Country-Wide January, 2017 by NZ Farmlife Media

GROWING NZ FARMING

Seed drill debate Scientist and farmer slug it out

IN CLOVER

David Keeleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s membership of a Mid Canterbury farm improvement club is money well-spent. p22

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Country-Wide January 2017

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Good advice

n this issue we are running part two of our series “How farmers learn” and it leads with the Lauriston Farm Improvement Club (p22). The club has been running since 1956 and membership numbers about 170. Some of the members’ fathers started with the club. The key to the club’s success seems to be the consistency from having the same adviser who knows the farm, the farmer and the family. When times got tough it seems the last thing most members would cut was the farm advisory cost. It is a cost-effective service with easy access to advisers. Some members use the advisers for specific advice, others opt for the full noise, from the paddock to farm succession. On some farms the advisers are almost assisting with the day-to-day running. During the 1980s downturn one of the better initiatives to come from the Government was the rural assistance scheme. I arrived back in South Canterbury in late 1988 from working overseas to find my family’s farm and others in the middle of the perfect storm. There was severe drought, interest rates were in the mid-20s and farm values had collapsed, dragging down farmer equity with it. The assistance package included the new start (exit) grants and free farm appraisals by farm advisers. It allowed

farmers to review their operations objectively with fresh eyes. Overall the scheme seemed to work well. Some farmers decided it was not worth carrying on and took the exit grant (or were forced to by creditors) which rose to $45,000. Others used the initial farm advisory package and further assistance to not only review and improve the farming operation, but to also create opportunities. Business was initiated between the farmers by the same adviser they were using. In South Canterbury 90 new start grants, 335 initial farm appraisals and a further 84 were paid for by the Government. It eventually rained, product and farm values rose again and many of the farmers are still farming today with high productivity. So far $728 million of taxpayers’ money has been poured into the Primary Growth Partnerships programme to help lift ag productivity. Perhaps it would be better spent making farm advisers more accessible to farmers who need them.

Terry Brosnahan

EDITOR’S NOTE

NEXT ISSUE Country-Wide February includes: • HEALTH & SAFETY – Why farmers don’t have to spend big money to comply with the rules. • BULL BEEF – Neil Aicken’s farming operation is like an onion with layers of new information to peel off.

• PARASITES AND PESTS – How to safeguard your animals and winter forage crops.

• RESEARCH – Why feeding grain to sheep grazing lucerne is a waste of time and money. • ENVIRONMENTAL MATTERS – Logan Wallace is fully immersed in water quality and nutrient management.

Got any feedback? Contact the editor direct: terry.brosnahan@nzfarmlife.co.nz or call 03 471 5272.

Top rams The latest generation Wairere ram lamb sires are available to you in February/March: Wairere Romney, Multiplier, Tufguy, Challenger (FE tolerant) and Dominator. Making your sheepfarming easier and more profitable

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More: p34

BOUNDARIES 8

Benefits of a dam half full.

Food for thought – paying a premium for quality.

HOME BLOCK

Riparian planting has its challenges reckons Phil Taylor.

Roger Barton finds there’s too much fine print.

It’s crunch time for Charlotte Rietveld.

How deer 302 won over Nick Loughnan.

NOTEBOOK

What’s on when and who’s doing what.

FACTS

Reece Brick tells how grass slowed the spring.

BUSINESS Farmers shaken and stirred after the big quake.

Year in review: Farmers look back at 2016. HOW FARMERS LEARN Advice is money well-spent. A good steer on bull beef.

DEER FARMER

Contents

Make scanning work for you, Des Ford says.

It’s time for a wapiti celebration with the Pullars.

Facial eczema: when the feed gets toxic.

Time to join the Advance Party.

Following the line with the Deer Progeny Test.

LIVESTOCK Struggling Raukura Station has seen a transformation.

Weight loss shouldn’t be a problem for working dogs.

Trevor Cook sees vision in a Scottish review.

Sub Editor: Andy Maciver, ph 06 323 0731, andy.maciver@ nzfarmlife.co.nz

Country-Wide is published by NZ Farm Life Media PO Box 218, Feilding 4740 General enquiries: Toll free 0800 85 25 80 www.nzfarmlife.co.nz Editor: Terry Brosnahan, ph 03 471 5272; mob 027 249 0200; terry.brosnahan@nzfarmlife.co.nz Managing Editor: Tony Leggett, ph 06 323 0730 mob 0274 746 093, tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz Deer Farmer Editor: Lynda Gray, ph 03 448 6222, lyndagray@xtra.co.nz

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ISSN 2253-2307 (Online)

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Country-Wide January 2017

More: p46

FORAGE Andrew Swallow finds a system change at Rock Farm. Sub clover has a place on wet hills north and south.

46 50

ARABLE Andrew Swallow learns of a grain of truth about nitrogen.

PLANT AND MACHINERY The real oil on no-till seed drills. Inventor contests farm trial results.

Tom and Angela Loe reckon they’re lucky after the quake. 68

Checking growth from the cloud.

TECHNOLOGY

Kirstin Mills navigates the hazards of wifi.

ESTATE Oio shines in King Country.

Tulips beckon in Southland.

Tim Mason is trading his way to farm ownership. Lloyd Smith has some tips for buying a dog.

Honey and tourism in view near Mahia Peninsula.

YOUNG COUNTRY

Sam Tipping aims for a tip top herd.

SOLUTIONS Tough trailers for farm duties.

Alan Royal has advice for online shoppers.

COMMUNITY

ENVIRONMENT

Denis Hocking goes digging for carbon sequestration.

More: p68

62 66 67

FARMING IN FOCUS More photos from this month’s Country-Wide.

OUR COVER

More: p66

Country-Wide January 2017

More: p22

David Keeley, in a white clover crop on his 740ha farm at Hinds, has been a member of the Lauriston Farm Improvement Club since 1980. He regards the membership fee as money well-spent as the club continues to help him tweak the farming operation. Photo: John Cosgrove

BOUNDARIES | OPPORTUNITIES

Sharon and Mike Barton: shared responsibilities.

Food for thought

re consumers prepared to pay a premium for red meat produced in a way that also cares for water quality? Should consumers share responsibility for the way their food is produced? Mike and Sharon Barton put these questions to a 1000-strong audience at the Tedx Tauranga 2016 event. TED (technology, entertainment and design) is a non-profit organisation

devoted to spreading ideas. TEDx talks are designed to help spark conversation. The Barton’s took the opportunity to share their story and the implications and opportunities of farming to protect the water quality of Lake Taupo. Mike and Sharon started their branded meat business Taupo Beef after realising that to farm profitably under a nitrogen

cap, they and their fellow Lake Taupo farmers would need to earn a premium for their product. It is a confronting issue, but one many more farmers may be facing in the future. Check out their Tedx talk online at http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Who-isthe-real-Polluter-the-Fa

State aid in land of free enterprise If you farm in the United States chances are you’ll have access to an independent agricultural research and extension team dedicated to your area, without paying a cent of levy. It’s thanks to the wisdom of 19th century US academic and activist Jonathan Baldwin Turner and US senator Justin Smith Morrill who drove the 1862 and 1890 Morrill Land Grants Acts, which granted federal lands to states to found universities specialising in agriculture, engineering and science. Consequently today every state and

territory has land grant institutions. One such is the University of Maine, in the far north east of the US. Steven Johnson, a crop specialist with the university, was in New Zealand in November for a soilborne disease conference. “My job is teaching farmers,” he told a Foundation for Arable Research field day. “I do agricultural extension and research that fills the gap between the laboratory and the farm.” Johnson said he talks at farmer field days 20-30 times a year and works on

field trials and analysing resulting data in between. So is his work independent? “Absolutely,” said. “That’s our strength. I’ve made chemical recommendations that have infuriated the chemical companies… Our extension service is the envy of the rest of the world because we’re independent.” FAR’s Nick Poole echoed that. “I think New Zealand farmers would be blown away if they knew the extent of the state extension system that exists in the US.”

Showtime in Ohura If ever you needed an excuse to visit the tiny rural settlement of Ohura, the annual show is it. For more than a century the farming communities of Ohura and Matiere have worked together to run the show, held in the picturesque rural setting of Niho Niho Showgrounds. Enjoy a relaxing day out in the country for the 104th Ohura A&P Show on February 17 and 18. Equestrian events are held during the two days, with plenty of family entertainment, demonstrations, homemade food and traditional show fare. Ohura is just 45 minutes’ drive from Taumarunui or an hour and a half from New Plymouth – longer if you want to experience some of the SH43 forgotten highway via Stratford and Whangamomona. Entry is free, but there is no eftpos, so cash is required for show stalls. More? Call chief horse steward Kristine Carmichael on (07) 893 7844. 8

Country-Wide January 2017

BOUNDARIES | BLOOPERS

Half empty or half full? Has South Canterbury got another irrigation scheme? A recent predictable and repetitive anti-dam ramble by Massey University freshwater ecologist (and self-publicist) Mike Joy in the Auckland media recently referred to “the unfortunate example of the Opihi irrigation dam in South Canterbury.” What Opihi dam? There’s a dam on the Opuha, a tributary to the Opihi, but that’s some 50km upstream of the confluence of the Te Ngawai and Opuha which form the Opihi, but no dam on the Opihi. Assuming Joy means the Opuha dam, few South Cantabs regard the irrigation scheme as “unfortunate”. A few do, for sure, but they are the squeaky wheels in a society that’s reaped enormous economic and recreational benefit from the scheme. Joy says large-scale dams were not a solution for drought. That debate on irrigation dams focused on economic and environmental benefits, not on the impacts of climate change, resulting land intensification or water dependency. A 2006 study calculated the Opuha dam provided $124 million boost over two years through jobs, making new and

existing industries resilient, providing a hydro electric scheme and water for urban, industrial and recreational use. As for running short of water in the past couple of summers, the reservoir still kept the river and local economy flowing far more strongly than would have been the case without it. Clearly Joy saw the dam as half-empty. In reality it was still half-full.

NO JOY And Joy seems to take a narrow

perspective on water issues as he sits in his taxpayer-funded academic position, ironically partly paid for by taxes from the very industry he repeatedly attacks. He was roundly criticised following his claim it would cost up to $15 billion to clean up waterways from dairying and farming of animals would have to end to save the planet. Clearly he is no friend of farming, so why then have Landcorp hired him to advise on sustainable agricultural strategies?

Bloopers

Shearing showcase Apiti and Districts Show celebrates the best of rural, small town New Zealand. Focusing on shearing and wool handling, the northern Manawatu township’s 75th annual show will be held this year on February 25, at the domain. The show features shearing, equestrian sports, raffles, games, school displays, wool fadge races, egg throwing and more. The show maintains a long-standing tradition where shearers make their way down, after the Apiti Show, to the Cheltenham Speed shear that night, followed by the Pahiatua Shears the day after and over to Masterton for the Golden Shears the following weekend. On average, the entries range between 130 and 150 shearers and 40-50 wool handlers on the day.

Country-Wide January 2017

In his younger days, Country-Wide sub-editor Andy Maciver was driving a truck for his uncle’s Taupo-based woolbuying firm. Driving through a farm gate near Turangi one day, his truck caught chain link mesh covering the still-then very tidy entrance gate. The cocky was less than amused with the resulting tangle of wire. And in his younger days, editor Terry Brosnahan thought he could squeeze a farm truck into the Hope petrol station. Instead of taking the outside lane he went between the buildings and pumps. The result was a large bang, glass everywhere and the pump rocking back and forth violently. Nobody laughed when he asked, “did anyone see the pump run out at me?” What are your bloopers? Send them in to andy.maciver@nzfarmlife.co.nz and we will find prizes for the best ones.

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Trials of a demoted shepherd

Charlotte Rietveld

favourite late-model John Deere with his equally loved, pride-and-joy postdriver attached. All was going well until I arrived back in the yard and thought better of leaving the tractor parked out in the open where I’d found it. “No,” I thought to myself. “The Chief Inspector, well she’ll want the yard tidy and The Boss will want the tractor covered.” Commending myself with the obviously complex yet incredibly wise decision to park the tractor in the shed, I advanced with vigour. I was so enthralled with visions of me walking on to the stage, amid rapturous applause for once again receiving employee of the year – I prefer to ignore the fact that I am Middle Rock’s sole employee – I was oblivious to what was so clearly about to happen. Sure enough, the 2016 Employee of the Year Awards night music – Chariots of Fire, for the record – came to an awfully abrupt end as I crashed the mast of the post driver into the shed. Just in case the beloved tractor and the

The shed was miraculously repaired...

pride-and-joy post-driver’s involvement were not enough, this particular shed had only just been professionally re-trussed following snow damage. As with all few weeks ago, much to my rural embarrassments, having witnessed disbelief, I spotted a couple it all, the fuel tanker driver offered the of grown ewes skipping. With obligatory “Bugger”, as I scurried away to maturing lambs still at foot, utter expletives in private. I scowled, assuming I had With pride still smarting and finding chanced upon a couple of myself unable to sit still, I decided to stick wet-dries living it up. to lawnmowing for the remainder of the A scowl quickly turned to a smile afternoon. Heading back into the yard to as two good lambs – admittedly only fill up the equally green, but decidedly singles, but I won’t pursue that baited older and smaller John Deere ride-on line – came trotting along to see their lawnmower, Mr Fuel Tanker Driver merry mothers. gave me a brief smirk, “Been To be honest, if it weren’t for Before demoted eh?” pride and vanity, I would be I couldn’t help but abandon skipping too. Regular, quality rains the muttered profanities and throughout spring progressively laugh. Demoted indeed. All my lifted the insidious weight gathered bright ideas, leadership coups and over the last couple of years. farming revolutions will have to While certainly not as affected as wait. The sly old fox knows only those further north, the land, the too well I’ll foolishly trip myself up stock and that unspoken optimism and sure enough, I delivered it to that is mandatory with all farmers, him on a platter, on the stage of an had been under fire since 2013. imaginary awards night. I knew it must have got to me As it turns out, the cherished when I found myself welcoming a machinery was unharmed and the southerly rain storm a week into shed miraculously repaired without lambing. These storms persisted, any great fuss. Though I note the leaving us with slightly fewer lambs Regular, quality rains throughout spring progressively lifted the scaffolding has been left standing, to tail but rejuvenated pasture, insidious weight gathered over the last couple of years. perhaps as a mute reminder of just revived tussocks and smiles all who is The Boss. round. Who knows what the rest of And so it is that I farewelled summer has in store but with balage 2016 – at the peak of my game and silage replenished, things are as Middle Rock’s head shepherd, looking up. albeit the only shepherd, demoted As it happens, looking up is now shepherd and very much nona prime focus for me. Not long after award-winning shepherd. But still my pleasant encounter with the quietly skipping. skipping sheep, I had a slightly lesspleasant one. While I am hesitant to confirm • What’s your confession about farm any rumours, this encounter mishaps? Share it with us by sending After may have involved The Boss’s #1 it to andy.maciver@nzfarmlife.co.nz.

Rakaia Gorge, Canterbury

Country-Wide January 2017

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

“..nature showed me why I don’t think the environmental planners really understand the outcomes of their plan.”

A lesson in riparian planting Phil Taylor

Ngaroma, King Country I will be watching carefully as the Healthy Rivers debate between regional councils and dry stock farmers rages on. I have almost finished protecting my five km of waterways but from bitter experience, I am not convinced the environmental plans as proposed have the ability to achieve the goals outlined by the experts. Neither do I think, after all the money has been spent on sheep and beef farms (with elevated contours) can they say for sure that water will be cleaner over time. Here is why. Twenty five years ago as an environmental believer I electric-fencedoff a section of one of my waterways. The riparian verge was on average 12 metres but up to 25m in places. Here is what has happened. • Year two, an excellent grass filter appeared to be shielding effluent and silt from entering the water. • Year three, blackberry was starting to emerge. • Year five, blackberry was head height. • Year seven and eight, the blackberry was blanket eight feet high growing over the electric fences. It was not possible to get a tractor or farm bike close enough to spray it. • Year 10, the fence had to be disconnected to rectify the power outages on the rest of the farm. From then on it did not take the bulls long to learn the power was off, find a way through the fence making a track back down to pollute the stream again. I still have not solved the blackberry problem in spite of asking environmental experts for advice. Helicopter spraying works but it kills riparian planting and

Country-Wide January 2017

sends toxic chemicals downstream into fish zones. Now here is where it gets interesting. After a few years the overgrown verge grew into the stream creating a vegetative sediment trap across the rocky bottom. Note here that the water flows directly from native bush not through other neighbouring farms. Today 25 years later (beginning of this year) hundreds of tons of fine silt lay captured along the grassy bottom in the stream. The sediment trap has been working all that time. But this winter, in the form of several weather bombs, nature showed me why I don’t think the environmental planners really understand the outcomes of their plan. During the flooded torrents hundreds of tons of this silty sediment left the stream bed and will now be floating somewhere down the Waikato River. I know of other farmers who tell me their stream beds are also back to bedrock again. The question sheep and beef farmers will be asking here is “if this happens on hill country, what’s the point?” In 2010 I commenced my protection work over 307 hectares. The costs were justified because I was switching from sheep and beef to dairy. As a guide for budgeting purposes I would estimate most sheep and beef costs will be similar on hill contours. More than 100 culvert pipes were needed along raceways. They were put in with our own digger. Five wooden bridges (just under 10m in length) were built at an average cost of $12,500 a bridge – do it yourself. The big one was the water system. Troughs, pipe (90mm 12 bar to a 67mm mainline, 40mm to troughs) four manikin tanks that gravity feed to 96 troughs, excluding pumps, cost $280,000 professionally installed. Three pumps were needed to handle the volume of water needed for dairy. Fences in the order of $30,000, so far done DIY. Don’t get me wrong in all of this. I am all for cleaner streams, but sheep and beef farmers like me, need to know the proposed schemes will actually work before they put their hand in their pocket. This will be the real challenge of the debate so planners need to be prepared.

Sediment trap on the rock bottom of the stream, now washed away.

Extent of the flooded stream where the sediment trap was..

One thing sheep and beef farmers should do is measure water quality as it enters their farm then measure it as it leaves. Data has meaning. I suggest most would be pleasantly surprised.

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

And it keeps on raining...

Roger Barton, Greytown, Wairarapa

Spring has served up some oddities this year. It was wet all through lambing, wet through docking, then November served up another 280mm of rain in our patch against the Tararua ranges. The Wairarapa has very much been a game of two halves. Eastern areas had a very dry winter with many worried about creeks not running and stock water dams being way off capacity. Some had resorted to buying pumping equipment and additional piping to pump water from creeks to strategic storage dams. Recently the tables have turned and most of the region is well set up for a good late spring and early summer. We are growing grass but livestock, lambs in particular, are missing that vital ingredient of warmth. We might have been wise to supplement with vitamin D at docking if I’d had a crystal ball. We are not alone. Many are finding lamb growth rates are off the pace and orderly marketing of this year’s crop may be hampered in the initial stages. On the plus side soil moisture is well ahead of expectations and the big issue is likely to be the difficulty of maintaining feed quality as grasses threaten to run to seed. I would be happier to see the clover more active but I suspect it’s mostly a temperature issue. We have made some baleage – some

I shouldn’t have to reach for a pair of glasses to get critical information.

first-cut red clover that really would have been better cut earlier than it was. At one stage I rang my contractor to see if it was down and he advised that it wasn’t. I was glad they hadn’t mown it as the fine weather wasn’t going to hold long enough to get good quality product. When I said I was happy it wasn’t cut Robert assured me I was the only happy customer they had and that was because they hadn’t done the job. We have also bought some additional baleage which was organised some months ago. With high lambing percentages the surety of surplus feed for supplement has become more difficult to generate and as a safety valve it has become more prudent to buy some elsewhere.

According to statistics I am now average age for a sheep and beef farmer. This also tells me at least half of my contemporaries are likely to suffer problems with vision. My pet hate is animal health products where the most relevant information is in a print size that is indecipherable. As a tupping feed, baleage fed with barley nullifies issues with acidosis and we seem to be getting a predictable result in these drier seasons. Baleage is fine but the resulting wrap disposal does my head in. I’m happy buying bags for the recycling but what frustrates me is the inefficiency of transporting such a lightweight bulky product by truck. I yearn for a highcapacity truck with a large hydraulic bin which can reduce the volume and make

more sensible use of the trucking cost to get it to its destination. I’m sure on a weight basis the truck would struggle to achieve any more than 30% of its potential load. According to statistics I am now average age for a sheep and beef farmer. This also tells me at least half of my contemporaries are likely to suffer problems with vision. My pet hate is animal health products where the most relevant information is in a print size that is indecipherable. If I had it my way the key areas to be printed on any product would be in a font size of 16 points (see what I mean...better already). Instead it is at about an 8 – hopeless. I want to know the dose rate per kg or 5kg for sheep, obviously greater for cattle, withholding period and active ingredients plus batch number and expiry date for QA purposes. After that most of the information is of little value to a 58-year-old. I shouldn’t have to reach for a pair of glasses to get critical information. On a wider and far more important front our son and daughter-in-law-tobe have recently arrived back from 18 months travel and we are plotting and planning how we allow them into the business with skin in the game and the resulting motivation to make things happen. It’s great to see fresh legs and energy and the chance to put into practice the great practical skills that Rupert has taken out of his two years as a cadet at Waipaoa Station up in Gisborne, two years at Lincoln and then his time on three other scale properties all offering their own special learning opportunities. The last being as head shepherd on Otupae station east of Taihape under the leadership of Gary Mead. It’s a classic case of old bull/young bull. At some stage I will be happy to be put out to pasture but apparently at this stage I still have my uses.

