SOME ASPECTS OF RESEARCH AND FARMER USE OF LEGUME-BASED PASTURES IN BRITAIN

Abstract

Energy considerations, together with the removal of the U.K. Government's subsidy on nitrogen fertilizer, have not shifted farmer emphasis from heavy reliance on bag nitrogen. ADAS officials are still convinced that bag nitrogen rather than legume nitrogen is the answer to increased production, even though U.K. farmers are now applying nitrogen at 20 times their pre-war rates for a mere doubling of stock numbers over this period. Examples are given of farmers from different regions in Britain who are successfully basing their enterprises on legumes rather than fertilizer nitrogen, Problems of herbage legume seed multiplication are discussed, along with the prejudice legumes suffer in terms of unpredictability, persistence, disease susceptibility, bloat and oestrogenicity. There is clear need for a large research effort to be mounted in terms of biological nitrogen fixation in the U.K. The relevance to New Zealand agriculture-of a projected move of U.K. farmers away from fertilizer nitrogen is discussed in the light of the proposed Kapuni urea factory.