Special purpose pastures on light land

Abstract

The all-year-round feeding of stock on pasture without the aid of supplementary feed is an end greatly desired by New Zealand grass farmers. In some of the milder areas of the north this end is often achieved, but throughout the Dominion various factors operate against twelve months grazing. These factors are climatic, geographic, and edaphic. The story of grassland development has been one of modification of existing conditions by farmers so that pasture swards of greater or less productivity may be established and maintained. To exploit the advantages and to restrict the disadvantages of climatic and geographical effects management practices have been developed to suit local conditions. But to overcome difficulties presented by our various soil types much work has been needed to modify soil fertility in order to render the land useful for pasture production. A further refinement in dealing with our grassland problems has been the steady progressive improvement in our pasture species types through the research work of Mr Bruce Levy and and his team of agrostologists, backed up by the certification schemes operated by the Department of Agriculture, so that today the farmers have at their disposal a substantial array of types which on establishment can be guaranteed to perform according to specification; our perennial species are truly perennial and their productivity is high. The work of improvement in pastures has been accompanied by the highly intelligent utilisation of them by farmers prepared to exploit every advantage by the regulation of the types and numbers of stock to gain a reasonably high standard of utilisation. And it is through the demand for even more efficiency in utilisation that we have come to the stage of studying in some detail the seasonal productivity of species and their ranges of usefulness so that the “over the year” requirement of our stock may be met.