Country-Wide January 2017

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

If climate change is to blame and is trending toward higher rainfall levels in this arid region, then we’ll just have to take it.

How 302 won us over Nick Loughnan Alexandra, Central Otago

The changes of fortune for our Australian neighbours since the 2008 Gobal Financial Crisis have turned that debt-free lucky country on its head. No longer can it rely on its prosperity just by digging big holes and exporting mineral wealth. And as its patience is wearing thin with notso-quick-fix prime ministers (five changes in seven years while we’ve had none), so too is its patience with Kiwis who don’t measure up. They are the new export product. Perhaps it is in their nation’s psyche – so many of their forebears were exported from Mother England for their 19th century crimes that the new colony was soon quickly populated. As farmers, we too have a quick fix for any animals that don’t make the grade. Poor breeders, poor health, bad traits we

don’t want – we run them up the ramp and on to the truck. Gone. And we make progress meanwhile with the genetic direction we want our animals to take. Our culling decisions are based on age or data, and records of each animal make that job easy. Good and bad, there are standouts at both ends. The satisfaction of achieving significant measurable growth in a desired trait within a herd or flock is reward in itself, but there is another dimension we can have as farmers. The appreciation and understanding of our animals by knowing them and their needs well does see bonds develop. Within our deer herd is one such animal. Simply known as 302, she was the result of our first year’s AI programme, and her nature quickly won us over. She started as a big curious fawn and at the time was unusual for her calm approach to herd life. She seldom followed the flighty pack when spooked; instead she would walk quietly forward to check out the disturbance more closely. She dislikes yarding and is always right on your shoulder as you enter a pen of surging animals. She wants back out please. Shifting my irrigation water during moonlit nights really sees her looking special in the mellow lunar glow. Again, she will approach me quietly, with just fetlock joint clicks to give her away,

A heavily pregnant 302 and one of her yearling hind twins are watched by a couple of curious dairy goat kids.

Country-Wide January 2017

before taking a couple of sniffs of my face and allowing a stroke or two of her neck before moving off again back into the night. 302 has always held her secrets. She has long been challenging to pair up with her offspring, when we have needed to observe and match the hinds with their suckling fawns for our records. She is hardly ever to be seen with hers, yet always reproduces. So it was a great surprise this month when she brought two yearling hinds up to me for a closer look and introduction. Sleek in their new season’s coats after the spring moult, this beautiful set of twins have their mother’s characteristic curiousity all over again. Now 302 is 13-years-old. She has earned a few favours from me in that time. Her dislike of yarding for TB testing usually sees her hang well back from the herd at round-up time and I’ve given up trying to push her along in the paddock to join in. During winter feedout days, she’s always close for a slab of especially leafy lucerne hay – a piece she’ll take from my hand of course. She’s one animal that I’m really not looking forward to putting on the truck for reasons of old age. And she is one reminder of why I have never wanted an office job. Meanwhile, we have had an extraordinary season for spring growth in Central Otago, caused by unseasonally reliable rains and no wind for months. Irrigation hasn’t started yet at the time of writing and we have experienced a spectacular flush of rank feed everywhere. Everyone feels hopelessly understocked. The local Manuherikia Water Strategy Group which over the last three years has been charged with investigating the upgrade of irrigation water storage capacity at the Falls Dam near St Bathans could not have picked a worse year to try and convince farmers to back one of their options. All choices will make water considerably more expensive than irrigators presently pay and farmers are quietly grateful for the most favourable rainfall in decades, bringing the moisture at no cost. If climate change is to blame and is trending toward higher rainfall levels in this arid region, then we’ll just have to take it.

NOTEBOOK

Classics of the Sky Tauranga city airshow, January 21 1pm-8pm Tauranga City Airport. Headline aircraft are jets, including the BAC Strikemaster aircraft flown as pilot trainers by the RNZAF. Classic aircraft, sports aircraft, gliders and radio-controlled model aircraft are also expected. The RNZAF plan to display one of the new T6C-Texan ll trainers. Go to www.classicflyersnz.com/ Airshow

Toss the caber

Quake aid Farmers whose uninsurable assets like water infrastructure, tracks, culverts and farm bridges were damaged in the November 14 earthquake in the Hurunui, Kaikoura and Marlborough districts can get help from the $4 million Primary Industries Earthquake Relief Fund. Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy said applications for funding were open until the end of February. • Go to www.marlborough.govt.nz/ Services/Emergency-Management/ Emergency-Events/eq2016/PIERF

A&P shows

for adults who enjoy a good relaxing time but yet entertaining day out on the beach. A mix of the beach, beats, food and drink, with a selection of DJs. Go to www.summerdayz.nz

Raglan festival Rangitikei’s 153rd Turakina Highland Games – New Zealand’s oldest on-land sporting event and held every year since 1864 – will be held at the village’s domain on Cameron Road, Saturday, January 28, from 8am. Events include Highland dancing, field events, hill race, tug of war, various piping contests, massed bands and an evening barbecue and ceilidh. Go to www.turakinahighlandgames. co.nz

Vineyard benefit British reggae band UB40 conduct their Red Red Wine Vineyard tour in January, with performances at Martinborough, Queenstown and Marlborough. Go to www.jacman.co.nz

Soundsplash is back for 2017, returning to Raglan’s Wainui Reserve January 20, 21 and 22. Featuring 40 acts across three stages, the all-ages festival is five minutes’ drive from Raglan. Wainui Reserve is 500 metres from Ngarunui beach where festival attendees who are passionate about music, and their environment to unplug among the myriad of stages, chill-zones, the sun, sand and surf Soundsplash has to offer. Entry is free for kids 14 and under when accompanied by a guardian. Go to soundsplash.co.nz

Network launch Summer Days Takapuna Beach Summer Days presents Sun and Sound Music Beach Festival (R18) at Gould Reserve, The Strand Takapuna, Auckland on Saturday, January 14, 1pm-11pm. Sun and Sound is a day out in the sun

Taranaki Rural Business Network launches February 1, 6.45pm at TSB Hub, Hawera, with keynote speaker Mike Petersen giving an update on New Zealand’s state of play on the global scene. Go to www.ruralbusinessnetwork. co.nz/event-tickets

Tauranga A&P Lifestyle Show is on at Tauranga racecourse, January 15, from 10am. Go to taurangashow.co.nz/ Wairoa A&P Show is at Wairoa Showgrounds, January 19, 20 and 21, 8am-4pm. Go to www.wairoashow.co.nz/ Golden Bay A&P Show is at Golden Bay Recreation Park, January 21, 8am5pm. Go to www.eventfinda.co.nz/2017/ golden-bay-a-p-show/nelson-tasman Banks Peninsula A&P Show is at Awaiti Domain, Banks Peninsula, January 21, from 8am. Go to www.eventfinda. co.nz/2017/banks-peninsula-a-p-show/ banks-peninsula Horowhenua AP&I Show is at Levin Showgrounds, January 21 and 22, 10am5pm. Go to www.levinapishow.co.nz/ Otago Taieri A&P Show is at Gordon Road Mosgiel, January 28. Go to www. otagotaieri-ap-show.co.nz/annualshow-2017/

Eketahuna calls Take a ride aboard the Eketahuna Express steam train on January 7 from operator Steam Incorporated’s Paekakariki base through the Manawatu Gorge to Wairarapa and Masterton via Palmerston North and Eketahuna. Select from the Pukaha Mt Bruce Wildlife Centre, an Opaki vineyard, or Masterton as a destination. Go to www.steaminc.org.nz

NOTE BOOK

If you have something you think might be suitable for the Notebook page please send it in a word document (.doc) to Andy.Maciver@nzfarmlife.co.nz along with any pictures as .jpg attachments.

Country-Wide January 2017

FACTS

Grass slowing the season down AGRIHQ ANALYST

Nort h Island bull k ill

Reece Brick

Thousand head

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We may be more than two months into the 2016-17 red meat season, but with the number of animals being traded, it wouldn’t appear that way. A big contributor to this situation was the weather conditions experienced through spring in 2016. Spring brought with it plenty of rainfall for both the North and South Islands, but at the same time, cool temperatures and overcast conditions. As a result farms entered summer with an excess of grass in the paddocks, however stock on farms are simply not up to the same condition as previous years. The effects of the cool temperatures and lack of sunlight have been especially marked in lambs and calves. It’s not been uncommon for those tied to contracts for 100kg calves to resort to buying in extra feed supplements, but even then calves have struggled for growth. Many who would usually have offloaded their first cut of lambs have withheld doing so, instead opting to retain them a little longer in a bid to improve liveweights.

10 0 06-Aug

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Even those lambs that managed to reach decent liveweights have returned disappointing kill sheets. Average yields on carcases have in some cases barely reached 40% of liveweight, which has no doubt been disheartening for sheep farmers who were already anticipating a mediocre season. All these factors combined to leave processors well short of kill numbers to date. The latest kill data for the season to November 5 has the lamb kill at 1.57 million lambs, down 4% on last season. However, information from the weeks since suggests production has slowed

06-Dec 06-Feb Last Year This Year

considerably, tracking around a third lower than a year ago. Throughput at saleyards has also reflected the lack of quality among lambs. Store lamb numbers tallied only 11,400 through the final two weeks of November, well down on the 17,200 traded in the same weeks 12 months ago.

Even those lambs that managed to reach decent liveweights have returned disappointing kill sheets.

North Island lamb s laughter price 7

$/kg

6.5 6 5.5 5 4.5 02-Sep

02-Nov 5-yr Ave

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02-Mar This Year

The bull slaughter trade has also been particularly slow to run so far this season. Slaughter data to November 5 has bull numbers tracking 39% behind a year ago at 22,300 head, although reports suggest this has crept closer to a year ago since. The end result of this situation will become clearer in coming weeks, but it doesn’t take much to realise that what isn’t coming out for slaughter now will have to in the future. Processors have made it clear that prices will fall once slaughter rates increase, meaning there is the potential for significant decreases in schedules in the coming months.

BUSINESS | RECOVERY

Fixing main access points like bridges is the first priority for the Murray family.

Shaken and stirred When an earthquake strikes it can rip a farm apart, turning a familiar piece of the world into a foreign land of inaccessibility and destroyed basic resources. On November 14, a quake with a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter Scale struck. It was centred 15km north-east of Culverden, near Hanmer Springs, at a depth of 15km. The first jolt was so big it was felt throughout the country. Blenheim-based Annabelle Latz recently caught up with farmers in the area.

n 85-hectare quality feed haven is now a lake and the lease block up the valley is only accessible by helicopter because the bridge has gone. “But there’s not much you can do about it, is there?” That’s the thought that went through Ben Murray’s head, who lives up the Clarence Valley at Woodbank, where he and his wife Caroline breed Angus cattle and run sheep. Between the main farm and the lease block, their farm runs from the sea for about 30km, on both sides of the

Clarence River, which the Waipapa Fault runs through. When the quake struck they lay on the floor with their two children Harriet, 5, and Tom, 3, until they could eventually scramble outside. The damage to their house wasn’t as bad as others and they were grateful the water tank didn’t fall through the roof into the children’s bedroom. Two cottages on the farm were flattened. Ben’s parents’ and brother George’s houses were badly rattled and had damage, but were still able to be lived in. His cousins, who farm up the

What used to be quality feed paddocks are now lakes.

valley at Matariki where they breed Hereford cattle, were virtually unscathed. Ben said it was the way the Waipapa fault moved. It cut through 85ha of flat land on their farm causing a flood and at the end of the fault line a lake of about 12ha formed, before it began to overflow. The night of the quake, the entire Murray family congregated at Matariki which sits at higher ground, where they sat all night and even lit a fire. The fear of a tsunami was real, but soon downgraded. When daylight arrived there was lots to be done, and survival was all about prioritisation and chipping away at tasks. “There was damage everywhere…it was a bit of an eye-opener.” Looking at the quake damage, the further up the valley on the south side, the worse it got and in places the river bed has risen five to 10 metres. The power was out, water tanks had moved, outlets were pulled off, land was ripped apart and bridges washed away.

“The wall of water was 100 metres wide and moved faster than you could sprint. Everyone was kind of sitting there in a daze.”

An island had formed within the flooded flat which had stock and 30-40ha of lucerne. The dam that had formed up the river

Country-Wide January 2017

Lessons learned

James Moore and Faye Dobson say their farm has been ripped apart in the quake.

was expected to burst, so they managed to move the cows. Ten of them, including the resident beekeeper, raft guides and family members, sat on the side of a nearby hill to watch the dam walls give way. “The wall of water was 100 metres wide and moved faster than you could sprint. Everyone was kind of sitting there in a daze.” They flew by helicopter to the lease block to put the beehives back upright; a main priority with harvest starting about a fortnight later. Breeding cows, ewes and lambs were there so bulldozing a new road is a strong possibility. Stock had access to natural waterways and feed. Each morning the family and workers would gather, have a cuppa, and make a game plan for that day. Power was out for just six days, the farm had five generators going and Ben rewired a submersible pump in one of the water tanks to supply the water.

Country-Wide January 2017

With five kilometres of the Kekerengu fault running through the middle of their farm, James Moore and Faye Dobson’s land has been slammed and flattened. The young couple farm sheep and beef North of Kaikoura, three kilometres inland off State Highway One (SH1) at Kekerengu and a lease block by the beach. They woke in a panic at midnight, stumbling through the house and outside with their baby Elka, surrounded by crazy noises. “The cows and calves by the house were mooing like mad,” James said. Their house and James’ parents’ house were badly shaken about, but safe enough to return to. Loss of power and water was immediate and lasted a few days. The farm had good feed so he opened gates and let stock roam to water. The farm is spring-fed. Some springs now run better and a couple of new ones appeared. “Everything is running with a lot more grunt and speed now, it’s been given a big shake-up.” The aftershocks for the days after, some as big as 6.2, kept them on their toes, but nothing compared to the initial jolt. The moving fault line took everything in its path. The big priorities are fencing and clearing all the slips off the tracks so they can move stock again. “If there is a track or a fence it’s just torn to bits.” It was mainly the “rough, feral back country” that was most affected. Changing the position of fences was a definite consideration, to move them away from fault lines.

He said community spirit had been amazing with help, food and farm supplies flown in for those up the valley. “It’s amazing who turns up to help at a time like this.” At this time of year lambs were usually being sold off and bulls being brought in for the mating season, and the extended route via the Lewis Pass will be the only access point for some time. Ben advice to farmers is to have plenty of spare equipment on-hand like pipe fittings, fencing equipment, diesel and petrol. This allowed them to get emergency jobs done. The one-hour trip to Blenheim had turned into a 90-minute trip. They have no idea how long it will be until they can pop down the road to Kaikoura again. Ben said it was important not to look too far ahead, but rather just take things day by day. “We win a few minor battles here and there. It’s what we’ve been doing and seems to be working.”

“Wherever the main fault line is, there is carnage, it’s just ripped.” The beach has risen two metres near the lease block. James said it was much easier moving stock at the lease block with no traffic on SH1. With SH1 closed, their usual 40 minute journey south to Kaikoura will now take five hours. They go north-west across to the Lewis Pass before connecting back with the Leader Road to reach Kaikoura. His neighbours were busy sending store lambs to Christchurch. Now that stock trucks have to go via the Lewis Pass a unit load costs an extra $500. Buying and trading stock would generally be more expensive now and sending prime stock to Nelson or the North Island would not be out of the question. James’s advice is not to dwell on the negative. Have petrol, a generator, drinking water, a torch and all the basic supplies on hand, on the farm and in the kitchen. “And always take a grubber and a spade, wherever you go.” This isn’t the first natural disaster to hit the area in the past three years James and Faye have experienced a flood and two droughts. Every year geo scientists visited the farm to study the fault line so James heard about the big shake in 1855 and knew a quake was possible. “The fault might move again, or it might not move for another 500 years.” • More farmer stories p68

The Murray family have been spending a lot of time assessing the damage and flooding and the sections of farm accessible by vehicle are certainly fewer at the moment.

BUSINESS | YEAR IN REVIEW

STEADY AS SHE GOES Country-Wide writers have followed up with some of the farmers who appeared in the magazine in the past 15 months to see how they fared. It’s been a six-out-of-ten year for Maniototo farmers Ro and Karl McDiarmid since they appeared in the February issue. It was another dry year but they still managed to finish all 8000 lambs and achieve a body condition score of three or better for 80% of the ewes at the start of winter. But the dry did take its toll, especially on the swede and kale crops which didn’t yield well. Another low point, but not weather-related, was a change in ewe drenching which resulted in a selenium deficiency. It was a lesson learnt. “It seems a very amateur mistake, however the lesson is that being too busy can mean you overlook the important stuff,” Karl says. The hogget lambing result of 88% was down on 2015. “They went to the ram too light, they were about 5kg lighter than usual but we’ve still got more than 1200 lambs from them.” The bull beef diversification is ticking along nicely with more than 800 bulls finished for Anzco over the last financial year. The management side is going well and they have started doing more measuring of growth rates to get a better picture of the typical growth profile. They have also altered the animal health programme, adding in a long-acting selenium drench and more minerals. Beyond the farm gate Karl has had his 20 seconds of fame (several times) as one of the rugby players in the Vodafone pigleton-the-rugby-field-side line TV advertisement. He and brotherin-law Fergus Hamilton, who manages the McDiarmids’ block at Becks, were discovered by a roving talent scout who dropped into the Gorge Creek woolshed and coerced them into an impromptu audition. The rest, as they say, is history. Ro and Karl say they’re looking forward to a “steady as she goes” 2017. Helen and John McFadzean.

Ro and Karl McDiarmid.

An entire success When Country-Wide reported on the McFadzean family, the successful large-scale weaner cattle producers were on the brink of putting a ground-breaking decision to the test. After many years of selling their male weaner calves as steers the Masterton family decided to leave them entire and sell them as bulls. Two sales later John was asked whether the decision was justified. “Definitely” was the answer however it was tempered a little because of the strongly rising beef market over this period. His belief was that even accounting for this the bulls were on average selling $100 more per head than the steers while weighing on average 15-20kg more. Clients buying the bulls are also strongly in support of the decision achieving slaughter weights at 16 months of 360-380kg compared with steers which would have been 30-40kg lighter. Son Johnny is now the decision-maker on Glenbrae where the market-topping weaners originate. In the next few years more Simmental blood will be infused into the cow herd to maintain hybrid vigour as in recent years predominantly Angus bulls have been used.

Country-Wide January 2017

Tim and Monique Neeson.

Stock up. Growing the family farm

Country-Wide January 2017

native grasses. Another 50ha of new grass (a ryegrass/clover/tall fescue mix) was sown just before winter. Slug damage to the emerging grass was so bad it needed to be sown a second time with slug bait. In April, Tim and Monique took an opportunity to lease a block of land planted in redwood trees. Here they run sheep and cattle and can grow out their dairy calves. Tim continues to take on more responsibility for running the home farm and the family are still working on a succession plan. Meanwhile, Monique and mother-inlaw Lyn have been enjoying growing demand for their ShearWarmth woollen blankets – made in New Zealand from lambs’ wool grown on their farm. The family appeared on Country Calendar mid-2016 and their second line of blankets sold out the same night the programme aired. Their third line of blankets – made from the fleeces of lambs born in 2015 and shorn in January 2016 – was due for completion before Christmas. ShearWarmth also has interest from retail stores overseas and in NZ, keen to sell the pure NZ wool blankets. Monique says they are keen to work with retailers, but need to find the right partnership that will enable them to continue selling the blankets at an affordable price. Monique and Lyn won the emerging enterprising rural woman award, sponsored by Swazi, at the 2016 NZ Rural Business awards. ShearWarmth has just launched a new website and is sponsoring the Taranaki neo natal unit with woollen blanket donations.

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Growing their business and their family kept the Neeson family busy in 2016. Tim and Monique Neeson, along with Tim’s parents Alex and Lyn, featured in the 2015 Country-Wide sheep special. Since then, the young couple have continued running the family farm – 1200 hectares of hill country at Tokirima in the King Country – taken on their own 500ha lease, appeared on television and welcomed their third child into the world. Tim says the high facial eczema (FE) challenge in autumn 2016 impacted production. “Sheep weren’t dying, but our scanning percentage and lambing were down and the ewes were finding it hard.” The Neesons have moderate levels of FE tolerance in their ewe flock. Without it, the impact would have been much worse. Tim says the ewes were starting to look much better by early December. Lambs were a bit slow to get growing, due to the lack of sun and “not enough guts in the grass”. Lambing was pushed back a couple of weeks to have more feed available for ewes with lambs at foot. Tim is considering lambing even another week later this year. Breeding cows calved well, with not too many dries. Cows were looking good heading into December their calves growing well. The Neesons have continued rearing dairy calves, which they grow out and finish onfarm. Last year they reared 360 calves – half for the farm and the other half owned by Tim and Monique. The Neesons have continued replacing

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21/11/16 10:25

Good news, bad news year for arable

David Birkett.

