Since the early 1940s there has been an appreciable change in the production of food crops: from the intensified methods of market gardening on fairly small holdings supplying the crops fresh to market, to large-scale production of these crops for processing for canning and deep freezing.
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(29 KB)To begin with I would like to say a few words about the title of this paper. It is exactly as given to me by the Grassland Association, “Evaluation of Economic Aspects of Aerial Top-Dressing”. It is not uncommon for the deliverer of a paper to be given a subject and then to select his own angle of that subject and title it accordingly. In fact, that is the more usual procedure, and of course could quite easily have been adopted by me in this instance.
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(75 KB)On 7 October 1769 Captain Cook sailed into a beautiful open bay after making his first landfall on the New Zealand coast. Two days later he hauled about and set out of the bay with neither the water nor the provisions he needed. “Poverty Bay” he called it and Poverty Bay it has been called to this day, in spite of efforts to rename the area “Gisborne-East Coast” and various other more suitable names.
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(79 KB)The Waerenga-o-Kuri Soil Conservation Reserve, approximately 20 miles west of Gisborne, was visited by members of the Grassland Conference during the morning of the field day. Those present when inspecting the large gully were able to appreciate one of the problems of Poverty Bay.
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(488 KB)During recent years quite a lot of information has been accumulated which shows the way in which sheep respond to different levels of feeding imposed for short periods at different times of the year. As a result, we have a very clear idea of which are the more, and which are the less important periods from the point of view of animal performance. Although there is still a very great need for long-term studies on a complete farm basis, designed to ascertain the grazing management systems that will give the best over-all results on different types of farm in different localities, the work already done has, at least, established the main principles upon which grazing management must be based if good results are to be obtained.
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(77 KB)At a recent conference of the New Zealand Veterinary Association Dr J. Melville, then of the Grasslands Division, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Palmerston North, spoke on pasture improvement and its relationship to animal health and production. Dr Melville rightly stated that as no surveys had been carried out, there was no positive evidence that pasture improvement had led to an increase in disease in farm animals grazing these pastures.
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(42 KB)We can distinguish two basic items about grassland that require measurement or assessment, namely (1) production and (2) botanical composition. Each has its own problems of evaluation. For the purposes of this paper we are concerned with production rather than with the species composition of pastures, although it may be difficult at times to consider one without the other. Production obviously depends to a considerable degree on the species present. Methods of assessing changes in production also assess the effect of changes in composition.
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(94 KB)After about a quarter of a century of pasture plant breeding in this country it is wise to attempt some evaluation of the plant improvement studies under way at present and projected for the future. Grasslands Division, largely through the efforts of Dr L. Corkill, has released, up to the present, eight improved varieties into the Government Certification scheme. These varieties have proved themselves in most parts of New Zealand to be superior to commercial varieties of New Zealand origin and to any introductions. The question is what further problems can we hope to solve by plant improvement methods. I propose to discuss briefly three main topics: Objectives of Selection, The Raw Material of Selection, and Methods of Breeding
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(63 KB)It is accepted virtually to the stage of being axiomatic that our climate has been of key importance in allowing us to develop an efficient pastoral industry
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(89 KB)To understand soil conservation problems in this district it will be necessary to note at the outset that our problems differ in many respects from those elsewhere in New Zealand, and particularly from those in the U.S.A. and Australia. The literature of soil conservation for the most part reports conditions in the U.S.A. and consequently to most people “soil conservation” conjures up pictures of gently rolling cropping land troubled by sheet and wind erosion and by minor gullying, all of which are brought under control mainly by measures which can be conveniently described as contour farming.
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(77 KB)The Gisborne-East Coast district consists mainly of steep hill country, with many small areas of rolling land on hilltops and strips of terrace and river flats in the valleys. The hill country extends to the coast in headlands 500 to 1,000 ft high separated by numerous valleys with steep sides. Valleys are narrow except those of large rivers, especially the Waipaoa River and associated tributaries which have formed the Gisborne Plains. The range of soils in the district is fairly small, but changes are very frequent and the pattern is complex. Both the pattern of soils and high relief of the landscape are due principally to the geological history of the East Coast, which is outlined in the following paragraphs.
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(269 KB)We have seen how the Maori inherited his land and how through the process of succession the numbers of the owners increased. I$w were lands with such a multiplicity of ownership to be farmed? Any one owner could start something ‘on his own account, and so could everyone else in the block who had a mind to do so. Trouble started and no one got anywhere. The solution lay in leasing to one of the owners, or some other Maori or European, or by incorporating the block.
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(31 KB)It is well known that the Maori, particularly of the older generation, has a great veneration for his ancestors and the land which was theirs and is now his. When the history of Maori ownership of land is known, then one can understand their “pride of possession”, which after all is a characteristic not limited to the Maori people. For example, in England landed estates have been handed down to generation after generation over the centuries and in New Zealand there are many instances of land still being owned and occupied by the descendants of the original pioneer settlers.
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(38 KB)Among our domestic animals the sheep has an outstanding virtue; if required to, it can live and produce, at least wool, on the most ’ sparse and inhospitable grazings, and because of this ability it has always tended to be relegated to the less favourable environments for plant and animal growth. On the other hand, as we well know, it can, when given the opportunity, produce at high levels on the highly productive pastures that are a feature of our modern farming.
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(74 KB)Phosphatic fertilisers applied over a period exert an effect which may last for a considerable time, depending on the amount of fertiliser used and the soil type. Thus, for instance, at Hoosfield, England, phosphatic fertilisers applied before 1911 continued to exert a marked influence as late as 1949. In field trials on a farm in Seine et Oise, France, phosphates applied before the Second World War, in excess of removals, have shown an after-effect up till 1952.
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