Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)
Growing lucerne that is always top grade
Irrigation farmer reveals a system that consistently produces only superior crops. Any farmer can grow and sell topgrade lucerne if he applies the cultural methods of Danie Struwig of Rietfontein farm, Brits, who has never sold a bale of lucerne of second grade or lower.
On his relatively small farm of 115ha situated 24km west of Pretoria, near Hartbeespoort Dam, he produces lucerne under irrigation on 17ha and dryland teff on 35ha.
A believer in ‘copy-book farming’, he had no agricultural experience when he started in 1976, but the Department of Agricultural Technical Services advised him.
At the outset, he took 50 soil samples from equidistant parts of his intended lucerne lands and gave them to the department for analysis.
The type and rates of fertiliser to be used specifically for the production of lucerne under irrigation were prescribed, and the required irrigation system completely planned.
Because of the shape and size of his land, creeping or rotary systems could not be used.
“We finally decided on a sprinkler system fed through movable aluminium pipes from main supply lines running through my lands,” he says. This requires more labour than other systems, but he manages perfectly with five full-time farmworkers.
Irrigation water is pumped from a dam he built in the Swartspruit. There are also several strong boreholes from which he pumps water into circular reservoirs connected to his irrigation system.
“I am fortunate in that I have more water than I can use,” he says.
In winter he and his workers start the pumps at 7:30am and they switch off automatically at 4pm. At this rate, an average of 150mm of water a week is applied to every section of the lucerne lands.
This application is gradually stepped up to about 200mm a week in spring and 400mm in summer, depending on weather conditions and rainfall.
No floodwater is allowed on the lands. A series of furrows and ducts surrounding all the lands diverts any run-off water back into the dam.
Struwig established his lucerne lands on virgin soil. He used a five-tine ripper to break up the earth to a depth of about 250mm, then levelled the lands with a mould-board plough. The remaining clods were broken up by hauling two lengths of railway line, chained 2m one behind the other, over the lands at varying tractor speeds.
The lands were then irrigated and a double-action disc used to obtain an even finer tilth. This was followed by a raking to remove all traces of grass, another discing and another treatment with the railway lines – this time at a slower tractor speed
– for final smoothing of the seedbed.
After a second irrigation, a fertiliser mixture of seven parts supers to one part of calcium and potassium chloride is applied at a rate of 10t/ha.
A hand-operated sowing machine was used to apply the seed at a rate of 20kg/ha.
The lands were sown during April and May 1976, and the first cutting was made in the following mid-October, when 285 bales of 27kg were harvested. Another four cuttings were made in the succeeding six months. The last cutting of the first season was made in April 1977, when the yield was nearly 500 bales.
Immediately afterwards, all bare patches on the lands were seeded, again using the hand-operated sowing machine.
Because of the more even stand, he expects that the yield during the second season will be substantially higher.
Part of his production programme is based on regular weather reports from the meteorological office. He never starts cutting his lucerne before he has had a weather forecast of at least three clear days.
On the first day the lucerne is cut, on the second it is raked into windrows, and on the third, baled.
He applies early for railway trucks so that, on baling day, they are waiting to be loaded in the railway siding on his farm.
The bales are transported directly to a bulk buyer in Johannesburg. “In this way, all unnecessary handling of the lucerne is eliminated. There is hardly any loss of leaf, and the crop always makes the top grade.”
There is a good demand for this highquality lucerne and his buyer is always urging him to produce more.
This article first appeared in the
14 December 1977 issue of Farmer’s Weekly and has been edited to adhere to the current style of the magazine.