Jury 14, 1906 
Growing Lucerne without Irrigation. 
° 
BY JAMES SLOANE, OF MULWALA. 
Ar a time when all pastoralists are 
deeply interested in forming plans to grow 
and conserve fodder to tide them over 
long droughts, a few notes on growing 
Jucerne without irrigation may interest 
your readers, Mulwala is situated sixty 
miles from Deniliquin in a dry district. 
The rainfall since 1896 has been seant 
and irreeular, In 1902, only 962 points 
fell, We comnienced lucerne- growing 
twenty-seven years ago, and have done so 
since, With varied 1esults. In the past 
there have been many failures, and our 
plans of planting and using the crop 
have had to be altered. For the last six 
years we have sown a paddock each 
August, and it has always est»blished 
itself. Even in 1902, when the wheat 
crop failed and we were unable to yather 
a sheaf of hay. 
For the present, at least, the drought.is 
ever, and our lucerne paddocks have come 
through itin good heart, even though in 
some cases the Murray pines have died 
beside them. They have been a great 
assistance in keeping our sheep at home. 
Without them we could not have done 
this unless at a heavy cost for imported 
fodder. 
We work our Incerne very simply, 
always trying to spare it when there is not 
sufficient mcisture to enable it to grow 
more than » few leaves. In long spells 
of dry weather it dies if the shoots are 
constantly removed. For this reason 
rabbits are most destructive, and if once 
they get a footing nothing’ short of the 
destruction of all cover and burrows will 
gave the lucerne. 
Thorough cultivation is necessary. The 
land should, after ploughing, be harrowed 
twice to make a fine seed-bed, t] en after 
sowing brushed, harrowed, and _ rolled. 
Sand may not require so much harrowing. 
1f heavy rain follows the sowing, there is 
uo need for rolling, but if the season is 
dry, rolling seems to be imperative to 
press down the earth and keep what mois- 
ture there is,in the soil: Our expcrience 
is different trom those who advocate roll- 
ing after sowing without harrowing. Oue 
paddock here was tried that way. and 
much of the seed remained on the surface 
and even with rain it was not able to get 
sufficient covering for germination, The 
soil should be fairly porous, witha clay 
subsvil within a reasonable depth. Lé 
any water lodges on the surface it will 
kill the pl nts. Sandhills are not well 
suited, though the hollows between them 
where the sand is shallow often give fine 
returns. 
Growers do not agree as to the amount 
of seedto sow to the acre. We: preter 
from 4 to b lbs. Ihave inspected a great 
many lucerne poddocks, and ‘the thick- 
ness of the plants on tke land gives but 
little indication of the quantity of seed 
THE 
AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
that has been sown. Only a limited 
number of plants can be grown on a given 
area, and it is important to have vigorous 
roots When too thick they adopt the 
policy of the survival of the fittest, when 
the moisture in the soil fails, and there ig 
a danger of a general die-out. Lucerne 
draws much of its nourishment from the 
atmosphere, and itshould never be de- 
prived of all its leaves, which are its 
lungs. Young plants stand hardship and 
ill-usage better than old ones, and it is 
easier to kill out an old-established pad- 
dock than a new one. Ié is usual to stack 
stock on to the oid paddocks and to spare 
the new ones The opposite should be 
done. This is the chief reason so many 
people fail to establish Incerne and keep 
it. The plants continue to increase in 
size, and ultimately in this country get 
too big to draw enough moisture from 
their sorroundings. They then die. 
Unless it can he irrigated, it is seldom 
that a paddock lasts more than seven or 
eight years. Allowing old plants to grow 
to their fullest height in the spring 
hastens their end if not cut back before 
the leaves begin to dry. All energy is 
exhausted, and wivhout heavy rain to 
cause a second growth, the majority of 
the plants die. ; 
We have tried maize crops, and twice 
succeeded in establishing good paddocks 
in this way, but all our first year failures 
have come from the nurse smothering the 
child. This country seems too dry for 
growing two crops at once. The elder 
takes everything to itself when it ripens, 
leaving nothing for the younger to carry 
on with. 
Indiscriminate stocking with all kinds 
of stock is a mistake. Horses soon worry 
a paddock out by cropping the crowns 
too closely and in other ways. No stock 
do better for themselves than horses.. A 
very little lucerne keeps them, and they 
never suffer from hoven, so common in 
cattle. Lucerne that horses have regular 
access to seldom lasts past a second year. 
Sheep, especially crossbreds, if constantly 
on it, eat out the plants, leaving the 
native grasses, which soon get the upper 
hand. Cattle do not seem to injure it, 
even when left on constantly, but when 
a strong, rapid growth comes after heavy 
rain, more especially in the spring, there 
is a danger of hoven. Sheep also get 
hoven, but not to the same extent as 
cattle. 
While it is important to the lucerne to 
keep it clear of other plants, it is not an 
advantage to the stock to have nothing 
but lucerne to eat. A patch of ordinary 
grass is a good thing in a paddock—none 
of it will be wasted. There may be grasses 
that would make a mixture with lucerne, 
but I have not seen them. For obvious 
reasons, it would be inadvisable to put a 
whole holding under lucerne. Not more — 
than one-fifth of a holding should, as a 
rule, be planted. There are difficulties 
in the way of cutting and stacking lucerne 
from grazed paddocks, but they can be 
11 
overcome. Keeping paddocks that are 
not irrigated. for cutting only is out of 
the question. 
All my experience has been without 
irrigation, though I have seen something 
of successes and failures with irrigated 
lucerne, mostly failures probably brought 
about by want of experience However, 
I have grown other fodders by irrigation, 
and know that irrigated lucerne (the 
finest of all fodder crops) can only be 
grown in small patches, and that the 
grower must be prepared to employ, say, 
one inan to every 10 or 12 acres. Also, 
he must have a substantial flowing stream 
beside him, 
Our resnits even this year have b-en 
satisfactory. {n the beginuiny of January 
we were bringing Iucerne hay from the 
Hunter. By the enl of the mouth we 
Were cuttiug our own lucerne for hoy. 
though our ordinary ¢ untry rem tined 
bare of pasture. Since January it has 
been heavily stucked alinost constantly. 
Of course these notes give the result of 
local experience only, and [ make no 
promise that they will apply elsewhere,. 
but I believe there are any places where 
they will. where the good qualities of the 
“king of fodder plauts” are not sufti- 
Cleutly appreciated, 
The quantity of bonedust required to 
the acre is about twenty bushels. The 
best way of applying it to rout crops is to 
drill it in with the seed. 
_S. MARSHALL & SONS 
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