ON THE LAND
Wet, muddy, downtrodden and lifeless
T
his summer Gauteng
has had the highest
rainfall in more than 20
years, which will have led in
certain areas to a problem in
smallholder pastures called
pugging.
Pugging happens when
grazing animals tread wet soils
and sink into the pasture
surface and leave large holes.
Their hooves create shallow
holes of compacted soil,
damaging the pasture by
From page 27
Are you a victim of pugging?
burying it in the mud.
Continual pugging will lead to
the paddock looking like
brown soup. The smallholder
will think that we just need a
few days and it will all dry
out. However, we need to
realise that in some cases the
delicate crumb structure of
the soil is broken down. The
crumbs are smeared by the
pounding action of the feet,
of smallholder livestock
owners to overstock the
and the soil air is squashed
pasture, which means there
out.
are more animals on that
patch of land than there
It can be a period of months
to years, or sometimes longer, should be.
before this delicate crumb
You will know you have this
structure is restored. Research problem when:
has shown that return to full
KPaddocks soon turn to mud
pasture production can be
when grazed during wet
delayed by up to nine months periods.
in bad cases.
K Gateways and around
water troughs are particularly
The problem will have been
made worse by the tendency muddy.
BEEKEEPING
Most importantly, once the
weeks, taking one to the end hives have been placed on
of September and the end of the aloes and the two supers
the aloe flow. By doing this
added, do not open or
over such a short period the
meddle with the hives until
queens do not swarm off and the time for cropping the
before they know what has
honey, and do not experi-
actually happened they are
ment with the swarms, or the
back in a much cooler climate bees will abscond.
on the Highveld gums.
Given the invasion of black
capensis bees, conventional
queen breeding has simply
become a non-starter for
highveld beekeepers.
By Peter Clark, chairman of
the Eastern Highveld
Beekeepers Association, tel
011 362-2904
29
www.sasmallholder.co.za
Continued on page 30