Last year was a good news, bad news story for award-winning arable farmer David Birkett, who featured in the April issue of Country-Wide. “Considering how dry the season was we had a good harvest and the quality was quite good too but the downside was the decrease in grain prices. That’s been a factor on all growers’ minds,” he said in the run-up to Christmas. Dairy’s recovery in recent months and noticeably lower grain stocks nationally had seen prices firm towards the end of the year, so, with this year’s crops looking good, he was looking forward to 2017.

However, it would be a year where he, and a lot of other growers around the country, had to get to grips with new rules and paperwork to meet regional council environmental management requirements, he added. “In some cases, including our own, that means getting a resource consent to farm.” As chairman of the Foundation for Arable Research, he put in a plug for FAR’s Farm Environment Plan. “If you’ve got a plan done then you are a long way down the track to complying.”

Red carpet success Red clover for lamb finishing has been one of the success stories for Southland farmers Barry and Julie Crawford. When profiled in August 2015 they had completed one season of large-scale lamb finishing on 13 hectares of red clover. That crop is now back in pasture and a January 2016-sown 10ha crop has replaced it and already been put to good use finishing progeny from early lambing ewes to a 19.2kg carcaseweight and grazing more lambs from old ewes throughout December. The Crawfords’ goal is to boost livestock performance to 450kg CW/ha – about 200kg more than the Southland average. They achieved 332kg in 2014-15 and 346kg in 2015-16. “The lamb weight average in 201516 was 19.8kgCW, which was 1.3kg heavier than the previous year, but we had slightly more lambs in 2014-15 so it’s going to take a big lift in numbers to achieve our goal,” Julie says. The 2016-17 season got off to a good start with a best-ever lambing result of 168%, but by how much they can boost the total number of lambs finished was uncertain at the start of December. “Our intention was to do 2000 store lambs this season, but with the strong grass market at the moment there’s not much about at the right price.” They continue to measure grass growth

Barry and Julie Crawford.

fortnightly with GrassCo. They record drymatter per hectare for each paddock, cover per paddock, residual grass and available grass and after three seasons now have a good year-round picture of available grass. The data has highlighted to them the value of young grass which

remains a focus at Rosebank, the home farm and the 175ha neighbouring block they bought in 2014. “Ongoing regrassing is an important area, we’re always looking out for what’s new. Agricom have a trial plot on our farm now.”

Country-Wide January 2017

Irrigation pays dividends

Don and Liz Polson.

Liz and Don Polson’s decision to irrigate 130-hectares of their river flats near Wanganui paid handsome dividends last summer as well as saving their bacon, as reported in March. Originally installed, along with high-performance crops, to increase growth rates of their large number of finishing lambs, irrigated crops have not only achieved this (lambs grew at twice the rate compared with grass and white clover pastures) but have also provided a refuge from the widespread facial eczema outbreak experienced in the region last summer. No clinical cases of facial eczema were recorded in stock grazing the irrigated areas. Flats covered in deep deposits of silt following the devastating floods of 2015 have taken time to recover and are running at only half throttle. Red clover stands under irrigation have generated the highest growth rates of the high-performing crops but also the highest mortality rates which have knocked the Polsons’ confidence. Red gut and clostridial diseases have been the main culprits. Vaccinating animals with 10-in-1 and feeding barley straw and salt have alleviated the problem. Pure red clover stands have required careful management – regular spelling and no overgrazing. Hunter brassica has proved a favourite with the Polsons. While its growth-generating ability is no match for red clover, mortality rates are far lower and health problems are largely dealt with by using a 5-in-1 vaccine. Irrigation has given the Polsons new options but they do concede that to get the best out of the high-performing crops these will have to be replaced possibly every two-to-three years.

Family management Ex-Beef+Lamb New Zealand monitor farmers Ken and Kirsty Shaw of Matawai are finally slowing down and gradually handing over the farming reins to their very capable daughter Sam. Back in August 2015 the Shaws’ daughter Samantha was on the home farm Elmore and doing casual work in the down times on the farm. Rimunui Station approached her about managing the farm for a month while it changed managers. Ken and Kirsty thought it would be a worthwhile experience for her. This supposed temporary arrangement lasted eight months during which time Ken and Kirsty found they were working harder than they wished. It proved to be the catalyst that prompted the Shaws to buy a 117ha semi-retirement block at Otoko 15 minutes closer to Gisborne and install Sam as the stock manager on Elmore. The idea is for Ken and Kirsty to live on the Otoko block, run the five-year ewes from Elmore there and help Sam out on Elmore when required. The ewes will be mated early to a terminal sire and moved to Otoko when any FE risk has diminished. All ewes and lambs will be sold prior to Christmas.

Country-Wide January 2017

Ken and Kirsty Shaw.

BUSINESS | HOW FARMERS LEARN

Taking advice Anne Hughes In hard times, it can be tempting to cut farm advisory costs. For Roger Baxter, the proactive and consistent approach of the Lauriston Farm Improvement Club has been a strong incentive to continue his involvement. His father joined the club in the 1960s. Baxter has since embarked on two MidCanterbury dairy conversions to help his own sons get started in their farming careers. The Lauriston Farm Improvement Club (LFIC) provided great advice on farm succession planning to help with this process. Members pay a set fee twice-yearly and plan in advance how regularly their adviser will visit them onfarm. “It’s very easy in bad times not to have a farm adviser if you’re not consistently paying for it,” Baxter says. He says they have a lot of good ideas that he wouldn’t get otherwise. “It’s amazing how the incidentals add up in terms of running the farm.” Mixed-cropping farmer David Keeley joined the club in the early 1980s. Keeley, who farms at Hinds near Ashburton, likes the co-operative-type structure of LFIC, the fact the executive is elected by members and the dynamics created by including the range of different farming

types, with many members farming a mix themselves. Three wise men: (L to R) David Keeley, Ross Polson and Roger Baxter. “We just like working together.” with the advisers. Polson says one key to He says the the club’s success is its proactive rather club has got a good reputation and the than reactive approach. advisers are second to none. Members choose their level of service. The club was formed in 1956 by a Most farmers choose seven or eight group of mid-Canterbury farmers looking half-day visits from their adviser each for an alternative advisory service. It year, although the larger farms generally started with one adviser from Lincoln require more time. Members pay a proCollege and quickly grew. rata fee on a six-monthly basis. By the time Ross Polson joined as a Polson says the LFIC has always farm adviser in 1984, membership had operated a full farm advisory service. grown to 120. He worked alongside While the basis of advice changes advisers Barry Croucher and John throughout the year, a normal farm visit Kinvig for more than 25 years before his will incorporate a look around the farm colleagues retired. and full discussion on productivity. The club now employs four advisers Back at the farmer’s house, discussion and has about 170 members, mostly will continue on financial and planning farming on irrigated Canterbury and anything else topical. Plains land between the Rangitata and The club also holds an annual meeting Waimakariri rivers. Polson says irrigation and at least two field days each year, has been a large component of the giving members a chance to come advisory work and discussions during the together, discuss what is happening onpast 25 years. About half the members are farm, share ideas and information. arable farmers with a component of dairy Polson says advisers get to know the support and lamb finishing. The rest are farm and families extremely well. mostly dairy support or dairy farmers. “You feel the ups and downs as they LFIC is an incorporated society. do, but the culture of loyalty is a big part Administration is managed by the of the LFIC.” Ashburton Federated Farmers and the advisors operate from their home offices. The LFIC executive meets bi-monthly aahughes@gisborne.net.nz

Money well spent A paddock of white clover on David Keeley’s Hinds farm. Club farm advisers have given him the confidence to tweak the farming system.

Terry Brosnahan David Keeley, like many farmers, had to go on to a waiting list before he could join the Lauriston Farm Improvement Club. He was about three years into his

farming career. Their farm was borderdyke irrigated. Over time it was converted to centre pivots. Today the farming operation has grown to include two farms totalling 740ha. They grow seed crops including white clover, carrots and ryegrass, cereals

and winter feed for dairy cows. They also buy in about 5000 store lambs to fatten. Keeley said back then most club members/clients were mixed-cropping farmers typically with crop, ewes and winter feed. “It was tricky integrating the mix right.” The farm advisers gave farmers like Keeley the confidence to tweak the system and help them find their strengths as individuals. Advisers like Ross Polson have became close not only to the farm businesses, but the farmers and their families. “Ross is a family friend, he’s been to all our children’s weddings,” Keeley said. The farm adviser could even be likened to a parish priest. Recently retired club farm adviser Barry Croucher was quoted as saying: “You got

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to be able to pray with the best of them, swear with the worst of them.” Some farmers only want specific paddock advice while others want more, such as help with budgets and succession planning. Having the same farm adviser can create business opportunities. Keeley supplies another club member – a dairy farmer – with grain and Polson sets the price. The field days are a chance to hear frank discussion among the farm advisers who don’t always agree with each other. Maronan farmer Roger Baxter said consistency was a hallmark of the club advisers. Club farm adviser John Kinvig came to the farm for about 50 years. “It’s a great club for consistently getting someone each month or six weeks who knows the farm and its potential.” His sons George and Tom each now run one of the two dairy farms which are financially independent and total 900 cows. When the Baxters decided to switch from cropping and store lambs to dairy about six years ago, Kinvig helped with the decision-making. Members say club advisers tend to cost less and are more accessible than other farm consultants. If a farmer has a problem, he can phone an adviser at no extra cost. Club advisers are virtually involved in the day-to-day running of many farms. The Baxters pay about $4000 for eight visits a year which Roger said was money well-spent. “It is amazing how they come on to the place and usually give advice which will pay for their cost for the year.” • More pics p75

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BUSINESS | HOW FARMERS LEARN

A good steer on bull beef Anne Hughes North Waikato bull beef farmer Neil Aicken formed a steering group around his business six years ago. Aicken and his Waikawa Farms staff meet quarterly with the steering team. They are challenged by the steering group and held accountable to the decisions made during these meetings. It includes bull farmers, his FarmIQ facilitator, farm consultant, bank manager, accountant, agronomist, meat company agent, vet and fertiliser representative. Bringing together a group of people key to the Waikawa Farms operation gives each member of the steering group a wider understanding of the business. “I learn a lot from them because they’re from all different walks of life,” Aicken says. Steering group member, ASB rural manager Brad Saxton says decisions are made with the group knowing all the information, not just the details specific to their particular area of expertise. He has also learnt a lot more about farming, bull beef finishing systems in particular, from his involvement. “I find it quite interesting and I can add more value when talking to other clients because I’ve learnt about other systems and spent time talking with other professionals such as the fertiliser reps and vets,” Saxton says. “I can see how the agronomy and fertility aspects fit into the overall picture.” Another member, the farm’s chartered

A steering group helps keep Neil Aicken’s bull beef business on track, but it is also a great way for the rural professionals involved to learn more about his business and farming in general.

accountant and financial advisor Stephen Stafford-Bush says the steering group is an open forum. “The nature of the group is such that we’re able to challenge things in a robust way,” Stafford-Bush says. “We vigorously debate all the areas of Neil’s business – it’s putting anything on the table to discuss ways to improve the business.” Stafford-Bush also benefits from the networking opportunities created and by learning more about all aspects of the Waikawa Farms business and intensive bull beef finishing. Trevor Cook is a vet and farm consultant who is also involved in some steering groups around the country. Cook says advisory or steering groups bring a higher level of accountability and discipline to the farm business. “I think it’s a very powerful forum for the health of the farming business.”

aahughes@gisborne.net.nz

BUSINESS | COMPUTERS

Connecting with the keyboard Rebecca Harper When Pongaroa farmer and Summit Consulting farm consultant Rachel Joblin was approached by two local farmers about learning to use a computer she was surprised to find there were no suitable courses available for them. So she decided to do something about it, writing and delivering a computer course to local farmers, at her own cost. The course has mushroomed and been taken on by the Red Meat Profit Partnership (RMPP) which is now subsidising the Computing for Farmers course and rolling it out nationwide. It all started when she told one farmer there were no courses available. He asked if she would teach a course, if he got a group of farmers together. Her initial motivation was trying to find courses for farmers genuinely interested, but frustrated there wasn’t anything available in their remote area.

Pongaroa farm consultant Rachel Joblin saw a need for computer training for farmers and set about writing and delivering a course.

“I felt, if I don’t help, what’s going to change?” She knew the lack of technology could potentially inhibit their businesses and limit opportunities. When they had 10 farmers interested she did a survey and found seven of them had never turned a computer on before. “So that was where we started.” Joblin ran two courses in Pongaroa, each consisting of four nights of twohour sessions. The sessions covered basics like what the terminology meant, using Word and the internet. Rachel delivered the courses for $50 a person, which she donated to the local school to help upgrade its computers. “It wasn’t about the money.” After that, RMPP came on board. Computing for farmers – getting started, was piloted last year in Masterton, Gisborne and with a group of women. Until this point it had been aimed at men.

Joblin was also involved in writing part two of the course, which covers using Excel to manage farm data and farm management tools. This year, facilitators have been selected nationwide and the course was rolled out in King Country, Gisborne, Canterbury, Otago and Southland. It costs $80 a person, which is subsidised by RMPP, and is for both men and women. This year 135 farmers have attended the courses. Joblin says a lot of it was about building farmers confidence using computers and showing them what software is available that might be appropriate for their own farm business. “They like to see what it looks like, how they might use it and ask questions of someone who does use it.” She said the emphasis was on a learning environment which was informative and relaxed, where people can share experiences and learn from each other in small groups.

Like it on Facebook Lynda Gray Telling an authentic story of life on the farm was the driving motivation for Suzanne Hanning launching the Bristol Grove Dairy Farm Facebook page in February 2015. Other reasons for getting social online were to help bridge the rural-urban divide through education and provide support for other dairy farmers. “We wanted to walk the talk of good management practice, to show we have nothing to hide and are open to our followers asking questions to dispel any inaccurate things they may have heard elsewhere. “We are the first to admit we don’t always get it perfect, but it is important to show that we do our best,” Hanning, a dairy farmer from Grove Bush, was one of 16 farmers attending a Grass Roots Media

rural online day at Tapanui, West Otago. Bristol Grove’s Facebook page is chatty yet informative, good examples being brief easy-to-understand explanations on “downer cows” and management of bobby calves. Hanning said she tried to keep it entertaining and neutral, but had on a few occasions got a bit emotional and angry, especially when media hones-in on the small number of bad farmers and fail to acknowledge the good work done by the majority. The biggest buzz was followers using the page as an educational tool, which included pupils at Fernworth Primary School, Invercargill, who as well as taking on board the farming side had looked at how she applied simple maths in the running of the farm. The relationship had led to a farm visit by the school’s maths club.

Get on Facebook and share real and authentic farming stories, southland dairy farmer Suzanne Hanning says.

“It’s a great feeling to know you are helping either shed some light on what really happens on farms or that other farmers have been able to show some of our posts to their staff to help explain the reason behind some farming decisions and practices.” She encouraged other farmers to get on Facebook to share their real and honest onfarm stories.

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EID

Scanning for growth

TOXIC RYEGRASS The facial eczema challenge P30 Country-Wide January 2017

DEER | TECHNOLOGY

Scanning for better growth Lynda Gray Just why deer farmers aren’t using scanning and recording technology for all its worth dumbfounds Des Ford. “It seems crazy to have scanning gear if you’re only use it when you scan deer on to a truck. We’ve been forced into EID and all that goes with it because of NAIT so why not make it work for you?” Des, the manager of Deer Improvement’s Balfour farm, has been capturing scanning and weaner growth rates to better micro-manage hinds and young stock. Although the farm’s breeding hinds have always been separated into a main and late fawning mob the timing of when this happens has changed since EID. It used to happen at scanning, but with EID recording the main and late-calving hinds are noted at scanning but grazed in mixed mobs through the winter, which makes for easier management. They’re sorted into main and late mobs before fawning starts in late October. The recording of calving dates is also helping identify wet-dry hinds. “If a hind comes through dry (at weaning) we record her and give her a second chance because it’s only a month until mating. I’d rather keep a wet-dry than a late-calving hind, but if she’s dry again at scanning they’re sent to the works.”

Increasing pasture length and cover from 1600kg/DM/ha (4cm) to 2,500kg/DM/ ha (8cm) over fawning has improved fawn survivability.

Detailed growth and breed performance recording and measuring of weaner stags and hinds is a huge part of Deer Improvement’s farm management system. All fawns are weighed eight times in their first year, DNA-matched to parents, as well as being eye-muscle scanned. “Breeding values for growth rate don’t necessarily correlate to increased eye muscle. We’re now concentrating more on eye muscle measurement

Deer Improvement Balfour Research farm • Massey Innovation Award winner at the 2016 Southland Ballance Awards • Managers: Des and Lynda Ford • Area: 400ha (333ha effective) • Stock units: 4465 • Av SU/ha: 13.4 • Wintered stock: 2200, a mix of breeding and sale hinds, R1 weaners, R2 stags and elite MA stags • Rainfall: 900mm • 211-300 ASL This top line of twoyear-old stags will be sold pre-Xmas.

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Mixed-age hinds after wintering on self-feed silage.

because it relates directly to what goes in the box (at the processors).” They have also started testing yearlings for CARLA (carbohydrate larval antigen), with the goal of developing a breed value for natural parasite resistance. While much of the detail would be superfluous on most commercial farms, Des says the ability to monitor individual growth rates of young stock is something all deer farmers could be using to their advantage. “We’re regularly recording mob growth rates over spring and you might average daily growth at say 250-500 grams but within the mob there will be some going backwards and recording will tell you

Downsizing the area of winter crop and replacing with pasture should reduce the swede wastage problem.

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and could alert you to an animal health issue. Averages don’t always paint the true picture.” The Deer Improvement farm won the Massey University Innovation award at this year’s Southland Ballance Awards. Judges were impressed with how the LIC subsidiary farm had developed advanced breeding technologies and promoted their use across the industry. They also said the business had delivered impressive genetic gains for venison production and was helping improve sustainability of the deer industry.

ET BOOSTS GENETIC QUALITY Embryo transfer (ET) has been the most influential technology by greatly increasing the rate of genetic gain. Every year about 200 fawns are born from recipient hinds implanted with embryos fertilised by the top four or five two-yearold stags from first-calving hinds. The ET process had become more efficient due to the expertise of assisted reproduction specialist Mike Bringans who is contracted to carry out the work. Also, the donor hinds selected are descended from a line of high-flushing hinds. “When we started doing embryo transfers we were getting six embryos per donor, now we’re averaging 10.” The essence of the Deer Improvement farm – supplying top-quality genetics through sales of two-year-old sire stags and semen from their top four ranked two-year-old stags – means some special management practices are necessary. The 400-hectare farm is in two blocks separated by a road. The sale stags are kept on one side, and on the other side the main farm or isolation block runs a closed herd of breeding hinds and sire stags. Bio-security to prevent disease is strict and includes all visitors washing any farm footwear before entry on to the farm and a no bought-in balage policy to safeguard against Johne’s (JD). The farm is conservatively stocked so there is sufficient feed on hand for a full first year of feeding of all weaners

The integrated scales and computer is used to weigh, record key data and draft-by-rule.

during which their key measurements are recorded and used for selection in October.

WASTE NOT A paddock of half-eaten swede butts is visual testament of the year-to-year variance in crop yield and utilisation. Swedes have been grown to guarantee good quality winter supplements for Deer Improvement’s spring sale stags but there have been wastage problems in good yielding seasons. This year was a classic example – the 10ha yielded about 110 tonnes but by the start of September the 240 sale stags were well and truly over the swedes, spending a lot of time trampling over what remained to get to the adjoining paddock of grass. On other farms another stock class would be brought on to tidy them up but bringing hinds across the road from the isolation block was not an option, Des says. The solution he’s decided is to downsize

the 13ha winter crop area of swedes and kale to free up more area for spring pasture and silage. “The thing with swedes is that it’s hard to gauge utilisation and yield whereas grass in a self-feed silage pit is known and will keep.” All hinds are wintered on two self-feed pits on the other side of the road so Des is very familiar with the feeding system. For winter 2017 he’s targeting two hectares of swedes and a two-hectare trial crop of fodder beet, leaving an extra 9ha for grass. The costs of moving to a downsized swede, fodder beet and self-feed system were compared to growing a 10 tonne/ha swede crop by members of the Southland advance party Des belongs to. In short there is no difference with a kilogram of drymatter under either system costing about 17 cents to produce. Facilitator Dean Carson says moving to a system where there was more feed on hand in spring and less wastage made sense, but the downside was that it could slow the rate of pasture renewal. However, Des says that wasn’t a big concern given that most of the pastures were young. “I have had to double crop so I’m quite comfortable with the amount of regrassing and I’d do it using spray and a direct drill in autumn.” Advance party members said the addition of fodder beet would require a high-quality protein supplement. Des plans eventually to plug that gap with red clover balage made from the Relish he plans to start growing this season. He’s keen to trial the clover because of the good animal growth rates another advance party farmer, now entering the third season of growing the crop, has had. Some farmers have steered away from

red clover because it’s dormant over the winter, however Des says this will not be a constraint because the hinds were wintered on self-fed silage and only a couple of mobs of stags wintered on grass. Deane Carson has words of caution about red clover. His own experiences of the legume through research trial work in Canterbury was that it persists generally for about four years whereas a permanent pasture could easily last six to 10 years. “Replanting of the areas on a regular basis needs to be put down as a cost against red clover relative to permanent pasture,” he says. The extra cost could be as much as $200/ha/yr. If the red clover is fed to weaners then the extra animal performance required to offset the $200/ ha/year will need to be 126gms/head/day for every day of the year. “That’s a big ask for any feed.”

