Tuesday 27 July 2021
Sammie and Michael Parkes’ Tuamarina farm under water during this month’s flooding. Photo: Keelan Walker. Insert: Michael and Sammie.
Flooding wreaks havoc Peering through the windscreen as her car wipers struggled to cope with the deluge, Sammie Parkes was desperately trying to get back to her family’s farm. It was a Saturday afternoon and the road home to Tuamarina had
been closed as one of the largest storm systems in decades bore down on Marlborough. Flooding, slips and fallen trees were causing chaos on roads across the region and the main routes in and out of Blenheim on
SH1 were closed as river levels rose rapidly. Beneath the Wairau Bridge, on the route Sammi would usually take going back to the farm, a torrent of muddied waters churned just below the surface of the road.
The road was closed, effectively trapping 60 motorists who were stuck between the closed bridge and a slip outside Picton. Determined to get home, Sammi turned her car around and tried another route, not yet closed to
traffic. “I thought ‘this looks bad’, especially as we were due much more rain,” she says. As Sammi battled to get home, continued on page 2
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TUESDAY 27 July 2021
Rural News
Flooding wreaks havoc
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Michael Parkes surveying damage at his Tuamarina farm. Photo: Supplied.
her husband Michael was on the farm trying to tend to their 900 sheep and 20 cattle. Getting them to higher ground was a priority. As the Wairau River broke over its banks, it was “all hands on deck” as the flood waters washed in at speed. Then an emergency alert went out, telling residents to evacuate as soon as they could. The whole Tuamarina area was evacuated, following on from Lower Renwick and Springcreek as the sheer force of the river broke through stopbanks. As the Parkes’ property sat slightly higher then their neighbours, many fled to their home. Days on and the clean up is still happening with much of the land still underwater. Seeing the full devastation from above via a drone photo taken by Keelen Walker was quite astonishing, she says. The photo was taken for Marlborough Weekly and posted on their Facebook page. Sammi was tagged in the photo. “It was pretty incredible to see.” But Sammie says they and the animals are doing alright now. A fact she is really grateful for. “We are very fortunate.”
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Rural News
Disease eradication on track
The latest report from the independent Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for the Mycoplasma bovis (M. bovis) response shows New Zealand is on track to eradicate the disease. M. bovis Programme Director Stuart Anderson says he knows farmers have found the process challenging. Their contribution has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated, and 4 years on since the disease was first detected, immense progress has been made towards eradication. We now have just three active confirmed infected farms, compared to 34 farms 2 years ago.
Flood feeding problems
Farmers with stock feeding issues in the wake of last Saturday’s storm are being urged to register for help. Marlborough District Council is advising people to contact 0800FARMING to be connected with the Feed Coordination Service. If you have feed you would like to do-
nate, or feed for sale, please also register through the same number. Please use this email if you don’t have cell/ phone coverage: kate@ruraldirections.co.nz.
Pest prank
A dead wallaby found on the side of road, on State Highway 1 in the Whangamoas, is most likely a “transport and dump” situation, a council spokesperson says. Rai Valley residents took to Facebook after finding the carcass of the marsupial. The pest species is prevalent in South Canterbury and would be devastating to pastoral farming and ecosystems in the region. “Technically the carcass was found in the Nelson region but given we received the reports, the Council actioned a retrieval anyway,” the council spokesperson says. “The Council is confident this is a ‘transport & dump’ situation. There are no established wallaby populations in Marlborough and our aim is to keep it that way as they would be a devastating pest to ecosystems and pastoral farming if they were to establish here. Please report any sightings to the MDC Biosecurity team so the appropriate investigation actions can be taken as soon as possible.”
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Tohu Wines tastes success
Jo Kent
Tasman’s Tohu Wines are toasting their success after receiving one of the 50 ‘Best in Show’ accolades at the 2021 Decanter World Wine Awards. Their standout 2018 Whenua Matua Chardonnay held its own among 18,000 other wines judged in the competition. Tohu were the only New Zealand winery to receive a Best in Show award, so it was a huge achievement for the world’s first Maori-owned and operated wine label. The Whenua Matua Chardonnay 2018 is a single-vineyard wine grown in the rich clay soils of the Upper Moutere region. The grapes are handpicked by day, then transported over to their Awatere Valley vineyard in Marlborough for processing. The wine is then selected from the very best barrels of hand-picked, whole-bunch pressed 15-year-old Chardonnay vines. As 2018 was a tough vintage with tropical cyclones and torrential rain, chief winemaker Bruce Taylor
Tohu Wines chief winemaker Bruce Taylor celebrates the win. says they are “pretty stoked” to see such a good wine come out of such a challenging year. “We’re especially pleased for the vineyard guys because it’s all about selecting particular portions of high performing varieties,” says Bruce. The idea is that it’s not manipulated too much in the winery, so it showcases exactly what the vineyards can do. “For Whenua Matua to be rewarded for its strengths is really great,” he says. Winning the Decanter award comes
with worldwide prestige and orders have increased already. “On the back of the win, we’ve had large orders of pallets going to our UK importers and the South Koreans have also ordered more. It will just keep going from there.” Tohu Wines is owned by the Kono food and beverage company. Chief executive Rachel Taulelei says the company is “immensely proud” of the win. Established in 1998, around 200,000 cases of wine are produced at its winery in the Awatere Valley.
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TUESDAY 27 July 2021
Rural News
Farmers make their voices heard
Marlborough farmers joined a chorus of howls earlier this month for the Howls of Protest event. Several hundred people made their way to Seymour Square in Blenheim to voice their concerns about more and more government regulations being handed down to farmers. Here are some of our favourite photos from the protest from our photographer Matt Brown who went along on the day.
