Digest

Pacific

Planters'

Rearing Chicks

IF you have put in a request for day-old chicks from a hatchery your success in rearing them will depend on what preparation you have made from about a week prior to their arrival.

Poultry farmers who intend to raise chickens for eggs or meat on a profitable basis should start with day-old chicks and not second-hand birds. There is little need to stress that day-old chicks should come from a reliable hatchery.

Chicks from hatcheries have not been exposed to the possibilities of chills, nor have they been exposed to infection from adult birds as is often the case with birds purchased in local markets. From an economic point of view naturally the chicks must have a good start in life.

Cross-bred poultry are more profit able than pure-bred, but it is not wise to breed from them. Breeders are advised to keep pure-bred birds. Some poultry farmers frequently change their breeds with the hope of getting better results. There is, however, no “best breed”, but there are good and poor flocks among all breeds and varieties.

If high egg production alone is wanted, it is wise to keep White Leghorns or cross-breds. If egg and meat production is the primary in terest one of the general purpose breeds such as Rhode Island Reds or cross-breds should be kept.

The essentials for rearing the chicks are warmth, fresh air, ample room under the cover, dryness and cleanliness. Chicks can be reared with broody hens if they are avail able and up to 15 chicks can be put under one hen. Chicks should be put under the hen very gently, at night, so that next morning she thinks she has hatched them herself.

Rearing chicks by artificial brooder is not difficult and with care, very good results can be obtained. Care lessness will result in very heavy losses. Chicks must not only be warm and dry. but they must have suitable food in front of them all the time, and they must always have clean drinking water.

Chicks should also be protected

from draughts. If in doubt, hold a lighted match at floor level, and if the flame flickers a draught is in dicated.

If chicks have not sufficient warmth they will huddle together and a persistent loud cheeping will in dicate their discomfort. Brooder temperature should be about 95 degrees, and the heat should be gradually reduced day by day so that by the time the chicks are three or four weeks old they can do with out heat.

When chicks are six to eight weeks old, it is generally necessary to remove them from the brooder and place them in houses. It is par ticularly important they have enough space to eat, drink and run about.

Each chick should be given the equivalent of i square foot from day old to five weeks of age, 1 square foot from 5-12 weeks of age, and 2i square feet from 12 weeks onwards.

When chicks are in the brooder, sudden noises should be avoided.

Attacks On Egg Plant

ONE or two pale spots on the calyx at the base of an egg plant indicate the presence of egg fruit caterpillar. Crops of egg plant can be seriously damaged by the caterpillar. Small caterpillars in in fested egg fruit may show little sign externally of the havoc they have caused. Older grubs usually make small holes at the surface, but against the dark skin of the fruit these are often hard to see.

The caterpillar is the larva of a moth, which in its life cycle passes through four stages, namely, egg, larva (or caterpillar), pupa, and the adult moth.

When the egg is laid on the calyx and appears as a pale spot about one fortieth of an inch long it has a characteristic shape when magnified.

It is seen as a flattened dome like an upturned shallow oval basin, about one half as wide as long, and with a low ridge running down the middle.

The surface, though glistening, has a roughened appearance.

The mature larva is nearly one inch long, usually uniformly pink in colour, and with a small brown head.

Except for some inconspicuous hairs, the body surface has a smooth appearance. As well as damaging the fruit, the larva occasionally bores in the stem of the egg plant but does not mine in the leaves.

The larva of the potato tuber moth can also cause extensive leaf mining of the egg plant, but it does not bore deeply into the fruit and usually causes only superficial damage.

Combating

Banana Problem

Although often pinkish in colour like the egg fruit caterpillar, it grows to only about half an inch in length.

Almost immediately after being hatched the egg plant caterpillar burrows into the fruit, usually under the shelter of the calyx lobes, and bores deeply into the tissue.

When fully grown it emerges from the fruit and begins to spin a whitish silken cocoon. Inside the cocoon it changes into a brown pupa from which the adult moth later emerges.

The cocoon is a familiar object to growers because it is often found on cases in which fruit has been placed to await sorting. It is about three fifths of an inch long, pointed at one end, and anchored down by silken strands.

The egg fruit caterpillar can be controlled if DDT is applied weekly at a concentration of 0.1 per cent., using a thorough spray coverage. This application is usually successful but it must be remembered control is difficult at times because a small population of moths laying a few eggs on each fruit can soon spread an infestation through a crop.