LET IT GROW Longer, rank growth in fawning paddocks appears to have improved the survival of progeny from first fawning hinds. Des says the intensive system with little natural cover is a risk factor for newborn fawns who sometimes wandered, poked their way through fences and end up separated from the hind and died. Discussion of the problem with a North Island advance party dairy and deer farmer convinced him to try longer pastures pre-fawning. Last year grazing management in the fawning blocks was targeted at maintaining about 2500kg/drymatter/ ha rather than the 1600kg/DM/ha of previous years. The hinds, as is the usual practice, were run at a conservative six stock units a hectare because of the condensed fawning due to artificial insemination which is used across most of the hinds. The opportunity cost was less grass for silage in November and having to tidy up the pastures by making

Deer Improvement’s Balfour farm.

balage which was either sold to dairy farmers or supplementary fed to stags on swedes over winter. But the overall goal of improved fawn survivability was achieved. “We usually get 90% weaning (fawns from scanned hinds) on flat paddocks but I managed to sneak that up a couple of percent last year. Even though our fawning is variable for year to year so if we can keep that consistent result over the next couple of years I’ll be happy.”

On the market

Des Ford has managed Deer Improvement’s Balfour farm since its establishment in 2005.

Deer Improvement is for sale as a going concern. The decision to look at the potential sale of the LIC subsidiary has been made because deer genetics is not a core business, LIC biological Systems general manager Geoff Corbett says. “We have generated significant genetic gain for the deer industry since the formation of Deer Improvement but we see it as a natural move to provide an opportunity for an industry player to take the business forward into the next phase of its growth.” Under LIC ownership, Deer Improvement has contributed an average 15kg liveweight gain per animal over the 10 years to 2014 (based on yearlings). He says the use of reproduction technologies has made high genetic merit stags available which dominate the industry’s Deer Select database. “LIC sees this as a great opportunity for the Deer Improvement business to be owned by other deer industry participants who can create additional value for deer improvement.”

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DEER | WAPITI ANNIVERSARY

Crowd Pullar Thirty years ago a deer group held it first field day and got an outstanding response. The Elk & Wapiti society (EWS) held its field day at Jack Pullar’s farm near Winton on October 29. Pullar, now retired, is still a member of the society, says it was a huge success. “It was beyond our expectations. There was drama behind the scenes but everything seemed to flow.” A crowd of more than 200 had a bus tour around the Pullars’ wapiti, Canadian elk and hybrid deer, talks from Invermay scientists and a carcase-cutting display. The 30th anniversary of the EWS will be celebrated in Wanaka on January 28. According to the book Wapiti behind the Wire by the late David Yerex, the society was formally established in late 1986 by Sir Tim Wallis, Southland vet Mike Bringans and a group of mostly

Southland farmers with the goal of getting “fair value” for their animals, velvet and venison. Pullar says he started deer farming to supplement sheep breeding, believing the industry had export potential because venison was well known in Europe. “I got caught up with the enthusiasm of deer farming. It’s probably a bit like what the enthusiasm is now for buying houses in Auckland.” He pursued wapiti rather than red deer because they were bigger and fulfilled his expectations of what a deer should look like. “I knew that cross-breeding them would be the way to go for the future of the industry.” EWS president John Falconer says the intention of the celebration is to bring

A rising two-yearold wapiti stag.

together everyone who has or has had an affiliation with the breed. He expects more than 150 people from throughout the country to attend.

Breeding the difference

34TH ANNUAL ELITE SIRE STAG SALE Monday 9th January 2017 @ 1pm

MCCAW

GREGOR

ALEXANDER

Offering to include 2 & 3yr old sons of:

AMADEUS, LORD HAKA, MORPHEUS, MCCAW, WOODY, PRINCE PHILIP, HENRY VIII, GREGOR, ALEXANDER, DAVIDSON, HENRY JAMES, AND HOUGHTON, FOLLOWED BY A SELECTION OF COMMERCIAL SIRES & TROPHY STAGS. Catalogues will be posted out in December

ALL ENQUIRIES: Barry Gard 021 222 8964, after hours 03 431 2803 bgard@foverandeerpark.co.nz | www.foverandeerpark.co.nz

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DEER | FACIAL ECZEMA

When the feed gets toxic Anne Hughes Autumn is Ian Scott’s least-favourite time of year. Facial eczema and parasites combine to make ryegrass the most toxic feed for his Wapiti and Red deer. “If I could put all my deer in a big shed over autumn and stop feeding them grass, I would,” the Waikato vet, deer and dairy farmer says. Scott deals with the challenges of facial eczema (FE) every year on his farm between Tirau and Matamata, but 2016 was particularly bad. Spore counts as high as one million were recorded in some parts of the Waikato last year and Scott lost deer, even some Red trophy stags, to the disease. Pregnancy rates in his breeding hinds were back slightly on the previous year and he suspects FE to be the cause of poor winter growth in some weaner deer. Scott has learnt the importance of timing, being proactive and using multiple tools and management practices to help protect his deer herd. He has moved weaning from autumn to post-rut, when hopefully the FE challenge has eased. Hinds with fawns are also heavily supplemented with maize silage during risk periods. Scott says FE prevention is complicated because it is difficult to pre-empt when

it is going to take off and when to intervene. It also presents itself differently in deer than in sheep and cattle. The subtle effects in deer of sub-clinical production losses are not always recognised or easily identified as FE. “It’s often young weaners that are worst affected and you don’t know how severely affected they’ve been until winter when they fade away.”

‘Because we don’t know that the zinc works, the only way I have been able to protect the deer is to stop the deer actually ingesting the toxin.’

In his experience, zinc capsules have not proven effective in deer. Capsules are difficult and time-consuming to administer and deer are prone to regurgitating them. Zinc works by protecting the liver, which may not be the primary target organ system of FE in deer, the way it is in sheep and cattle.

Tall fescue is one alternative feed option to help prevent facial eczema in deer during the risk period, which is generally from January to late May, depending on the season. Photo: Lorna Humm.

He says preliminary work carried out by AgResearch senior scientist Dr Geoff Asher indicated the most damage from FE in Fallow deer was to the upper part of the intestine. Scott says it is not known exactly how the liver in deer is affected by FE and there is no scientific evidence showing zinc (in any form) to be effective against the disease. “Because we don’t know that the zinc works, the only way I have been able to protect the deer is to stop the deer actually ingesting the toxin.” Scott spends $8000-$9000 spraying his entire farm two to three times during the season to kill the fungus carrying the sporidesmin toxin. To be effective, spraying needs to be done at the right time, so he must try to anticipate when spore counts will start rising. Scott also grows alternative pasture species and feeds supplements such as maize silage. He is now looking to replace even more ryegrass on his farm with annual crops like chicory. This should reduce incidence of FE, but this will add more costs to the system.

FE RISKS IN DEER Deer are not exempt from the devastating effects of facial eczema. For the small proportion of the nation’s deer being farmed in potential hot spots,

There has been no specific selection for facial eczema tolerance in deer, but Red deer are less susceptible than Fallow and Wapiti. 30

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Fallow deer are more susceptible to facial eczema than red deer.

JOINT EFFORTS

protecting stock from facial eczema (FE) can be a serious challenge. Deer Industry New Zealand (DINZ) deer health manager Lorna Humm says the high FE challenge in more northern parts of the country in 2016 seems to have caused significant production losses in affected deer herds. The risk period for FE coincides with some key deer farming dates – weaning, flushing hinds for mating and mating. Humm says the most common clinical signs in freshly weaned deer are scouring and rapid weight loss. Hinds and stags become restless and itchy - rubbing their eyes, nose and tongue and seeking shade. Vet and deer farmer Ian Scott has been observing the effects of FE on his Waikato farm for many years and trying to find the best ways to manage the disease. Scott says acute FE damage increases sensitivity to sunlight. Unlike sheep, deer have very few areas on the body they can be sunburnt, but the insides of their nostrils can be burnt by sunlight reflecting off the ground. As a result, deer can be seen licking their noses, trying to relieve burnt nostrils. Stags may also be seen hunching in discomfort, if the FE sporedesmin toxin has damaged their urethra, making it

A chicory/lucerne mix is one alternative feed option during the facial eczema risk period. Photo: Lorna Humm.

The deer industry is on board with efforts to reignite facial eczema research and development. Deer Industry New Zealand (DINZ) has joined the facial eczema action group, along with the dairy, sheep and beef industries, to ensure representation and relevance for deer farmers. DINZ deer health manager, vet and deer farmer, Lorna Humm is representing the organisation on the action group. Waikato vet, deer and dairy farmer Ian Scott has also joined as a technical advisor. Scott hopes new research and development into facial eczema (FE) will help develop smarter strategies around prevention and management of the disease. He also hopes it will impress on farmers the importance of a proactive approach, the complexities of the disease, variations in timing and intensity and the differences between species in how FE affects animals and can be controlled. Scott says more of the nation’s deer herd could be affected by FE in the future. “If we are in a global warming scenario where hotter temperatures are going to occur further south, then FE’s going to move south as well.”

painful to urinate. Scott says blindness is a symptom of more chronic FE and progressive, irreparable damage to the liver. Apart from poorer conception rates, particularly in yearling hinds, Humm says FE can have lifelong impacts on the health of all deer, particularly those affected as weaners. Selection for FE tolerance has happened naturally to some extent on-farm, but there has been no specific selection for tolerance in deer. Red deer have reasonable levels of tolerance and are less-susceptible than Wapiti and Fallow breeds. Humm advises deer farmers in FE-risk areas to monitor spore counts and be proactive. “Be aware of your own spore counts and the variation within your own farm, of regional spore counts and of the fact that northern-facing areas are more susceptible. “Repeated exposure to low-level spore counts can be just as damaging.” Growing alternative forages in which FE is not present – such as chicory, legumes, tall fescue and turnips – and supplement feeding can also help with prevention. Secure sliding lid for easy access & safe operation

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DEER | ADVANCE PARTY

Follow through and join the party Lynda Gray It’s difficult to find a deer farmer who isn’t an Advance Party member. More than 200 farmers belong to one of the 23 groups that have started up around the country since late 2013. The farmer-led groups are beefed up discussion groups with the key requirement of “follow-through” by the eight to 10 participants. Follow-through means each farmer committing to a project to tackle a particular issue limiting production and/ or profitability within their own deerfarming business. They’re required to come up with an action plan, record what they do and at each meeting give a progress report on how they’re tracking. Deer Industry New Zealand (DINZ) Advance Party co-ordinator Pania Flint said at this year’s deer industry conference it was not a discussion group or about a farm advisor telling people what to do.

‘We want to build up a good repository of changes farmers have made. They won’t be scientific peer-reviewed stories but farmer-proven.’

“We’re talking about farmers getting together, talking about the issues and coming up with the solutions”. The other key differences were that they were run by a trained and paid facilitator, and there was a defined group meeting structure to ensure findings from projects filtered back to DINZ. The AP model seems to be firing up deer farmers judging by feedback from an August CINTA agri-research survey of 90 participants of which 70% attributed their motivation for change to party membership. Their most significant gains have come from changing the quality

and quantity of feed. There were also some unexpected “soft” gains. “Farmers have talked about the building of trust within the group, camaraderie, and the confidence to make change – that’s the big one, a lot of farmers said they had been thinking about making change and the advance party had given them the confidence to go forward and do it,” Flint said. The advance party concept of self-led farmer improvement sounds good but how difficult was it to get the follow-through needed? Deer farmers have kept up participation, with nearly half being part of a group for one to two years, DINZ P2P manager Innes Moffat said, but an area needing more work was the recording of exactly what, how and why around the outcomes of the projects. “We want to build up a good repository of changes farmers have made. They won’t be scientific peer-reviewed stories but farmer-proven.” Like any group-learning, individual members get out of it what they put in. “That’s what it boils down to and some, not many, have left because they’ve decided it’s not for them.” Composition of the groups will change over time and some will run their course. “We don’t want them to have a finish date but they’ll need to keep evolving.” A total of $450,000 (50% funding each from DINZ and a 2014-2017 Sustainable Farming Fund grant) was being spent on the advance party model. From July 1, 2017 the funding will transfer to MPI’s Primary Growth Partnership. Most of the money is used for payment of facilitators, up to $10,000 a year for each and a yearly national workshop. The advance parties were part of the industry’s P2P or Passion to Profit strategy aimed at producing more deer, heavier, earlier, but were they delivering the results?

Pania Flint, Deer Industry New Zealand Advance Party co-ordinator. The advance party had given farmers the confidence to make changes.

Moffat said the moving forward by two weeks of the industry average kill date in 2015/16 for the first time since recording of kill dates started was encouraging. “Dry Innes Moffat: nice to see conditions will a movement in the right have had an direction. impact, but with the genetic gains and the noise the industry has been making about better feeding and earlier killing it’s nice to see a movement in the right direction. One year is an anomaly, two years is a coincidence, three years and we’ll begin to attribute some causation.” Benchmarking and monitoring of key performance indicators would be one way to further drive industry performance and that was the intention at the outset of the programme. However, it’s been side-lined in the meantime because of the difficulty of collecting comparable data across groups, but could be introduced as the groups evolve.

lyndagray@xtra.co.nz

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DEER | PROGENY TEST

Following the line Lynda Gray The three-year Deer Progeny Test (DPT) has produced a plethora of breed value information that’s been fed into DeerSelect, the industry’s pedigree and trait recording database. Stud breeders were obvious beneficiaries of the DPT through new and updated breed value information, but the estimated $450,000 exercise will benefit commercial deer farmers by giving them faith in the DeerSelect recording programme, AgResearch scientist and a DPT leader Geoff Asher says. “They can have trust in the breeders that use DeerSelect and that the programme is doing a good job at providing objective breed value information.” While not advocating sire selection purely on DeerSelect information he hoped deer farmers would pay more attention to the science-based breed values and indices. It was a source of frustration, he says, that some farmers let their stag-buying decisions be swayed by a big set of antlers in a sales catalogue when objective meat production breed values were more important, given that most deer farming relied on venison income. “Getting farmers toAd.pdf distinguish Parex - Magazine 1 24/11/2016 4:15:44 p.m. between the visual and the real

information is the real challenge. It’s up to farmers to sort out their objectives.” Jamie Ward, another DPT leader, says killing across three farms over three years gave a good range of venison traits from different systems. “We know more about venison in modern production systems than ever.” During the DPT 65 venison measurements were recorded. One of the most important findings was that increased eye muscle area (EMA) was associated with more muscling, better tenderness and eating quality.

Commercial farmers could therefore take note of EMA in conjunction with other traits important to their system when selecting stags. He emphasised single-trait selection was not a good idea and farmers should align themselves with breeder(s) with a similar genetics plan and vision. Haldon Station’s Paddy Boyd, who contributed breeding hinds to the DPT, says although there were no direct benefits to commercial farmers it was imperative they bought from stag breeders who were part of DeerSelect.

Venison benchmarks from the DPT Trait pre-slaughter LW (kg)

mean

min

max

H2 (heritability)

105

11.9

71.7

144.5

0.53

hot CW (kg)

57.8

6.4

39.2

84.5

0.58

hot dress-out %

55.1

1.9

49.2

60.5

0.51

cold CW (kg)

56.8

6.3

38.4

82.1

0.59

cold dress- out %

54.2

1.9

49.2

59.3

0.49

tenderness* (kgF)

6.58

2.24

2.75

16.87

0.26

24hr pH**

5.53

0.09

5.34

6.58

0.18

*< 8kgF is desirable Source: DPT key findings for commercial producers **< 5.8 is desirable pH Venison benchmark figures are one of the immediate and useful outputs for commercial farmers from the DPT. The table, based on post-slaughter measures from DPT progeny, summarises the weight and measured averages of weaners farmed in a “good practice” feeding, animal health and transport system, Geoff Asher says. It was a benchmark for venison quality moving forward and was a reference for farmers.

CMY

Country-Wide January 2017

LIVESTOCK | ONFARM

A BUSINESS REJUVENATED A monitor farm programme has transformed a struggling operation. Russell Priest reports. Photos by Joanna Higgins-Ware.

argeted injections of capital have transformed a Gisborne sheep and beef station. From a struggling business Raukura Station now achieves a gross income of $922 a hectare and a profit before tax of $309/ ha. It is all part of Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) Monitor Farm programme and committee chairman Chris Harris is adamant there is a lot more improvement to come yet. “To date we’ve only addressed issues relating to the major components of the business,” he says. “There’s a lot of finetuning to do yet.” Anne Hewetson, speaking for her two other sisters/co-owners Debbie and Vicky

FARM FACTS Raukura Station is at Tiniroto, 59km WSW of Gisborne • A sheep and cattle breeding and finishing business • 1353ha (1040ha effective) • Owned jointly by the Hewetson sisters. Goals: • Sheep: 140% lambing by 2015 (achieved) • Cattle: 92% calving by 2015 • Stock wintered: • Ewes: 3544 • Ewe hoggets: 1012 • Trade hoggets: 452 • Rams: 54 • Cows: 200 • R3 heifers: 96 • R2 heifers: 177 • R1 heifers: 133 • R2 steers: 120 • R1 steers: 137 • Herd sires: 12 • Stock Units • Sheep: 5892 • Cattle: 4053 • Stocking rate: 9.56su/ha • Sheep-to-cattle ratio: 59:41 • Animal Performance • Ewe weaning percentage: 147% (2015) • Calving percentage: 88% • Average lamb CW: 16.8kg • Average 30-month heifer CW: 233kg • Average 30-month steer CW: 299kg Financial Performance (2014-15 year) • Gross income: $922/ha • Profit before tax: $309/ha.

Co owner Anne Hewetson.

Country-Wide January 2017

Hewetson, admits the business was in bad shape before B+LNZ became involved. “B+LNZ provided us with the support we needed,” she says. Raukura became a monitor farm in August, 2011. Anne is full of praise for what Chris and his team have achieved. Chris became involved not only as chairman but also as interim manager in the transition between permanent managers. He has found his role extremely satisfying. “It was easy to demonstrate an immediate return on targeted capital investment because the place was not in good shape,” Chris says. “We started by doing the basics properly and on time.” A reluctance to invest capital was a hallmark of the committee’s early discussions with the owners, but their confidence was quickly gained after the success of an early project. “We reduced stock losses from about 7% to 3% by simply stock-proofing fences,” Chris says.

At 940m, Mt Whakapunaki dominates the local landscape.

Co-owner Anne Hewetson, general manager Stu Helm and consultant Chris Harris.

Family ownership The 1353-hectare (1040ha effective) Tiniroto-based Raukura farming operation is owned by three Hewetson sisters Vicky, Anne and Debbie. Two smaller finishing farms (Waimangu and The Kowhais) at Waerenga o kuri (about 30km away) are run by Simon Win and Debbie Hewetson and their family with some support from the Raukura staff. With a total effective area of 158ha they support Raukura as finishing blocks. The business involves breeding and finishing sheep and cattle and is ably managed by Stuart and Taryn Helm with assistance from shepherd/general Adam Sainsbury. Annual rainfall (10-year average) at the manager’s homestead on Raukura is 1407mm with a range of 979-1517mm. Altitude varies from 365m at the woolshed to 490m at the top of the trig paddock so it is not surprising several snowfalls are experienced each year. Exposure to the dry prevailing north-westerly wind is partly responsible for recent droughts in the area. Average paddock size on Raukura is 13.6ha (65 paddocks) and on Waimangu 9.3ha (15 paddocks).

A successful partnership From the outset the monitor farm community group set about identifying the issues causing poor business performance. A business plan was developed involving six goals: • Improved financial management – Cash Manager was adopted to provide regular monthly reports to the stakeholders and flexible budgeting • Minimise stock losses – these were a source of major financial leakage • Increased productivity – this was poor, starting with barely 100% lambing • Increased profitability – the business needed substantial investment in key areas • Sustainable production – measures to arrest erosion, protect waterways and control invasive species were needed • To be financially in the top 20% of Gisborne farms.

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These were all goals the stakeholders had previously aspired to but had not been able to implement. There was much to be done. The infrastructure was in serious need of an upgrade and soil fertility and pasture quality were poor. Adoption of the Cash Manager financial programme and employment of manager, Stuart Helm, who provides detailed reports, has brought the stakeholders closer to their business and provided them with much-needed confidence. Early success in reducing stock losses through investment in fencing further boosted this confidence so today they recognise the importance of targeted and informed investment. “We still have to justify virtually every investment decision we make though,” Chris says.

Several satellite yards have been built to improve workability.

Stock-proofing fences was the first project out of the blocks.