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TUESDAY 27 July 2021
Beehives awash, but farmers aid Patrick Dawkins Beekeepers have begun counting their hive losses and retrieving equipment following recent flooding in Marlborough, with some having lost hundreds of colonies of bees. However, the state of many apiaries remains unknown as beekeepers remain cut off from their hives. Entire apiaries have been washed away across the region, with flood waters making recovering bees and equipment impossible in many cases. However, many beekeepers have already completed the arduous task of retrieving flood-damaged hiveware – with some remarkable cases of bee survival and rescue. Marlborough has 70,000 registered beehives and damage has been widespread, with flooding, washouts and landslides across much of the region. A particular area of high hive loss was around the confluence of the Waihopai and Wairau rivers, where several apiaries have been washed away. Taylor Pass Honey Company have thousands of hives spread
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We had put all the effort into maintaining them and getting them ready for sale in September. So, it is a hit - Dale De Luca
across the South Island and, while operations manager Rex Butt was not able to put a number on their losses, it is likely to be in the hundreds. Butt says beehive losses are a setback, but as a percentage of overall hives owned it is small and will not have a big impact on the business going forward. They sent staff out on Saturday July 17 to check on apiaries as flooding intensified. Some hives were moved to higher ground, but it soon became an issue of staff safety and so rescue attempts were cancelled. Putake Queen Co., which specialises in queen-bee breeding and sales, had two apiaries completely washed away. Most of the hiveware was retrieved and owner Dale De Luca
says they were very surprised to see some colonies had survived being washed hundreds of meters downstream at a Rapaura apiary. “It was amazing, in that some hives got swept up, were overflowing with water, yet they found air-pockets to survive,” De Luca says. “They have basically been covered in water, bounced and bashed through the forestry and survived. We have recovered about 30 percent of the colonies from that site. We went through and rehomed them and now they are right as rain and the queens are there.” Despite that survival, the loss of over-wintered queen-bees, the company’s most valuable stock and which were due for sale in September, means the timing of the flood damage is bad for Putake. “We had put all the effort into maintaining them and getting them ready for sale in September. So, it is a hit,” De Luca says. Restoring hives and cleaning up or burning equipment also comes at a cost, but De Luca says they are philosophical about it and the business will bounce back from the losses.
Beekeepers have been surprised to see bee colonies survive their hives being washed downstream in flood waters, such as this apiary in Rapaura in which hives eventually settled in Wattle trees on the Wairau riverbank. Several beekeepers have reported near misses to hive sites too, Putake included. “We had two beekeepers at a site
in the Para and while they were there rescuing our hives the water came up about 600mls. The water reached the hives as they
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lucky rescues were being loaded onto the truck. They obviously would have been gone if they hadn’t been rescued,” De Luca says. Beekeepers have also expressed gratitude to farmers and landowners who checked on hives and acted to prevent losses becoming worse. In one example, Greg and Helen Neal of Lower Wairau rushed out to place Putake hives on upturned apple crates, surely saving the bees as water later rose to the top of the crates, but not the level of the newly-raised hives. “Cockys have been outstanding really,” Butt says from Taylor Pass Honey Co’s perspective. “They have carried out a few rescues for us because they knew we couldn’t get in to their sites. They have let us know what is going on.” While the destruction of hives has come at near to the worst possible time of year for specialist queen-bee producers, for most beekeeping operations the disruptions are better timed. Marlborough beekeepers usually have little reason to access hives in the winter months and main honey flows don’t begin until November, leaving plenty of time to build up colonies.
Well established Marlborough beekeepers J Bush and Sons are thankful for the timing, with road access to the vast majority of their hives cut off through flood damage to Awatere Valley Road and Kenepuru Road in the Sounds. “Until we get a chance to get around the traps we won’t really know the extent of the damage, but the bees have got their winter food and so from that point of view we are good for another month or so,” owner Murray Bush says. In the region’s 1983 floods they had three hive sites washed out and while Bush expects some apiaries to have been damaged by slips or flood waters this month, he doesn’t expect it to be as bad as 38 years ago. With many hive sites across the province only accessible by 4WD vehicle, especially in winter and spring, flood damage to private tracks will be a concern to many beekeepers. Combined with the growing impact of varroa mite, access issues have the potential to setback hive health this spring if beekeepers are unable to administer treatments on time.
Norwood branch manager Trent Lindsay at a viticulture day at A&P Park in Blenheim last week. Photo: Matt Brown.
Tractors on show at A&P Park A tractor and viticulture machinery company took to town to show off their latest wares. Norwood swapped the showroom for A&P Park to give farmers a taste of the latest viticulture technology and machinery. Branch manager for Marlborough Trent Lindsay says it was a day to showcase the company’s specialised equipment. “It’s day to get our viticulture clients here, give them a coffee and a feed and celebrate anoth-
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er harvest,” he says. Their prayers for dry weather held until mid-afternoon, when the rain returned. Trent says they had a good turnout despite the forecast. “We’re showing machinery ranging from mowing, smaller tractors, all the way up to the final product – grape harvesters.” The New Holland T5 viticulture tractor, fresh off the boat, is a first for the market, Trent says. The top of the line tractor is
specially designed for vineyard work. “We have new grape harvesters, with side discharging destemmers.” A digger competition tested attendees’ skill and speed with a small excavator and $500 worth of diesel, courtesy of South Fuels, was up for grabs. Trent says Covid-hit supply chain issues aren’t a big problem for the company, with enough stock already in the country to last until Christmas.
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Rural News