 lbs butterfat by carrying out the methods he described to you. In money this represents an increase of nearly £500 in a season and it does not increase your costs by one penny.