Dramatic turnaround Productivity increases have been dramatic on Raukura. In four years lamb numbers weaned have increased from 2634 to 4915, total weight of lambs weaned from 63,479kg to 132,705kg, and average weaning weight from 24.1kg to 27kg. Average ewe bodyweight at weaning (net of wool) has also increased from 48.8kg to 60kg and weaning percentage from 99.7% to 140.3%. Few would argue that these are substantial gains, reflecting the low productivity base at the start of the programme and the astute and targeted development expenditure and managerial skill. Up to six areas for capital expenditure were identified, each capable of consuming large sums of money. Drawing on the combined experience of members of the monitor farm community group, a development plan was drawn up, ranking the projects as to which returned the best bangs for bucks. Stock-proofing fences was the first project out of the blocks. A fencing map prioritising those fences requiring the most urgent attention was at the heart of this project. Immediate results were achieved. Not only did it greatly reduce stock losses but it also enabled better pasture control, better distribution of fertility and enhanced

pasture quality. A side benefit was a reduction in goat numbers. Over a five-year period Raukura spent $6.71/su/year on fencing compared with the district average of $2.97. Construction of a major track and laneway through the centre of the farm and satellite yards (five sets for sheep and three for cattle) was the next project. Previous access from the woolshed and yards to the heart of the farm was tenuous and became impassable when wet, and hazardous to farm staff. The original laneway fencing was three-wire electric which struggled to hold stock so this was replaced with conventional batten fencing. While the cost was substantial at $52,540, the effect on the efficiency of stock movement, treatment and general farm workability as well as the capital value it added to the farm made it an excellent investment. “The laneway works well,” manager Stuart Helm says. “It does away with a shepherd and a team of dogs.” Now that paddocks could be grazed evenly and stock moved freely around the farm the next issue was soil fertility. While the community group suspected the fertility was poor, there was no hard evidence. In August 2013, three samples were Plantain/clover swards are being established on some of the easier country.

taken from each paddock and analysed. Only Olsen P and pH tests were done as these were the two areas of interest and there were budgetary constraints. Being able to take a large number of samples improved the accuracy of the data. The results revealed 44% of the farm had an average P level of six. At this level it was estimated the pastures were performing at 66% of their optimum potential. Calculations showed that to lift the average P level to 18 would require $194,588 of capital fertiliser expenditure and this would generate an annual gross return of $94,512. The fertiliser programme was initiated in the 20122013 financial year and completed in 2015-2016. Soils on a significant area of the farm had low pH readings of 5.0-5.5 (27 paddocks out of 62). It was agreed that the return on investment in phosphate (34%) was considerably better than that on lime (typically <10%) so application of the latter was postponed. Raukura ewes have increased their weaning rate by 50% in five years.

Earlier soil tests revealed potassium levels were satisfactory and maintenance applications of sulphur were required. A late winter/early spring application of nitrogen is now used to meet a feed deficit at this critical time. Analyses of nitrogen applications have shown the enterprises giving the best return are ewes rearing multiples, and growing and finishing cattle. Having addressed the three main areas of capital investment the community group in 2015 turned its attention to pasture species improvement. An area of 11ha of easier country with a phosphate level of 46 was chosen to establish a white clover/plantain sward using the spray-and-pray technique. A dry autumn coupled with a large amount of surface trash has resulted in this being only moderately successful. This continues to be a work in progress. A second area is in the process of being prepared for swedes. This will be followed by the sowing of more white clover and plantain next spring. Provision of quality stock water has been a problem during recent dry summers at Raukura so the construction of a gravity-fed water scheme has been planned for the 2015-16 financial year. The scheme will source water from a

Country-Wide January 2017

Tiniroto in Maori means ‘many small lakes’.

spring-fed dam covering 0.45ha called the Publican’s dam. This lies at an elevation of 457m on a ridgeline near the centre of the farm. The first stage of the project has involved increasing the dam’s capacity by raising its wall height by 1.5m. Water will be pumped to a receiver tank nearby using a solar-powered pump, then gravity fed to troughs at tops of paddocks to the west of the dam. Now that goat numbers have been substantially reduced blackberry is becoming a significant problem, as is kanuka regeneration. Funding to control both has been set aside in the 2015-16 budget.

Changing stock policies Several changes in stock policies suggested by the monitor farm community group were adopted and implemented. These included simplifying the stock policies and classes, finishing as many stock as possible (no lambs were finished pre-monitor farm), terminating the bull-

finishing enterprise, mating two-yearold heifers as opposed to yearlings, and mating some hoggets. Raukura now mates 800 of its lesser ewes (B flock) to Suffolk rams and the rest to St Leger Romney rams on April 10. Half the B flock ewes (generally the one-year ewes) are mated early, on March 10, the rest at the same time as the main mob. The mating period for all ewes is 42 days. After scanning, the early-mated ewes are shorn and trucked to Waimangu where they lamb. A weaning draft of lambs is taken off them on December 10, then all the ewes are killed. Waimangu carries 1000 finishing lambs at any one time, with numbers topped up with weaned lambs from Raukura. Some trading lambs are carried through the winter on Waimangu and killed in the spring. The top 900 ewe hoggets are mated to ram hoggets on April 20 for 30 days. The bottom 100 are trucked to Waimangu early in August and killed early in October. An A and B system is also used with the cow herd. Two-thirds of the mixedage cows are mated to Angus bulls from December 20 to February 21 (three cycles) and the remaining third to Kerrah Simmental bulls.

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Country-Wide January 2017

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Simmental bulls are mated to 100 of the lesser quality cows.

Construction of farm tracks has greatly improved accessibility.

If the pregnancy rate is high, cows that conceived in the second half of the third cycle are culled. Heifers mated as twoyear-olds are exposed to Angus bulls for two cycles only, beginning on December 20. The policy change of mating heifers as two-year-olds was prompted by the need to have more-robust cows to “clean up” poor quality roughage in the winter. All male calves are now castrated and weaning occurs on April 17. The recently adopted policy of finishing all male

progeny and surplus females means most of these animals spend their final days on Waimangu and are killed at 30 months. The simple art of condition scoring with an accompanying increase in body weight has had a profound effect on animal productivity in the past four years on Raukura. Under the Monitor Farm programme ewes have been condition-scored five times a year – six weeks before tupping,

The original 688ha Raukura Station was bought by the owners’ father Rob as a rehab farm with an interest-free State Advances Corporation loan after World War II. Rob, who was a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, returned from the war and began working in an office services business in Wellington. Eighteen months later, uninspired by his job, he exchanged the urban lifestyle for a steep, scrub-covered farm at Tiniroto, across the road from his uncle Bill Robertson’s farm. Rob married in 1953 and he and his wife, Stella Mossman, set about clearing Raukura. “They are the real heroes of our story,” Anne says. “Dad was renowned for his stamina and doggedness. He was brought up in poverty, as his father died when he was only three.”

The girls often saw little of their father because he worked from dawn until dusk. When he died suddenly at 63, three of the family were overseas and this prompted them to return home, albeit in a staggered fashion. In the interim the family employed management to run the farm. Once all had returned home the sisters decided to farm Raukura in partnership and continue their parents’ legacy. When the 486ha Coleman farm next door came on the market in 1999, the Hewetson women decided to buy it with a large amount of borrowed capital. They believed the increased scale it brought to Raukura, along with improved access and facilities, made it a strategically important asset that would help Raukura reach its full potential.

Rehab farm cut from scrub

and at tupping, scanning, docking and weaning. At each of these times a steady and significant increase in condition score has been recorded, manifesting in substantial increases in scanning percentages, weaning percentages, weaning weights and weight of lamb weaned a ewe. Condition scoring has also been a useful tool for reporting to stakeholders, for monitoring feed levels and for managing tail-end ewes.

General manager Stu Helm, his wife Taryn, and children Pippa and Arlo.

Raukura ewes set-stocked for lambing.

Country-Wide January 2017

LIVESTOCK | DOG FOOD

Dog condition needs to be watched Recent results from nationwide research into farm dog nutrition has found contradictions to some accepted concepts and thrown up as many questions as answers. Tim McVeagh recently caught-up with associate Professor Nick Cave who led the research. Cave is a senior lecturer in small animal medicine at Massey University and regarded as New Zealand’s leading dog nutrition scientist. The stand-out message from a short-term study of 60 working dogs in the Gisborne region, is that weight-loss during heavy work load is avoidable. “You shouldn’t even expect it and it can be easily prevented by paying attention to your dog’s body condition,” Cave said. The main focus of the study, which had about six dogs on each farm, was the common complaint that dogs lose weight during their peak work period from docking to early New Year. It is very hard to keep weight on them. Previous studies have shown dogs do lose body condition fairly consistently over this period. Cave said they tested the hypothesis that if dogs were put on a very high quality, relatively high protein diet, compared with either Tux and home kill, or Tux alone, then they would not lose weight. Royal Canin RC 4800 was chosen as the high-quality diet. As well as body weight, the parameter of most interest was body condition as measured by muscle and fat mass. “This is important because we wanted to know if any weight loss was from muscle or fat.

Country-Wide January 2017

“If they are losing fat, this can be compensated for by feeding more calories. There is nothing wrong with having cyclical changes in body fat, losing it during the heavy work period and regaining it in the quieter months. “If they are losing muscle, that’s a real concern. That would increase the risk of injury and the dogs would be regarded as malnourished.” All 60 dogs put on a little weight during this time. Most significantly, they did not lose weight and there was no difference in bodyweight change between the three dietary groups.

CELLS COUNT: A study of 100 dogs has recently started in the Waikato with Eukanuba Perfomance as a tightly controlled diet, compared with Tux/homekill and other diets. Red blood cell counts will be monitored to see if they fluctuate throughout the year in a way that matches their activity, and to see if there is a dietary effect that lessens the decline in red blood cell count.

“No-one was more surprised and mystified than me.” The Tux and the Tux/homekill group did put on weight, but lost a small amount of muscle mass. So the weight they put on was fat. The Royal Canin group maintained their muscle mass during the trial. Because these differences were very small, a dietary difference with respect to this is insignificant. There was a much greater difference in muscle mass changes between farms, which is difficult to explain. It seems the way they’re being fed, the nature of their work, the timing of their feeding with respect to work and rest, make a big difference. Unfortunately feeding details were not documented. All dogs were fed once a day. Activity was measured by accelerometry collars, this being the first time activity in NZ farm dogs has been objectively measured. Individual dogs had highly variable daily activity, with very heavy workloads some days and some quiet days. There was a much higher variation in activity between the farms, than within the farms. Some of the farms used horses, so the dogs had to walk to and from mustering, while others got to travel on a vehicle.

The low variation within a farm came as a surprise. There was no significant difference in activity between the roughly equal split of huntaways and heading dogs. And there was no difference in activity between the dogs of different diets. There were not enough dogs and the trial period was too short to make sense of injury rates. They were interested to see if dogs on the Tux / home kill and the Tux only diets would exhibit “sports anemia”, as seen in human athletes. This occurs when athletes are on a sub-optimal diet and over-train, resulting in a decline in red blood cells. The red blood cell count reflects their ability to perform in terms of aerobic activity. A decline is expected to impair athletic performance, endurance, recovery time and maybe increase their risk of injury. The red blood cell count dropped significantly over the trial period in the Tux and Tux/homekill groups, and remained normal in the Royal Canin group. Cave said dietary protein had an effect

South Island study on red blood cell count in exercising dogs and the limited data suggested a cut-off point for working dogs of about 24% of ME from protein. “We think that is the standard to prevent injury and a drop in red blood cells.” Further work was needed to see if this was a common phenomenon or just seen in these dogs, he said.

Searching for the ideal ‘athlete’ Another area of interest to Massey scientists is dog body condition. “We don’t actually know what the ideal body condition is.” The body fat masses of Olympic athletes competing in aerobic activities are skinny by general population standards. A large body fat mass quickly becomes obstructive to athletic performance. Associate Professor Nick Cave said the focus should be on muscle mass, but there was no good way of measuring this. “We don’t know what is healthy and ideal. And if a dog is very low in muscle

mass, will this increase its chances of injury or poor recovery?” The first part of the research is to determine the ideal fat and muscle mass, and how to accurately measure this. Fat and muscle mass is measured by morphometrics – the quantitative analysis of form – and assesses how big the dog is. The ratio of the body weight to skeletal size, which can both be measured accurately, indicates if a dog is too lean or too fat. For lean dogs like farm dogs which don’t have much fat mass, their weight in relation to their skeletal size is a good

This was a comparison of Hills Active diet with what the farmer usually fed. Again all dogs in the nine week period put on weight. It seems simply turning the farmers’ attention to the dog and body condition during this period is enough to prevent weight loss. Cave said this was a field trial with feeding instructions, with a bottom line of “If you are given that food, (Hills), would it make it easier to keep weight on your dogs given that rations were set by the farmers”. The answer was no.

indication of their muscle mass. Condition scores through visual examination and prodding the dog are okay, but they are not very accurate. So pet food manufacturers have developed equations for measuring dogs, looking at body weight. The association between their actual body fat mass and the calculated fat mass is good, but this has been developed for pet dogs. Farm dogs are at the very lean end of the spectrum depicted by the pet manufacturers’ graphs, so the Massey team needs to repeat this work but for lean farm dogs, to see if they can develop an equation to measure a dog’s lean mass – its muscle. So they are measuring skeletal size, head, trunk and limb length, which describes how big the dog is. The ratio of the skeletal size and weight predicts their muscle mass. Then they measure their muscle mass by an isotope dilution method, injecting them with a heavy water isotope which distributes in their body. Actual fat and muscle mass can be calculated once a blood sample is taken. This will allow them to go to any farm dog with a tape measure and scales, measure and weigh it, and assess accurately its muscle mass and fat mass.

WHAT IS UNHEALTHY? The TeamMate project in the South Island is a large study being carried out

Country-Wide January 2017

by the VetLife Animal Health Partners. It is in the second of at least a three-year study, following about 500 farm dogs on about 100 farms. The dogs underwent a health screen at the start, to see what sort of muscle mass and fat mass they were. Their diet is monitored, and they are examined and weighed monthly. Performance, injuries and rates of parasitism are recorded. It is a totally noninterventional study. The project is lead by Alexandra vet Lori Linney assisted by Helen Williamson. Study design, data analysis, and advice has been provided by Massey University’s EpiCentre and Working Dog Centre. Massey University associate Professor Nick Cave says data is coming in on the accumulation of injury. “It is important because we want to know dog loss and injury rates, and what the risk factors for injury and osteoarthritis are.” Cave is particularly interested in any association between feeding practices and the key outcomes of injury and longevity for these dogs. This project will answer the question most asked by farmers of “how lean is too lean?” When does it start to become a worry? Cave says the relationship between their body condition, and how well they perform, injury rates and early retirement will be exposed. They will be able to give recommendations as to how lean a dog can be without it being a welfare issue. Farmers who think their dogs are getting too lean will be able to take a few measurements, plug them into an equation and see if in fact they are too lean. “If there’s no benefit in putting extra condition on them, then they can be left as lean as they are.”

He says performing better may mean farmers have to give commands only once. “Maybe the dog accelerates quickly and doesn’t slow down, or maybe it doesn’t look tired at the end of the day.” The starting point for examining performance is more long-term accelerometry data, looking at moments of acceleration more accurately. A PhD student is to interview farmers to determine what they mean by performance in their dogs. They will develop a survey questionnaire using the terms that come out of the interviews. Then a survey will be sent to as many farmers as possible, to get a broad understanding of what is meant by performance. “If it’s endurance or recovery or attentiveness or responsiveness, then we can start measuring these markers; and relate it to hearing, eyesight, arthritis, nutrition. “We will ultimately get to what affect does diet play in performance. If a farmer is going to spend twice as much on a highquality diet, what affect will it have on performance? While farmers generally have a soft spot for their dogs they are running a business too, so a cost benefit could be done to see if the extra cost for high-quality dog food will pay off. At the moment we don’t have good data on the return on investment. We have strong suspicion, excellent theory, but as shown in the Gisborne study, hard data can sometimes conflict with this”.

How lean is too lean? Cyclical changes in body fat with work load are acceptable, but when farm dogs start losing muscle, this can impair performance and increase the risk of injury.

Cave is interested in what part nutrition plays in that. For example, to determine if red blood cell decrease affects performance, we first need to know how to measure performance. Farmers in the Gisborne study told him the dogs performed better on the Royal Canin diet. This was not detected by the accelerometers, so they were not more active.

tim.mcv@gmail.com

PERFORMANCE STUDY Another area under scrutiny by the Massey team is performance of farm dogs. The term is commonly used but not well defined. Some dog performance may simply be behaviour, as they may be bored, mentally exhausted, or distracted. Or it could be athletic performance, which could be affected by diet. Or it may be mildly injury related. “But we need to understand what farmers mean by performance before we can measure it.”

Country-Wide January 2017

LIVESTOCK | BREEDING

Hogget mating drives future productivity Sandra Taylor Managed correctly, hogget mating has the potential to enhance the productivity and profitability of the future ewe flock – but the inverse is also true. Speaking at a B+LNZ Farming for Profit field day in Canterbury, Professor Paul Kenyon from Massey University said not all farmers should breed from their hoggets and, for those who do, it should be a flexible policy depending on feed availability. “If you don’t do it well, they will fall out of the system later – you will ruin them for future years.”

CORRECT FEEDING CRITICAL Feed is the most critical factor in successful hogget mating. This means feeding them consistently well – from when they are weaned as ewe lambs, until they are mated as two-tooths. As a rule of thumb, ewe lambs need to weigh a minimum of 40kg before going to the ram. For a lamb mated in early May, this means an average daily growth rate of 120g/day from birth. She then needs to gain 20kg – or 135gms/day – throughout her pregnancy to meet her two-tooth target weights. Given the conceptus weighs 10kg, the hogget should weigh a minimum of 60kg the day before she lambs, and 50kg the day after. The heavier the ewe lamb is at mating, the less pressure on winter feed resources to reach those post-lambing target weights. Kenyon says to meet the hogget’s energy requirements throughout pregnancy, she needs to be offered pre-grazing pasture covers greater than 1200kg DM/ha with minimum postgrazing covers of 1000kg DM/ha. To achieve this within a farm system might mean having to reduce numbers of other stock classes – such as mixed-age ewes – or providing an alternative feed source, such as a forage crop. “Regardless of what option you choose,

monitor the hoggets to ensure targets are met,” Kenyon says. “There are no magic bullets, but getting the feeding and liveweight correct are the major drivers of success.” Hogget mating can be an efficient use of feed resources. The extra herbage required to feed seven pregnant hoggets, compared to seven non-pregnant hoggets, is roughly the same total feed demand as one pregnant mature ewe in winter.

SIRE DETERMINES BIRTHWEIGHT Kenyon says there is a misconception that overfeeding hoggets in pregnancy can result in large lambs and a high incidence of dystocia. B+LNZ-funded trials show there is minimal difference (around 300g) in the birthweight of lambs born to very large hoggets (80kg) and small hoggets (50kg). Rather, you’re likely to see more problems

Key points • Feeding is critical – you cannot overfeed pregnant hoggets. • Select the correct sires – genetics, not feeding, is the greatest determinant of lamb birthweight. • Retaining hogget lambs as replacements speeds up genetic gain. • Set monthly liveweight targets for mated hoggets. • Monitor liveweights and compare actuals to targets. • Ensure appropriate animal health plans are in place. • Use legume-based forages to optimise post-lambing growth rates in both lambs and hoggets. • Consider early weaning to give the hogget more time to recover, before being mating as a two-tooth.

as a result of under-feeding, than overfeeding. Well-grown hoggets have fewer problems giving birth. “They need to be well-fed throughout pregnancy – and not just in late pregnancy – to ensure they continue to grow structurally.” Kenyon says 70-80% of birthweight is determined by genetics, so sire selection has the greatest influence on birthing ease.

LEGUMES DRIVE GROWTH RATES Going into lambing, hoggets should be set-stocked on relatively high pasture covers and those covers need to stay above 1200kgDM/ha. Legume-based forage mixes generate the fastest growth rates in both lambs and lactating hoggets. Trials comparing hogget lamb growth rates on different forages showed lambs on: • pasture (stocked at 10/ha) grew an average of 303g/day • herb mix (stocked at 14/ha) grew at 351g/day • lucerne (stocked at 14/ha) gained 403g/day. EARLY WEANING As hoggets typically lamb later than the mixed-age ewes, they have less time to recover body condition before they are mated as two-tooths. Kenyon says early-weaning could benefit hoggets by giving them more time to gain condition, without compromising lamb performance. SPEED UP GENETIC GAIN Hogget lambs are often regarded as a bonus, but Paul says they can be so much more. By selecting the correct sires, hoggets’ lambs can be your replacements, effectively speeding up genetic gain. Coupled with the correct management, mating hoggets with superior sires has the potential to improve on-farm productivity in both the short and long-term.