Young larvae are exposed to insecticide for only a short time before penetrating the fruit. The spray coverage therefore must be very thorough to ensure that the larvae are quickly killed after hatching.

Finger Rot

In Bananas

rot is probably the major A cause of deterioration of bananas during shipment and after landing.

It is caused by a number of fungi that get into bananas through wounds, such as those made when fingers are broken off the cushions before packing. Where hands are shipped, finger dropping may occur as a result of rotting at the point of attachment of the fingers to the main stalk.

Finger rot can be recognised by the brown to black rot which com mences at the broken or cut end of the banana and which extends into the fruit. On hands, it commences on the cushion, probably at small cracks caused when the hand is wrenched off the stalk, and it progresses down each finger.

It should be noted the fungi as sociated with finger rot normally live on decaying plant parts and they cannot invade unwounded fruit.

Spores of the fungi are normally present on the fruit in the field and when a wound develops or bananas commence to ripen, they germinate and invade. Any harvesting or ship ping procedure which injures fruit naturally makes the fruit susceptible to the disease.

Fruit for shipment should not then be harvested when it is too ripe.

All bunches should be handled care fully and the importance of this cannot be over-stressed. For the hand trade, cut the hands off the main stalk instead of twisting them off the cushions.

If hands are to be shipped, the hands should be painted with suit able fungicide wax. If fingers are preferred, they should be washed in a 1.5 per cent, solution of sodium salicylanilide for two minutes, and then washed with water.

Always avoid unnecessary delays

Care Needed In Handling Fruit

in getting fruit from the field into cold storage.

Anthracnose or ripe fruit rot is a transport and ripening problem and it can be found everywhere on ripen ing bananas. Up to a certain stage, it is merely an indication of the stage of ripeness, and very little can be done about it and it has very little effect on the internal quality of the fruit.

The symptoms of anthracnose are small round brown spots, slightly sunken, which appear all over the surface of the fruits when they com mence to yellow. The spots may enlarge to cover the whole fruit.

Often anthracnose and finger rot develop simultaneously. In a moist atmosphere, the surface of the spots becomes covered with pink spore masses of the fungus.

Sources of spores are probably old decaying flower parts and leaves and there may be some infection in dirty packing sheds and from leaves used to cover banana bunches during the trip down the rivers.

Anthracnose is reported to be more serious during the wet season when banana skins are softer, and conditions are more favourable for its growth.

Every injury during harvesting and packing makes anthracnose worse— another reason why fruit should always be handled carefully. If bananas are to be washed, running water from a clean source should be used. Plants should be kept free from dead leaves by periodic trashing and unpacked bananas should not be covered with dead leaves. Fruit should be placed in ship’s cold storage as soon as possible.

Aid For Banana

Eradication

GROWERS who wish to eradicate banana plants on their planta tions have been given a new tool in the form of Picloram.

Picloram, available commercially as a mixture of 5 per cent, picloram and 20 per cent. 2.4-D (Tordon 50D), has the advantages of required concentrations being low and long life in plants and in the soil. These properties enable it to prevent sucker re-growth where 2.4-D and MCPA often fail.

Eilimination of the need for re treatment of a plantation, which may

be required several times when 2.4 D is used, is evidence of the high value of Picloram.

This new product may be applied by either injection or spraying. Tor don 50D is diluted 1 in 50 in water when injected, using 5 cc for suckers, 10 cc for half-grown pseudostems and 15 cc for mature plants. When sprayed, a concentration of 1 in 100 is sufficient, and the plants should be cut off and the exposed bases sprayed.

Picloram has a residual life of up to two years, thus precluding its use on land which is required for crop ping in less than this time. Grass pastures could become established, but legumes would be affected.

Because of its long residual life, Picloram will not entirely replace 2.4-D or MCPA for banana eradica tion where crops are to be returned, but it will be particularly valuable in abandoned, overgrown and inacces sible plantations where inspection for disease is difficult and unsatisfactory.

For the eradication of plantations that have reached the end of their commercial life, Picloram is recom mended for trial by banana growers who do not wish to replant within two years.

This herbicide is also being used for the control of brush and weeds resistant to 2.4-D and 2,4,5-T.