The Herald

50 years ago

CHIREDZI, 20 June 1967. — Just over a year ago the first contingent of men and machines moved into the Rhodesian bush in the south-eastern in Lowveld to begin clearing and levelling the land selected by the Government as the site for the Chiredzi Research Station.

Today, the first buildings have been erected and the lands are already production experimental crops of wheat, barley and seed beans. The new station headquarters of the entire Lowveld agricultural research complex and destined to exert a great influence on the region’s crop and livestock production, is due to be opened officially on Thursday week by the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Rudland.

The decision to set up a research centre in the Chiredzi area was taken in 1963. There are other two stations in the complex, the Sabi Valley Experiment Station and the Chisumbanje Experiment Station, at which research trials have been conducted on the response to cultivation of two of the Lowveld’s three main soil types.