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LIVESTOCK | GENE TALK

Early adoption of technology GENE TALK

Sharl Liebergreen Technology is a double-edged sword. While it brings many wonderful benefits to life, it often means changes to the way we do things – whether we like it, or not. For example, mobile phones and apps bring connectivity and information, but also fewer excuses for being unreachable. Technology is so readily available in an ever-shrinking world, that if we don’t consider the technological possibilities, someone else will and they will likely enjoy an advantage. Farming is no different. There appears to be a new technology emerging every second day. Drop tags for livestock with solar panels to charge on-board batteries for GPS communication, bathing seedlings in certain light spectra to make them healthier and hardier in drought. It’s hard to keep up and that in itself is an issue. “If you’re not moving forwards, you’re going backwards” is supposed to be a motivational phrase. Instead, it can cause those who cherish tradition to go into lockdown, resist and fall back to the status quo. Twin versus single lambs, EID in cattle and deer, use of breeding values – these technologies created significant debate when they were introduced and many individuals still aren’t convinced. This pattern of push, pull, debate and trial tends to be the way of many things

that ultimately become the norm, but it can often be slow. So slow, that great ideas are lost. That can be expensive. Not only for those who made the investment, but also the opportunity cost when adoption is less than optimal. New Zealand can’t afford to be sub-optimal. We are an exporting atoll in a sea of international ag-entrepreneurship. We need to be vigilant in identifying and actioning opportunities to create success. Narrowing the gap between introduction and adoption is vital. Knowing who could leverage an opportunity and create benefit is also important. It would be a waste of time to suggest commercial beef farmers artificially inseminate (AI) their cows with elite beef genetics, right? AI is for breeders, isn’t it? Not so. The Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) Genetics beef progeny test (BPT) has surprised many. After exposing five large commercial beef farmers to using AI technology over 2000 plus cows, they are suggesting AI could continue, post trial. Now – by the third mating – the farmers have shared their learning and are getting very good conception rates of 60% plus. Other farmers are hearing of the success and also asking for AI services. So how did something like a progeny test turn into a forum for positive commercial interest, discussion and adoption of technology? Commercial outcomes was the resonating phrase used and repeated when the working group set up the BPT. If a return on significant new research

funds for beef were to be achieved, the BPT had to attract commercial farmers. Demonstration is another important principle. Having commercial farmers demonstrate technology to other commercial farmers works. In the case of AI over commercial herds, common language and common goals – without the complication of science speak – helped create knowledgeable adoption of an excellent reproductive technology. Extension completes the trio. Creating a forum for sharing (face-to-face, in the case of the BPT) needs to be thought through. The BPT onfarm open days started with 20-odd participants in Gisborne and grew to more than 110 at Mendip Hills. Learning and understanding how to extend messages was as important as creating the messages themselves. Simply advertising an open day wasn’t enough. Our approach evolved into early engagement, advocating and lots of phoning around. Much of B+LNZ Genetics’ activity is about technology. There are 37 projects on the go and, ultimately, all need to have commercial outcomes. Furthermore, we need to find novel ways to demonstrate each project’s value and the messages need to be extended across New Zealand. There are many great farming technologies out there now – but there are many more to come. Watch this space. • Sharl Liebergreen is B+LNZ Genetics technology and extension manager

If a return on significant new research funds for beef were to be achieved, the beef progeny test had to attract commercial farmers.

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LIVESTOCK | ANIMAL HEALTH

Scots sheep review offers vision STOCK CHECK Trevor Cook The Scottish Sheep Sector Review of August 2016 is a comprehensive analysis of, comment on and recommendations for the sheep industry in Scotland. Most of the document could apply to the New Zealand industry with recommendations directed to all areas we have tried to explore in the past. A distinct difference compared to it being done in NZ is that it was initiated by the government. This was to give them information that would enable policymakers and others help deliver a successful future for the Scottish sheep sector. There are 24 recommendations that support an overarching vision: “A cooperative, co-ordinated and efficient industry capable of delivering quality meat and wool of high ethical standards through sustainable land use that allows links in the chain to be sufficiently profitable to reward the labour and capital invested in the business”. What a great vision and one we could be proud of. The test for this process is how much change it can drive in the Scottish sheep industry because there is some urgent need for change with decreasing subsidies. But is it that different here? The profitability of hill country farming is hardly startling and with no one driving a lamb price crusade, the enthusiasm to continue to invest more into sheep on hills will continue to decline. Lifts in Scottish sheep farming profitability will largely come from decreasing costs. Productivity overall is high, but the costs of production are also high. Most of that cost is feed, hence the huge interest in utilising pastures more. For NZ sheep farmers’ costs have been pruned and pruned. As well, productivity has lifted which should be a recipe for increased returns. The industry KPI often quoted is the big lift in flock lambing percentages over the last 30-odd years.

A lot of cropping on hill country farms just makes farming more comfortable rather than more profitable.

But this does not necessarily translate to increased farm profit. To do any modelling of farm systems, lifting the lambing percentage is a sure way to show more profit. But just as potent in lifting the profit is lifting the stocking rate. So increasing the efficient use of pastures to maintain more animals while retaining a higher per head performance is a very potent way to lift the profitability. Utilising pastures more efficiently is not talked about much these days in sheep and beef systems. I did earlier in 2016 in this column and was challenged by some readers for being too conservative in what we do with the hills. This was in particular reference to cropping.

Cropping can be an expensive way to avoid planning to have enough pasture.

I believe that a lot of cropping on hill country farms just makes farming more comfortable rather than more profitable. Because we know with amazing accuracy what the feed demand is going to be over the year, planning to have the pasture available to satisfy that demand is without question the most profitable farming because pastures are by far the cheapest feed. Cropping can be an expensive way to avoid planning to have enough pasture.

Of course, southern farmers do have to follow different rules. One of the recommendations in this Scottish review is to invest in genetic help for managing disease – using genomic technologies to empower breeding selection. Genetic help of any kind in animal health will be massive. Much has been made of selecting sheep for resistance to worms and is part of the suite of traits genomic selection can capture. The impact that this has had on the overall industry is tiny though because managing worms involves much more than the just the genetics of the animal. On the other hand, selecting sheep for their tolerance to facial eczema is a very direct benefit and has had a very big impact. Given that most non-genetic tools being used will not be options in the not-too-distant future, genetic help is essential. More reliable genomic tools would be very welcome. Genetic protection against enzootic pneumonia in sheep would be extremely useful because the recognised management actions that can be taken only reduce the incidence to some extent and hardly give earth-shattering protection. This is an extremely costly disease that is seemly ignored by researchers. I saw more research on this disease in Mexico with a fledgling sheep industry than I have seen in NZ. Genetic solutions for foot rot and fly strike are well progressed or progressing and will be part of a whole sheep package that delivers that to-date mythical sheep that needs no more than feed to consistently wean 100% of its bodyweight on hills.

Country-Wide January 2017

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25/07/14 9:03 AM

FORAGE | NZ GRASSLAND CONFERENCE

Herstall Ulrich at the top of Rock Farm where frost-free slopes mean lucerne can be grazed even in winter.

Lucerne brings system change Much has been written about “conversion” of dryland South Island farms with a switch to substantial areas of lucerne, but few have made changes to their systems as big as South Canterbury farmers Herstall and Aly Ulrich. Andrew Swallow reports.

he Ulrich family’s Rock Farm was once a barometer for farmers in the district. Its north-facing slopes, clearly visible from a nearby state highway, were the first to show signs of drought. But these days Rock Farm’s appearance is misleading, at least for those with traditional ryegrass and clover pastures. While such swards regularly burn off under South Canterbury’s summer sun, Rock Farm’s paddocks remain steadfastly green, a verdant backdrop to the township of Cave. The reason is lucerne, Medicago sativa. The deep-rooted legume has transformed not only the farm’s appearance, but its production, as visitors on a New Zealand Grassland Association conference field trip in November found out. Gone are the breeding ewes and store cattle. In are finishing stock and dairy heifers. “It’s the lucerne that’s been the pivotal point to allow that change in farm system,” consultant Wayne Allan told the field day crowd. “And a lot of the change has been driven by the quality of the feed grown, as well as the quantity. If we increase the feed quality we open up opportunities for a lot of different enterprises.” Metabolisable energy (ME) averaging 10.5 megajoules/kg drymatter or above meant enterprises such as lamb or deer finishing, or dairy grazing, could succeed, boosting gross margin around 10c/kg DM eaten, he said. “Even with top breeding ewes probably

two-thirds of the feed is still going into maintenance and only a third into production. On this farm now, 50% of the feed is going into livestock growth,” Allan said. The prospect of such gains saw the Ulrichs progressively sell their 2800 composite breeding flock over four years, the last ewes going last summer. Many of the lambs now finished are halfbred Merinos, bought in autumn as a long trade for premium, consumer-linked, spring supply contracts. Over winter the focus is on economic feeding with modest weight gain, ready for finishing when the lucerne kicks into gear providing abundant high-quality feed. As fellow field day speaker Derrick Moot said, that feed flush comes a lot earlier than it would from ryegrass. “The growing point is in the top of the stem and it responds to air temperature, not soil temperature.” Many of Rock Farm’s paddocks face north or nor’west so catch the sun, warming fast in spring. They also have sufficient slope that cold air drains into the valley. Ulrich recalled how he was caught out by that early growth in their first year with lucerne. They immediately shifted lambing a fortnight earlier to August 10. “It just blew us away.” They also found, for the first time, they had reliable high-quality feed going into summer when ryegrass/clover pastures normally burn off or, in a wet year, lost quality. The only time lucerne growth didn’t keep going into summer was last year when the farm was in its second year

Second cut or graze: this stand of pure lucerne on the Ulrichs’ Rock Farm had been cut once and was ready for grazing or cutting again by the time NZGA delegates visited it in early November.

of drought and the clay soil hadn’t fully recharged with water over winter. Moot picked up on the soil type, saying lucerne on clay wasn’t generally recommended. “The difference here is the water isn’t sitting because of the slope. Also, it’s a low rainfall environment and the lucerne has dried the soil profile to depth so you’ve got a bigger bucket to fill in winter.” To maintain quality the Ulrichs graze lucerne in a 30-35 day rotation. To avoid the last paddock in the rotation getting too tall and losing quality they start the first paddock as soon as it hits 15cm in spring. When they had ewes, it was stocked at 15 ewes/ha plus their twin progeny. “It was a 50% higher stocking rate than on grass,” Ulrich said.

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“I can’t say individual lamb growth rate was any higher but at that stocking rate we were weaning a lot more kilograms of lamb per hectare.” That was despite some increase in animal health problems, probably due to the high-protein content of the diet. Some herbage tests were more than 40% crude protein and weaned lambs in particular would only eat the highest protein part of the sample initially: the leaves. At their worst, post-weaning lamb deaths hit 10%. Attempts to dilute the diet with ryegrass hay and/or straw failed because the lambs wouldn’t touch it and while grain supplementation helped, it wasn’t enough and was time-consuming. “You’d need five or six feeders with every mob of lambs and have to keep shifting them and filling them.” Ulrich noticed they weren’t getting any deaths on a couple of lucerne/prairie-grass mixed stands that were sown eight years ago, two years after their first pure lucerne paddocks. Now they sow a mix of 8kg/ha lucerne, 5kg/ha prairie grass and 3kg/ha plantain. “I believe the plantain brings some of the trace elements out of the soil which the fast growing lucerne doesn’t.” Moot suggested lack of fibre had probably been the problem on the pure stands. “If lucerne is very lush, top it three or four days before you graze it. Then there’s a fibre source there and they will eat it.” However, Ulrich later noted that too would be a considerable extra workload. Prairie grass might work on clay soils like Rock Farm’s but on lighter soil at Lincoln’s Ashley Dene it disappeared from stands sown as mixtures within three years, Moot said. In other areas, such as the summer-hot and dry Hakataramea Valley, cocksfoot was proving preferable. Ulrich said the grasses and plantain filled the gaps between lucerne so weeds were less of a problem in mixed stands. A flock of just under 100 Boer-cross goats also helped weed control.

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“They don’t allow any nodding thistles to set seed.” Some lucerne stands on Rock Farm are now 10 years old. Asked how they achieved such persistence, Ulrich said initially they were careful to allow them to flower during a summer-autumn spell from grazing, but now they don’t worry so much about flowering as simply giving the stand a good break from grazing. “We do try to get a flowering but are happy provided the stand gets six or seven weeks without grazing.” Moot said any time after mid January the plant would be rebuilding underground reserves so a six week or more spell from grazing at some point after that would help plants persist, as would avoiding highly winter-active varieties. Ulrich said Force 4, which as the name suggests had a winter dormancy rating of 4 on a scale of 1-10 where 1 was mostdormant, was their current preferred variety. “We’ve planted a few different varieties over the years, including a winter-active one from Australia but that lasted the least distance.” With the frost rolling off their downs NZGA conference delegates discuss lucerne’s pros and cons during a field trip to the Ulrichs’ Rock Farm, at Cave, South Canterbury.

even Force 4 puts on a bit of winter growth which, with some standing feed carried through from autumn, allowed them to graze lucerne through the winter, historically with ewes, now with lambs. “You’ve got to deck it in winter to get the bugs out of the system and, if there are any weed issues, so that you can get some chemistry on to them.” Come spring, Ulrich said, lambs on the three-way mixed stands put on more than 250g/day, Moot adding that such rapid growth made them vulnerable to clostridial disease so a five-in-one vaccination was prudent. “Vets tell me that there’s no advantage in a seven-in-one or a 10-in-one in this instance.”

Rock Farm at a glance • 490ha; 430ha effective. • 80% clay downs, 8% flats, 12% steep. • 625mm/year average rainfall, typically summer dry. • Lucerne-based area 100ha and increasing. • Lamb finishing: 5000 winterspring, 2500-3500 summer. • Dairy support: 220 heifers (R1 and R2). • Future beef: integrate up to 200 dairy-beef cross bulls or steers.

Lucerne renewal and efficiency While some of Rock Farm’s lucerne stands had lasted 10 years, underperforming ones have been “blown out” sooner to meet a target of sowing 30ha/year. Use of Farmax to monitor growth and record covers was refining selection of paddocks for renewal, Ulrich said. Their renewal process was to sprayoff the selected paddock in autumn and direct-drill annual ryegrass for winter and spring grazing and possible harvest depending on contour before spraying out and sowing into brassica for winter feed. A lucerne-mix would go in following the winter feed, about 18 months after the previous stand was removed. “In some cases we’ll grow a second brassica to get another go at weeds and provide the 30-40ha of winter feed we need.” Moot said with such a gap autotoxicity, whereby roots of existing lucerne plants prevent nearby lucerne seeds germinating, a mix wouldn’t be a problem, and the two-crop sequence provided good opportunities to control weeds. Mixed lucerne-grass/herb stands would typically yield a little less than pure stands due to competition above and below ground. “There will be fewer lucerne roots so some moisture will be left behind.” Moot said the reason lucerne produced more than ryegrass on farms such as Rock Farm wasn’t just down to it reaching more water: its ability to fix nitrogen meant it always used water efficiently, unlike ryegrass which often lacked nitrogen, especially in spring before clover growth got going. Consequently the ryegrass was taking up water and losing it through its leaves without using as much of it as it could for photosynthesis due to lack of nitrogen. Ulrich said if there was any difference in yield between mixed and pure lucerne stands, it wasn’t great and he was confident better stock performance more than made up for any reduction in forage output.

Cows at Moa Flat get a 23kg DM/ head/day ration of lucerne, maize, barley and canola or linseed.

Dovetailed with dairy unit Herstall and Aly Ulrich also have a housed dairy unit, Moa Flat, on a 114-hectare (effective) farm 2km from Rock Farm that was previously run as an intensive bull-beef system. Rock Farm rears the heifers for Moa Flat, which has year-round calving and hence year-round milking to maximise return on capital invested in the 300-cow free-stall barn and six Lely robots. A dry mob of up to 60 cows is run outdoors at Moa Flat awaiting calving. The milking cows get 23kg DM/ head/day of a total mixed ration (TMR) typically made up from lucerne baleage, maize silage, barley or sugar beet and canola or linseed. “This year we’ve got 80ha of lucerne, 11ha of maize and 13-15ha in pasture,” Alex Ulrich, one of four family partners in the business, explained to the NZGA field day. Sugar beet has been dropped because of average yields they found it couldn’t be harvested and fed

for under 25c/kg DM. “Our lucerne costs us 12-13c/kg DM in the shed.” Lucerne at Moa Flat is cut and baled about six times a year yielding, on average, just under 3000kg DM/ha/ cut. To ensure timeliness of harvest and subsequent feed quality they run all their own foraging equipment. Maize has averaged 22.5t DM/ha over the past three seasons with a following cereal such as triticale typically adding 7t DM/ha before the paddock goes back into lucerne. “Essentially we’re running a cropping farm,” Alex said, whose background before re-joining the family business was in arable cropping and machinery. Shed effluent is separated with liquid mostly spread across the 110ha irrigated area. Solids and an occasional load of liquid are exported to Rock farm. On Moa Flat, the combination

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of extensive and uniform effluent application, cropping and a balanced diet for the herd left the farm with a nitrogen footprint of 17kgN/ha/year lost to water, as calculated by Overseer 6.2.2. Rock Farm’s was 9kgN/ha/year. Those figures were despite relatively light soils and Overseer over-estimating the amount of liquid produced in the shed, Nicole Phillips of Irricon Resource Solutions told the field day.

People shouldn’t automatically assume the economics will be inferior to a grass-based system, particularly when you build in the environmental advantages and the premiums on milk you can get.

“We’ve tested the nitrogen concentration of the effluent and extrapolate that to nitrogen per mm of effluent applied.” Phillips said the housed cows, controlled feed and effluent approach had “a lot of big ticks” with regards to meeting Environment Canterbury’s farm environmental management requirements. In 2015/16 production averaged 2.45kg milksolds/cow/day, or 747kg MS across a 305-day lactation which, with an average 220 cows in milk throughout the year produced 196,000kg MS. Ulrich said farm working expenses were about $4.30/kg MS but the aim was to get that down to $4.15/kg MS with

Parched pasture last summer on an area of the Ulrichs’ Rock Farm where they have not sown lucerne yet.

production of 2.6kg MS/cow/day, or 793kg MS/cow/lactation, and an average of 285 cows in-milk and in the barn throughout the year. “Feed’s our biggest expense at about $2.30/kg MS.” Year-round supply meant about a quarter of milk was sold on winter contract, which, averaged across all production saw them make a 45c/kg MS premium over the standard milk price last season. Another plus, as noted by field day guest speaker Keith Woodford, was that cull animals from the housed system usually returned considerably more than from conventionally grazed pasture operations because they’re in better condition. A higher protein-to-fat ratio in milk could also boost returns from TMR-fed herds, Woodford said, although Ulrich said they don’t push that aspect for fear of animal health problems and at 0.86, their ratio was only slightly above the

Fonterra average. Woodford said the longer lactations plus milk premiums go a long way to offsetting the extra capital cost of systems such as the Ulrichs’, with free-stall barns typically costing about $4000/cow, plus $250,000 per robot – $1.5 million for the six at Moa Flat. “People shouldn’t automatically assume the economics will be inferior to a grass-based system, particularly when you build in the environmental advantages and the premiums on milk you can get.” Whether those premiums for out-of-season supply were high enough really depended on where the New Zealand industry wanted to go, Woodford said. Many of the value-added opportunities being pursued, such as Fonterra’s newly opened UHT plant at Waitoha, required year-round supply and what was paid onfarm for out-of-season supply “has to flow down from the market”.

Extra, read all about it. Derrick Moot broadcasts a sub clover guide during the field day(see p50).

Alex Ulrich is one of four family partners in the dairy business.

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FORAGE | LEGUMES

Sub clover with burrs. These burrs contain seeds which are buried in the ground, hence the name subterranean clover.

blocks to build the sub clover population. Changing management to allow the clover to set-seed has paid dividends. It is now driving September-to-November growth rates of 0.75-1kg/day in yearling cattle – and on very steep country. In a normal winter, Dave and Judy will see the sub start to come away in July and August and they will set-stock young and finishing cattle on this high-quality feed in August. “If we work with it and learn what it needs, we can use sub clover to benefit stock.”

‘If we work with it and learn what it needs, we can use sub clover to benefit stock.’

Pushing the sub clover boundaries Sheep and beef farmers at either end of the country are pushing the boundaries with where they are growing and using subterranean clover. Described as being the best-adapted legume for more than four million hectares of New Zealand’s pastoral land, sub clover is undergoing something of a renaissance, as farmers look to both endemic and introduced varieties to drive early season production. Normally associated with regions of low rainfall, two farming families in higher rainfall areas of Gisborne and the Catlins in Southland are finding the clover grows well in their environments. With the correct management, this legume is having a profound effect on their stock performance and farming systems. Lincoln University’s Professor Derrick Moot and Luisetti Seeds agronomist Andrew Johnston have been helping these farmers make the best use of this clover by guiding them through the clover’s specific management requirements. Moot says sub clover has a role to play in many farm systems, but exactly what and where that role is, depends on the environment. Preferring open swards, sub clover performs best on north or west-facing slopes that open up and provide areas of bare ground in summer. If farmers can see volunteer annual clovers within

the existing vegetation, it is a good indication sub will perform well within that environment. This was the case for Wairoa farmers Dave Read and Judy Bogaard.

NOT TYPICAL SUB COUNTRY The couple own Waiau Station – 1200ha of unrelentingly steep hill country, where they run 10,000 stock units at a 60:40 cattle to sheep ratio. With rainfall of more than 1100mm, the farm would not be considered typical sub country, but the steep terrain – coupled with the intensity of the rainfall – means in many areas, moisture doesn’t penetrate the soil. Dave says he began to realise the potential of sub clover five years ago, when it was identified on a north face of a rats tail-dominated cattle block. Not knowing what it was, he had been admiring this patch of clover, proliferating next to an old erosion scar. For 12 years, the block had only been grazed by cattle and the plant had regenerated. (Left unchecked, sheep will eat it to the ground.) Once it had been identified as Mt Barker sub clover, the couple sought expert advice on how best to manage and utilise it over the areas of farm where it was present. They identified 10 paddocks with the highest proportion of steep north-facing country and now actively manage these

For Dave and Judy, tweaking their management systems to encourage sub clover has allowed them to make low-cost production gains. They have also found over-sowing sub seed to augment the resident populations successful, although it did prove challenging this year. The block the couple chose for oversowing contained very little resident sub clover. In December 2015, they shut the block up and allowed the existing vegetation to get rank. In March, they strip-grazed the block with 200 recentlyweaned R2 and R3 cows and, on March 23, used a fiddle (a hand-held seeder) to sow a mix of sub clover varieties at around 10kg/ha. The mix was designed to allow different varieties to perform within different micro-climates on the hill. Once the seed was sown, sheep were scheduled to run over the block for “soil to seed” contact, but the weather was too hot. In future, seed will be sown the day before the cattle go onto the break, so the animals trample the seed into the soil, while also removing the competing vegetation. Early April rain resulted in a fantastic germination, but lack of any follow-up rain until late July appeared to decimate the seedlings. Dave admits to feeling despondent – but, come spring, the sub clover came away and was flourishing by early November. While aerially over-sowing the sub seed is an option, Dave is happy with the more strategic approach allowing him to target dry, open faces. Sub clover cannot compete with white clover or rank vegetation on moist areas on his farm so managing competing vegetation is a critical part of sub clover’s management requirements.

Country-Wide January 2017

Sub flourishes in the south At the other end of the country, Southland farmers Peter and Joy Wilson have found sub clover gives them the ability to grow high-quality feed in autumn, winter and spring. The couple own the 2800-hectare Melrose Station in the middle of the Catlins, near Clinton, which is running 24,000 stock units. With 1800mm rainfall, Peter Wilson identified cold, wet springs as a problem for lamb growth. When Moot and Johnston visited him two years ago Moot came up with a leftfield solution by suggesting Wilson take a calculated risk and direct-drill sub into 10ha of his traditional ryegrass, white clover pasture – and see what happens. Taking the bull by the horns, he instead sowed 230ha of sub clover. But it was a risk that has paid dividends. Growing earlier than white and red clover, sub clover is fixing nitrogen during the colder months and driving lactation in spring. Wilson says the clover allows them to capitalise on a heavy lamb drop by driving lactation and pre-weaning growth rates so they are weaning heavy lambs. “If it (growth rates) doesn’t happen early you are then playing catch-up trying to finish lambs every year.” Conversely, providing high-quality legume-rich feed in early spring allows them to grow heavy lambs while putting condition back on ewes before summer. Sub clover has flourished on some of their hardest, barest, lowest-fertility country and it excites him to see the

Sub clover is thriving on the north facing slopes on Dave Read and Judy Bogaard’s farm.

Country-Wide January 2017

Flowering sub clover on the Wilsons’ farm on October 8, 2015.

Southland farmers Peter and Joy Wilson has found the winter and spring-active sub clover has allowed them to capitalise on their lamb drop.

transformation in what had been the poorest-performing areas of their farm. For the Wilsons, the benefit of sub clover goes beyond just growing “high octane” herbage. The couple value its ability to fix nitrogen which benefits the bugs and microbes in the soil. For them, sub clover is part of a sustainable farming system and while he admits that it has specific management requirements, the benefits far outweigh the challenges.

CHALLENGES False strikes can be a challenge, as happened on Dave Read and Judy Bogaard’s farm last year. Rainfall in January caused seeds to germinate, but lack of follow-up rain killed off seedlings. If this happens over successive years, over-sowing or over-drilling may be required to increase the population. Sub clover needs phosphate to fix nitrogen and for photosynthesis and it

grows well at an Olsen-P of 10-18, pH of 5.6 and sulphur levels of 7-10. Moot says these fertility levels are typical of many hill country pastures. Boron and molybdenum are important for clovers, if molybdenum levels are high, farmers can get away with slightly lower pH levels. Once sub clover has become well established within the farm system, blocks need only be shut-up to allow re-seeding to occur once every eight to 10 years. Moot stresses that these systems will not develop overnight. The Bogaards and the Wilsons have all struck management challenges and it can take three or four years to refine the systems they now have in place. He urges farmers to get good advice and have patience. Sub clover is another tool in the tool box- but its early season activity makes it a very valuable one. • More on sub clover management in the next issue.

Supplied by Beef + Lamb NZ

Pasture mix on Melrose: Sub clover, 10kg; ryegrass, 10kg; white clover, 4kg and red clover, 2kg.

ARABLE | RESEARCH

Protein content an indicator of N accuracy Andrew Swallow

heat grain protein content can be used as an indicator of how successful nitrogen management of a crop was, growers at the Foundation of Arable Research’s South Canterbury and North Otago Summer Field Day heard. If it’s lower than 10-11%, that suggests less than the economic optimum of nitrogen fertiliser was applied, and if it’s

higher, for feed wheat at least, then that suggests too much was used, FAR’s Rob Craigie said. FAR’s trials show there is a considerable range in the economic optimum nitrogen rates for crops depending on soil type, previous cropping, and weather, so growers need to go beyond blanket recommendations, Craigie said. The average yield response to nitrogen across 10 FAR trials over the past 10 years was more than 50%, from 8.2 tonnes per hectare untreated, to 12.8t/ha, with 229kgN/ha of fertiliser

the average required to top up an average of 76kgN/ha in soil mineral nitrogen. However, a wheat trial on deep silt loam at Leeston following two years of clover yielded 12.4t/ha with no applied nitrogen, only 1.1t/ha short of the optimum yield achieved in the trial which was with just 90kgN/ha. A spring soil mineral nitrogen test on the Leeston site showed just 62kgN/ha available hence, based on 24kgN required for every tonne of wheat grain produced, at least an extra

Not just combinable crops

Overseas insight: University of Maine soil-borne-disease specialist Steven Johnson shares his wisdom with growers at FAR field days.

FAR’s work with potatoes is expanding with trials on seed treatments and MPI Sustainable Farming Fund-backed research into biofumigants to combat soil-borne disease. Growers in South Canterbury got a glimpse of one of the seed treatment trials on Leo Gaffaney’s farm just North of Timaru in late November, and also heard from United States soil-borne-disease expert, Steven Johnson. “We’ve looked at several mustard and brassica species (in the US) as biofumigants and they certainly can make the potatoes quite bright. The problem is having no revenue for the farm from that field and the time of plough down can be quite critical,” he said. However, that was in Maine in the far northeast, where he works for the state university extension and research service. There the growing season is barely 100 days but in warmer states, such as Virginia, biofumigants had more success though there were still pitfalls, such as the fumigant crops hosting diseases such as sclerotinia which would subsequently infect the potatoes. “Some cultivars are very sensitive.” That risk was why in Maine canola – oilseed rape as it’s known here and in Europe – was only grown after potatoes, not before.

Country-Wide January 2017

Septoria plain to see

Talking point: FAR’s Nick Poole compares the disease in an untreated wheat (left) with a fungicide protected one (right).

160kgN/ha must have been mineralised during the growing season to produce that extra yield. In contrast, some light soil sites in FAR’s trials produced more than 100% yield response to nitrogen fertiliser, with yields leaping from 6t/ha to 12t/ha and applications of up to 320kgN/ha required to hit maximum yield. To fine-tune nitrogen inputs growers need to allow for what might become available from the soil during the growing season based on soil type and previous cropping, as well as using the tried and tested formula of 24kgN required for every tonne of grain expected, less what a spring soil mineral nitrogen test shows is already available in the soil, Craigie said. Unfortunately, there was no commercially viable soil test that can predict how much nitrogen will be mineralised during the growing season, though Plant and Food Research was working on one, he said.

‘It’s not ideal putting too much on because you’re wasting money but at least you’re not leaving it there in the soil to leach.’

Environmentally, the good news was that if more nitrogen became available than expected, hence the optimum nitrogen fertiliser application exceeded, wheat would take up most of the excess. “It’s not ideal putting too much on

Country-Wide January 2017

While he’d rather crops were clean without the use of fungicides, this spring’s regular rain meant significant yield responses to fungicide treatments were likely come harvest, FAR’s Nick Poole told growers at the South Canterbury field day. “For the past couple of years we’ve looked at this trial and all pretended we can see the untreated, when actually we couldn’t, but this year we can see it clearly and we can see it in some of the crops around the district,” he said, reflecting on rampant septoria in the untreated plot and elsewhere. With weather warming up leaf rust could add to the woes where fungicide programmes were not up to scratch and mildew could climb the canopy in humid conditions. For those with second wheats, tan spot could also come in late and defoliate crops very rapidly. With all the moisture, where disease control was good a long grain-fill period was probable so late season ear fungicides, possibly as fourth or even fifth applications to the crop, could pay. But with such late applications growers would need to be careful harvest did not fall within withholding periods.

Think about previous crop and soil type, as well as yield expectation and soil mineral nitrogen when working out fertiliser rates, urged FAR’s Rob Craigie.

because you’re wasting money but at least you’re not leaving it there in the soil to leach.” The exception to that would be on dryland where a drought might prevent available nitrogen uptake. However, even then a following crop could be used to mop up the nitrogen before soil wetted to the point where nitrogen was lost in drainage, he suggested. For example, March-sown wheat would typically have a 1tDM/ha canopy by early May and have captured 40kgN/ha. Craigie’s colleague, Diana Mathers, said FAR survey work to assess whether cropping farms met good management practice as defined by regional councils, showed over-use of nitrogen was very rare. They found only one farm in 120-125 surveyed putting much too much on.

AN ALTERNATIVE TO OVERSEER FAR’s Diana Mathers told the field day Canterbury’s cropping farmers could

soon be off the hook of having to put their systems through Overseer. With multiple crops even a skilled Overseer operator could take days to model a farm’s systems and produce the loss to groundwater figures Environment Canterbury had been seeking. Where farmers employed someone to do that for them, it cost thousands of dollars. Mathers said the alternative was a look-up table called the Matrix of Good Management Practice (MGMP) which ECan had been working on for a couple of years. The matrix was populated with Overseer outputs for the huge range of crop and soil-type combinations found in Canterbury so that growers, or their advisors, could simply look up the result for their situation, paddock by paddock. To find whether cropping farms were operating at what was considered good management practice FAR had been “collecting a body of evidence on how the sector is performing,” surveying more than 100 farms in detail. “Most of you are already at good management practice level,” she told the field day. Mathers said she believed crop farmers’ compliance burden would fall as councils got more confident good management practice was being deployed. She also understood Beef + Lamb New Zealand was looking at whether farmers in its sector could use MGMP as an alternative to Overseer as many hadn’t put their properties through the model. Mathers said approval of MGMP was now in the hands of the newly elected and appointed Canterbury regional council and she expected to hear by Christmas.

PLANT & MACHINERY | DRILLS

Last October Cross-Slot, John Deere 750A and Horsch CO8 drills were used to sow wheat directly into stubble at Thriplow Farms in Cambridgeshire.

Trial shows at harvest In the last issue British farmer David Walston undertook a comparison trial by using different drills to sow wheat directly into stubble – a Cross Slot, a Horsch CO8 and a John Deere 750A. Nick Fone has the results.

ith harvest well out of the way, the data has been collected and carefully analysed and results drawn up. And – unlike many such trials – there are some significant differences. Throughout the growing season first plant counts were taken, then tillers were tallied up and finally the crops were gathered up with specialist plot combines. The end result was interesting – to cut a long story short, on heavy land all three did a very similar job but on lighter ground the John Deere-drilled plots produced a significant amount more grain. So the headline news is that in last season’s growing conditions on lighter land the crops sown with the John Deere 750A produced more than 8% (0.8t/ha)

Drill cost A Horsch CO8 tine-drill has been the front-line weapon of choice for more than a decade at Thriplow and in recent years has been employed to direct drill cereals when conditions allow. But, wanting to move to more of a no-till approach, David Walston wanted an additional disc-type drill to complement the CO8. Designed in New Zealand and built in the United Kingdom by Primewest, the Cross Slot, for the four-metre version costs $206,480 while a 6m Kiwi-built version was $302,600. By contrast, a 4m 750A costs $124, 518 and the 6m model, $179, 534.

more grain. But why? “The Deere scored significantly better on establishment but then things looked like they were evening themselves out as the season drew on,” David Walston says. “But by ear-count time it became apparent that the 750A’s plots were still miles ahead. Maybe the narrower row spacing helped in reducing weed competition or maybe it just meant the crop was better at intercepting all the available sunlight.” At the start of the trial he didn’t expect to see any significant differences between plots but early on the Deere-established areas started to pull away. “It always looked thicker but perhaps that was a function of the narrower row spacing. At certain times the 750 plots looked a paler shade of green – was that because nutrients being shared between a bigger number of plants? Could we have further pushed yields with more fertiliser on those areas?” What is hard to fathom is why it was only on the lighter ground that those differences translated into higher yields. ProCam agronomist Christina Lankford

believed it might be down to lazy rooting on the part of modern cereal varieties. “With a high plant and tiller population in the John Deere plots it is possible that on the heavier soil in the autumn the crop wasn’t so advanced in developing its root system. So when it came to a dry spell in the spring it wasn’t as well equipped to scavenge for moisture as the crop in the lighter part of the field. “Consequently fewer tillers made it through to flowering and hence there wasn’t the yield advantage over the other drills on the heavier soils that there was at the other end of the field.” Lankford also made an interesting point about the way the drills worked the land and the timing of available nutrients. “The CO8’s tine coulters throw up plenty of soil and mineralise heaps of seedbed nitrogen so consequently its plots came flying through the ground first but once that intial flush was gone they stalled. “In contrast, the lower disturbance from the Cross Slot and John Deere coulters meant the crops were slower to get going but looked better going into the spring – probably thanks to a steadier release of mineral nitrogen in the seedbed. At the end of the day it all comes down to intercepted sunlight – from the start the Deere’s narrower row spacing meant it had greater surface coverage and so from an earlier stage it was capturing more of the sun’s rays.” So with that in mind and assuming about a 50:50 split of heavier and slighter soils on Thriplow’s land, Walston drew the conclusion that the 0.8t/ha yield advantage seen on the lighter ground could, in a similar year, theoretically result in an average of around 0.4t/ha extra across the board. “Even if we see absolutely no yield advantage, what the trial has proved is that on this farm the John Deere can establish crops as well as the Horsch or Cross Slot – and it costs £70,000(NZ$124,600) less to buy than the latter. “It wasn’t a difficult decision to make – we signed up for a 750A and it should be with us in time for spring drilling.”

Farm trial results Soil Type

Light land

Heavy land

Drill

Plants per sq.m Nov 2015

Tillers per sq.m Dec 2015

Tillers per sq.m Feb 2016

Tillers per sq.m April 2016

Ears per sq.m Aug 2016

Grains per ear Aug 2016

Yield t/ha Sept 2016

Cross Slot

256

241

653

628

538

9.65

JD 750A

340

309

978

931

787

10.5

Horsch CO8

284

337

657

624

476

9.7

Cross Slot

233

245

642

831

579

9.8

JD 750A

396

432

774

1071

792

9.75

Horsch CO8

270

348

648

852

564

9.75

Country-Wide January 2017

PLANT & MACHINERY | NO-TILL DRILLS

Farm trial results contested British farmer David Walston’s farm trial (see opposite page) hasn’t pleased the Cross Slot inventor and scientist, Dr John Baker. He outlined his reasons to Country-Wide editor Terry Brosnahan and Walston replied. Dr John Baker said there appeared to have been no objective check on the seeding rates of the competing machines. The only way this could be done accurately was to weigh the seed put into each machine prior to drilling and then weigh what is left over. David Walston said both drills had a tonne of seed each. The remaining seed was not weighed but there was only enough in each to drill about 100 metres. “The seed rates were very, very close to what they should have been.” Baker said drilling a single strip with each machine within a paddock was not scientific. It took no account of the possibility that the strip for any one machine might have been in a better or worse part of the paddock than other strips. “Scientific methodology demands that several such strips are repeated three-four times in random order and the results averaged.” Walston agreed, but said he never claimed it was a full scientific trial. Baker said Walston was one of a number of United Kingdom-based Nuffield scholars who visited him several years ago to learn about no-tillage. Some of those scholars have since either bought Cross Slot drills or now use contractors with them to drill their crops. Baker said despite noticing slugs were

Dr John Baker.

Country-Wide January 2017

present in the test site, Walston chose not to control them. Every other Cross Slot owner in the UK and New Zealand knew to do this or risk slugs eating most of their seeds. He said only Cross Slot openers made inverted T-shaped slots which trap humid soil air in the slot zone. Most other openers make V or U-shaped slots which do not trap humid soil air in the slots. They rely on liquid water alone to germinate the seeds. The ability of Cross Slot to offer seeds both types of water was why anything less than 90% seedling establishment was rare. Baker said slugs love humidity but do not care much for liquid water. “So they love Cross Slot inverted T-shaped slots.”

“Get the seed in the ground and germinating – after that it doesn’t matter what drill it was.”

They do not necessarily invade other shapes of slot to the same extent unless they are open or cloddy and offer at least shade and protection from birds, if not humidity. He questioned why Walston continued with the comparison after it became obvious slugs had eaten many of the Cross Slot seeds. Walston said there were no slugs on the light end of the field, yet the data (table on the opposite page) shows the Cross Slot also underperformed there too. He said it was not obvious slugs had eaten the seed but as there were no hollowed seeds, it was the only possible reason, other than poor germination. Walston said it was irresponsible to prophylactically treat for slugs when they were trying to reduce water

David Walston.

contamination. Secondly, it was a farm trial where all drills had the same treatment, with “best practice”. He said if he changed what he was doing to suit one drill, then why not bring in a Suffolk Coulter machine and say: “actually, we need to plough everything, otherwise it’s not fair on the Suffolk Coulter”. Baker said Walston described the Cross Slot machine used on his farm as weighing 12 tonnes when it was about eight tonnes. Walston said he was told that weight which was not corrected by the rep from Primewest (the UK company which built the machine) or Cross Slot’s Bill Ritchie. Both of them saw him a number of times during the year of the farm trial. Walston said the farm trial wasn’t designed to prove that the Cross Slot was bad but satisfy his own mind whether or not it was worth pursuing further. To him, a seed drill is important but not to the point where he could justify paying so much for a Cross Slot (NZ$206,000 for a 4m version, $302,400 for a 6m). “Get the seed in the ground and germinating – after that it doesn’t matter what drill it was.” Walston said he chose the John Deere for the trial because it was considered a consistent working drill at what most people would consider a standard price range. He has no association with John Deere.

ENVIRONMENT | NITRATE LEACHING

Catch crop research shows promise Andrew Swallow Ongoing research into catch crops for sowing immediately behind cattle on winter feeds shows they could mop up much of the nitrogen excreted, then provide a worthwhile forage cut. First year results from a trial by Plant and Food Research at Lincoln found a cover crop of oats reduced soil mineral nitrogen – the bit that’s likely to leach – 80-86% under simulated urine patches following kale compared to when left fallow. The work, presented at the New Zealand Agronomy Society’s conference in Timaru by Brendon Malcolm, is part of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)-funded Forages for Reduced Nitrate Leaching (FRNL) project.

‘You’d probably need to grub the ground for broadcasting to have any chance of success.’

Previous work showed winter activity was the most important character for a crop to reduce winter leaching losses, hence the use of oats, Malcolm said. In the trial, kale was cut and removed, urea applied at 400kg nitrogen per hectare or not at all to simulate patches with and without urine, and oats direct-drilled on July 1 or August 1. The earlier-sown plots took six weeks to emerge, the later-sown five weeks. Average temperatures were about a degree below normal for the time of year which

may have delayed establishment, Malcolm said. Early establishment is important as the sooner the cover crop is growing, the sooner it starts mopping up residual nitrogen, he said. Lighter, stonier soils than the deep Templeton silt loam at Lincoln might warm up faster in spring, hence cover crops on such ground might establish faster, removing more nitrogen earlier and possibly achieving higher biomass yields earlier. “We will be looking at effect of soil type in some more FRNL work with lysimeters next winter.” The oats trialled at Lincoln produced 6.1-6.7 tonnes of drymatter per hectare by November 19 where no nitrogen was applied, and 10.1-11.8t DM/ha where urine patches of 400kg N/ha were simulated (see table). Tissue samples of the oats showed much of the nitrogen uptake was “quite late in the piece”, so there was a risk it could be leached early in the establishment phase, however the trial period was quite dry so that hadn’t happened on this occasion.

Oats after kale (t DM/ha) Sowing date

Zero-N yield

Urine-patch yield

1/7/15

6.1

11.8

1/8/15

6.7

10.1

Source: Adapted from: Malcolm et al, Catch crops after winter grazing for production and environmental benefits, Journal of the Agronomy Society of New Zealand, vol 46.

Green-chop oats yielded up to 11.8t/ha on trial plots set up to mimic urine patches, Plant and Food Research’s Brendon Malcolm (below) told the Agronomy Society Conference.

Previous work with lysimeters and oats to mop up simulated urine patches under higher rainfall had captured just 20-40% of the nitrogen, Malcolm said. The work is continuing with ryecorn, as well as oats and fodder beet as well as kale as the preceding crop. Proof of concept work last winter found broadcasting before grazing, rather than drilling post grazing, risked very poor establishment due to soil capping. “You’d probably need to grub the ground for broadcasting to have any chance of success,” Malcolm said after the conference. Meanwhile his colleague, Robert Zyskowski, presented results of modelling triticale as an autumn-sown tool to take up soil nitrogen in Waikato. Using the APSIM model to simulate a post-maize silage or summer fodder crop scenario, he found triticale sown March 15 cut winter nitrate losses 70%, with the effect waning each month later sown to 25% recovered by Jun 15 sowings. “Cover crops are potentially a good mitigation option to reduce leaching but the later you go, the less effective they are. That said, they can still be effective as Brendon’s work shows,” he said. The reduced forage yield of later sowings – the June 15-sown triticale was predicted to produce just 4.2t DM/ ha by September on lighter soils with moderate nitrogen loading, rising to 7t DM/ha on heavy soil with high nitrogen loading, compared to 15.5-17.9t DM/ha from the March sowings – also meant the economic viability of such late sowing had to be considered.

Country-Wide January 2017

ENVIRONMENT | RIVERS

Fitting the Waikato plan Keri Johnston The Healthy Rivers/Wai Ora Plan Change 1 to the Waikato Regional Plan will require the Waikato and Waipa rivers and their tributaries to be swimmable and safe for food collection. This is more stringent than is required by the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2014, so goes further than many other plans already developed. Landowners with more than two hectares in these catchments are captured by the plan and by March 2019 must provide Waikato Regional Council (WRC) details of land use at the time of notification of the plan, stocking rate, location of water bodies and any adjacent fences, location of stock crossing points and types of structures. This is the registration process. By March 2019, a commercial vegetable grower must provide WRC with a nitrogen reference point (NRP). This is the average nitrogen leaching losses from the farm between July 1, 2006, and June 30, 2016, and the associated data. All other properties with more than 20ha must do the same except that the NRP is the highest annual nitrogen leaching loss in either the 2014/15 or 2016/16 financial year. All NRPs are to be calculated using Overseer or other approved model – I’m not sure what other models are approved. I would suggest most will use Overseer. WRC will then use this information to work out the 75th percentile nitrogen leaching value for dairy farms. Stock exclusion is also a feature of this plan. Properties grazing any stock other than sheep must have fences or stockproof natural barriers to prevent them entering water bodies. Any land use change on a property more than 4ha will be require a consent straight away – no exceptions. No resource consent is required for small and low-intensity farming activities. If your property is 4.1ha or larger, but with six or less stock units per hectare and not arable cropping, and you are registered and have stock excluded, you can carry on. If you don’t fit into this box, you may still be permitted. For properties of less than 20ha, you have to be able to show the stocking rate has not increased since

Country-Wide January 2017

Any land use change on a property more than 4ha will be requiring a consent.

the plan was notified (if grazing) or that nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment and microbial pathogens have same or lower discharges since the plan was notified (if not grazing) and that water bodies are fenced to stock excluding sheep at least 3m from a water body.

Not many farms can meet the criteria for being permitted under this plan. This is straightforward for grazing properties, but if you are not grazing, I have no idea how you are going to be able show the same or lower discharges since the plan was notified. Unless you were carrying out water quality monitoring within your farms for a good few years before notification of the plan, you are not going to be able to show this. For properties of more than 20ha, you may also be permitted if your nitrogen loss does not exceed the NRP or 15 kg/ ha/year, whichever is the lesser, have no land with a greater than 15-degree slope cultivated or grazed, no soil cultivation occurs within five metres of a water body, no winter forage crops are grazed in-situ, and water bodies are fenced and stock excluded and any new fence are located to stock excluding sheep, at least 3m from a water body. This is far harder to comply with. A slope of 15 degrees is the slope of my

driveway, and it’s not that steep. A big kicker is the no-grazing of winter forage crops in-situ. If you aren’t covered by any of the above, you will need a consent to farm. Under a consent to farm, you must have a Farm Environment Plan prepared, stock excluded, and be preparing to reduce nitrogen losses to the 75th percentile. This is the number WRC will work out once it has collected the NRP information, so it’s not yet known how large a reduction is required. Despite the fact the 75th percentile value is worked out on dairy farms only, all pastoral farming is required to be at or below this value by July 2026 at the latest. This is scary for those trying to work out how the plan will affect them because this is a big unknown. The Healthy Rivers/Wai Ora Plan has a few question marks over it. It is impossible to tell how the plan will affect many in the Waikato and Waipa catchments because the 75th percentile value is not yet known. It would also appear the plan is designed to capture a large majority of farms. Not many farms can meet the criteria for being permitted under this plan. It is important that small farm owners work out now whether they can comply. Submissions don’t close on the plan until March 8, 2017, so there is time to have you say on the plan. Do it. • Keri Johnston, Irricon Resource Solutions. email keri@irricon.co.nz

ENVIRONMENT | FORESTRY

Digging around in the dirt Denis Hocking I may be super-sensitive, but is there currently another round of arguments over the possibilities – technical and financial – of farmers sequestering carbon in their soils? If landowners can be rewarded for sequestering carbon in trees, why can’t they be rewarded for sequestering carbon in their soils? Unfortunately, as many soil scientists have pointed out, soil carbon sequestration is not straightforward, especially if you want to quantify and get paid for it. First consider the basic principles for forestry sequestration. Under the Kyoto Protocol, (KP), rules used by our Government, forest owners can claim carbon credits for the carbon sequestered in trees during one of the Commitment Periods, but only for forests on land that was not forested in the 1990 reference year, or if it was forested, has been deforested and an appropriate number of carbon credits surrendered. It can all get rather complicated but the aim is to exclude carbon already stored, or would be sequestered with a continuation of the forest and plans as they were in 1990. Carbon credits were only to be issued for additional sequestration and only for the carbon actually sequestered during the Commitment Periods of 2008-12 and post-2013. Carbon sequestration that counted had to be additional to “business as usual” post-1990. And, of course, carbon credits have to be surrendered if/

when the forest is harvested or destroyed. I gather the rules for forestry under last year’s Paris Agreement, which will succeed the KP, are not yet finalised. What are the features of forestry that make it suitable for commercial carbon sequestration? I see several: Denser forests of large trees can sequester large amounts of carbon, at least 200 tonnes – equivalent to more than 700t of carbon dioxide (CO2), per hectare on top of existing soil carbon. Not all sites can reach these figures.

New Zealand soils are, on average, already high in carbon, typically around 5% compared to average Australian figures of less than 1%.

It is easy to check vegetation for any year since 1990 with aerial or satellite photographs. Measuring carbon stored is technically straightforward, though costs rise steadily as the precision improves. It should be relatively cheap. So how would soil carbon compare with forests as a sequestration option, working with the same principles as forestry? There are a number of points to consider: Compared to forests, soil carbon levels

are difficult to measure, especially the variations that often occur over short distances. How do you establish the soil carbon levels at the reference, or starting date, probably 1990? Changes are slow and an increase of one tonne of carbon per hectare might take a decade. New Zealand soils are, on average, already high in carbon, typically around 5% compared to average Australian figures of less than 1%. To quote Fact Sheet 3 from the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium–“Despite a wealth of theories and ongoing research, there are not yet any robust general rules about how to reliably and sustainably increase soil carbon in New Zealand pasture soils”. Grazing systems are known to result in relatively high carbon levels while cultivation reduces soil carbon. Hot and dry conditions generally lower soil carbon, but irrigation has not always led to higher soil carbon. Soil carbon sequestration also ties up nitrogen and phosphorus, organic sulphur and other nutrients and the value of the extra nutrients tied up in the soil has been estimated at $100 for every tonne of carbon sequestered. The potential sequestration per hectare is generally less than with forestry, though on the positive side there is a lot more soil than forest. Soil carbon per hectare of grazed pasture ranges from 6070t of C/ha, (Winchmore) to more than 200t/ha on some allophanic, volcanic soils. The question then is how much higher can we push it while still ensuring the carbon is stable and long-lived. The longevity of different soil carbon forms is not well understood, and significant carbon losses can occur without being apparent. Soil erosion is another complication though some argue it may increase potential storage. There were clauses in the KP covering soil sequestration, but as far as I know, no country has claimed on them, though the United States and Australia have tried to develop soil carbon policies. So my conclusion is by all means aim to increase your soil carbon – normally a sign of a better soil – but the difficulty and credibility of measuring the carbon means payment is not likely any time soon. Sequestration with forests remains a more credible and reliable option. • Further reading: The Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium has its Fact Sheet 3, there have been papers presented to the Massey Fertiliser and Lime Research Conferences and. Jacqueline Rowarth has a good, recent article on media website Pundit.

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TECHNOLOGY | SHOPPING

SPEND A PENNY ONLINE Alan Royal I regularly shop online. I do have some simple rules. One rule is to know the New Zealand price of the product you are going to purchase. My starting point is nearly always the local Pricespy site at pricespy.co.nz. The best price, at a particular time, is listed under 10 headings, apart from favourites and daily deals. Each heading, when clicked, has a number of sub-headings. Below the main headings listings, you will find sub-headings for most popular products, daily deals and hot-right-now items. Many stores you visit on Pricespy also have an online catalogue, which often allows purchases at a discount and hot deals. Unfortunately, with many local shops, if you are looking for a discount, you will have to physically visit the shop before they will discuss a discount. This is where online shopping wins hands down. What should you look for when online shopping? The first rule is to only visit sites that start with https – the ‘s’ being the indicator that the site is secure and safe to use. I should note that when I talk of online shopping I am also referring to online payment – subscriptions, rates, road user charges, income tax and vehicle registration – did you know that if you pay your vehicle registration online you get a discount on the over-the-counter price? Shopping online is done with plastic, but some plastic is better than others.

I have made two returns, from many, over the last year and have had prompt, no-nonsense repayments, from both companies. They have not required me to return the faulty goods.

It’s advisable only to use credit cards, rather than debit cards, for online shopping. Credit cards represent an extension of credit, while debit cards draw directly from your bank account. If you do use a debit card it pays to keep a separate debit card account with limited funds. This means you lose nothing more than what is in that account if it is hacked. Once in possession of your banking information, hackers can do much more damage to your finances than with your credit card number. My preference is to use secure payment systems such as PayPal for card payments. PayPal is an international secure email and password payment system. Your bank card provider generally offers added security. When buying online also check the return and refund policy for a particular store. I have made two returns, from many, over the last year and have had prompt, no-nonsense repayments, from both companies. They have not required me to return the faulty goods. When online shopping from overseas sites, check a range of sites to compare prices for a particular product. They vary markedly. Also, check to see if they ship free to NZ, as shipping can be a cost that limits the savings you make. An in-depth view of shopping safety, Tips for Shopping Safely

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Online, can be found at bit.ly/safershopping, which is the site of Netsafe NZ. Their goal is to help NZ internet users stay safe online. I use TradeMe (http://www.trademe.co.nz) regularly. Many TradeMe prices are similar to those on overseas sites, but carefully check the handling and postage costs on TradeMe, as often they markedly increase the cost to purchase. I could recommend several safe and useful overseas online buying sites, but two I have found reliable with good prices for my purposes and with quick delivery are AliExpress at https:// www.aliexpress.com and EBay at http://www.ebay.com (note that while two above do not have the secure ‘s’ in the http address, when you get to the payment page security kicks in). • For a copy of this article, with active links, email Alan Royal at a.royal@paradise.net.nz.

TECHNOLOGY | SECURITY

Navigating the hazards of wifi Kirstin Mills It’s common nowadays to go to a café or library and see people taking advantage of free wifi. When travelling you’ve probably used the free wifi at your accommodation (or bristled at the exorbitant cost a hotel charges for wifi). But did you realise that wifi might not be secure? At home you have a password that protects your data. You’ve probably seen the names of your neighbours’ networks, but they will (or should) be protected from your prying eyes by a password. In short, their networks are encrypted. But a public wifi hotspot often lets you connect without entering a password and even if it requires one, you still cannot assume the network is safe. Remember, you’re still sharing the network with everyone else with access to that password. When on public wifi, any unencrypted sites you visit can be seen by people on that network. If you visited an encrypted site – like your bank for example – in theory it should be safe. However, there are ways for people to use tools to intercept your traffic so it is best to avoid doing online banking on public wifi. One danger is “honeypot” networks that pose as legitimate ones to trick

Try to use encrypted websites when on public wifi. The page should have “https” at the start (instead of “http”) and you should see a padlock in the address bar.

you or your device into connecting. Once connected, a hacker intercepts your information whether that’s an innocuous Facebook post or the credit card details you’re putting into a shopping site. You could end up at a fake version of the site you’re wanting to go to, where you inadvertently give your user name and password to a hacker. You are also at risk of your laptop being infected with malware or a virus. Put off using public wi-fi yet? Well, there are ways you can make using public wifi safer.

STAYING SAFE Before connecting, check with the staff at the venue to see what the name of the network is. Don’t connect to anything else, even if it sounds legitimate. If using a laptop, choose “public network” when Windows asks which option you want. If you choose Home or Work you can’t be sure Windows isn’t sharing your files with other machines on the network.

TunnelBear’s virtual private network (VPN) has a free offering with a reasonable data cap.

A Windows 10 wifi access dialogue box.

Never use public wifi to access your bank or other sensitive data. You can use your cellular connection instead – try tethering your tablet or laptop to your cellphone connection to get online. Try to use encrypted websites when on public wifi. This means the page should have “https” at the start (instead of “http”) and you should see a padlock appear in the address bar of your browser. But still be cautious even on encrypted sites. Enable two-factor authentication where possible. This means there is a two-step process – you must enter a password and a passcode sent to your cellphone for example. Invest in a VPN (virtual private network) account. VPNs reroute your data through encrypted servers. Accounts do not cost much and are easy to set up. Turn a VPN on and anyone snooping will only see your connection to the VPN. Some (like TunnelBear) even have a free offering with a reasonable data cap. There may also be compromised machines on the network that could infect your machine so keep your virus protection and firewall up to date and turned on. If your email client lets you select “Use SSL” in its settings, then do so. (Your account may not support SSL or you may need to tweak some settings, but it’s worth trying.) Turn off the wifi when you’re not using it. Tell your device to forget the network you are on once you finish with it.

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WORK HARD, PLAY HARDER

BEEF STUD A pastime turns into good income

Farm Ownership Follow entrepreneur Tim Masonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s climb towards his goal p62

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Tim Mason keeps up to date on sale trends through Livestock Eye.

ENTREPRENEUR

Stock trading and off-farm business are all part of a planned route to farm ownership for Waikato’s Tim Mason, he tells Anne Hughes.

T Winning on the margins

im Mason is balancing high risk for high reward trading with a reliable grazing income. Tim, 30, is prepared to travel the country for a good stocktrading deal, taking the financial losses with the gains. The young entrepreneur leases two blocks of land in the Waikato. Dairy heifer grazing on one block and a recent shift from mostly trading to lease bull grazing on the other block, provide a stable income to pay the bills. Tim will continue trading, on a smaller scale. Any gains in trading are pure profit for his farming business. Tim thrives on watching the markets, monitoring prices and identifying opportunities for a good profit margin. Some weeks he might attend up to nine different sales at yards throughout the North Island and will even travel to the South Island if it’s worth it. Tim says it was a bit intimidating when he first started buying and selling at saleyards. His parents had a plant nursery so Tim developed sales skills at an early age – selling watercress and puha at markets. “Just start little and take small risks.” He is more confident now and knows if the deal isn’t good enough to walk away and look elsewhere. “There’s cheap and there’s good quality – you’ve got to make sure there’s a good balance.”

Grazing bulls for the dairy industry will provide more consistent income.

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Both his biggest trading losses and gains have been in buying beef cattle to finish for slaughter. “You can buy prime stock, but you’ve still got to be able to feed them right. “I’ve got a big interest in different farming systems and how they work.” Tim says it can be chaotic at times, with several different stock classes on the farm, and others coming and going. He is careful not to overstock. “I’ve pretty much tried every stock class there is. Some stock classes you’re doubling value in a few months. “The thing about stock trading is it’s easy to end up with too many mobs.” During the 2015 drought, the biggest opportunity for Tim was in Friesian bulls. He bought 100 young Friesian bull calves at $230/head, which he sold two months later for a profit. “They were hard work, but it paid off.” Regrassing and cropping are a necessary expense for Tim’s farming system. He grows oats, kale, swede, rape and turnips, to ensure the farm has enough feed to make the most of trading opportunities, winter dairy cows and even to provide shortterm grazing for other farmers. Sheep can be a good source of cash flow. Tim might buy in lambs, shear them, drench them, tidy them up and sell, but with the option of keeping them for finishing. Sometimes he buys in-lamb ewes to sell again when they have lambs at foot. He buys in about 400 lambs each year for both farms, at about 30kg live weight going into winter, running them amongst the dairy grazers or lease bulls for 60-90 days. “I’ve got a system that works for sheep and can get a good margin from running them on a light stocking rate. “Sheep can make more cents/kg than dairy grazers, but the winter is very short.” Tim’s decisions always come back to costs and margins. He works backwards from his cash flow, calculates expenses then sees if he can find a good deal. Tim also has clients looking for particular

Grazing dairy heifers provides steady income on Tim Mason’s lease block.

FARM FACTS lines of stock. He will buy the stock and farm them on the lease blocks until the line is built up to what the client is looking for. Tim monitors market reports from Livestock Eye closely for stock prices and patterns. He also watches stock auctions on Trade Me – where he advertises some of his stock – taking note of prices, which stock have the most bids and how many listings there are. Transporting stock to and from the farm was becoming a big expense, so Tim bought his own stock truck that can carry up to 40 dairy cows.

Tim Mason: • Farming at Te Pahu, south-west of Hamilton, at the foot of Mt Pirongia • Leasing two blocks, totalling 345ha • 1800mm annual rainfall • Grazing dairy cows and service bulls for consistent income • Added income from stock trading and stainless steel business • Medium-to-steep hill country • Three-year lease with first right of renewal • Employs full-time stock manager, freeing up his time for trading and other business • Aiming for farm ownership within five years

The view from one of Tim Mason’s lease blocks to the other.

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Tim Mason says it’s not easy planning the move from leasing to farm ownership, but he is confident he will get there.

Banking on being the boss If he was ever going to own a farm, Tim Mason knew he would need to bank a serious amount of money. Tim gained all the right qualifications and experience for a career in farming, but by working and saving hard, the young farmer and businessman is now enjoying being his own boss. After finishing high school and working on farms for a few years, Tim earned a Diploma in Agriculture at Massey University. Then he headed overseas for a year, working on an oil rig in Canada, saving hard and returning with $90,000 in the bank. “I grew up without much money – so it wasn’t hard to save it,” Tim says. He completed his second degree – a Bachelor of Applied Science – then took a job drilling for geothermal steam at a power station at Taupo while looking to buy a farm. By then, Tim had doubled his savings. He just missed out on a few dairy farm tenders and spent the next six months observing at saleyards – monitoring sales, prices and talking to people. Tim left his drilling job and reared calves on some small lease blocks, earning a bit of extra money by selling firewood and stainless steel vats. He continued leasing small parcels of land, rearing up to 700 calves a year, before taking on one of his two current lease blocks. The main income from one block comes from dairy heifer grazing (wintering about 400 heifers), topped up with trading stock, mostly lambs. This 180ha block is already well subdivided into 90 paddocks, mostly with two-wire electric fencing. Tim says the dairy heifers can be grown

out well on the medium hill country, provided the stocking rate is right and they are shifted regularly. Palm kernel and silage supplement the grass feed to ensure cows stay in good condition and gain weight at optimum rates. A total of 400 bales is usually made each year from surplus grass on both farms. Until recently, the other lease block has been running all trading stock, plus winter dairy cow grazing. It will now graze up to 250 dairy bulls. The young bulls arrived in spring and will be grown

out until late next year when they will be leased out for service over dairy cows and heifers. Tim is working on a five-year plan to develop and improve this lease block. Winter oats (10ha) will be sown in March, followed by six ha of a kale/swede mix and 30ha of rape and turnips in spring. Another 40ha will be ready for sowing into permanent pasture in autumn, by which time more than half the block will have been sown in new, permanent pasture. On top of cropping and regrassing, Tim also enjoys making progress on subdivision, while improving existing fences, drainage and water supply. By employing a full-time stock manager Wayne Adams to look after both farms, Tim can focus on stock trading, doing much of the development and farm improvements himself and building his off-farm business. Wayne never knows what trading stock might turn up, but always accommodates new arrivals while ensuring the dairy grazers and service bulls are well fed. “Wayne is a better manager of stock that I ever would be,” Tim says. Both farms are fertilised above maintenance rates (usually with DAP and sulphur super), but the fertiliser component for cropping is one of the biggest costs. “If only you didn’t have to use that stuff because it’s so expensive,” Tim says. He hires a helicopter for thistle spraying, but the biggest weed problem is gorse. Tim bought his own spot sprayer

Jersey heifers grazing on the lease block to be mated as heifers in October. Tim said they should be putting on 1kg/day with the spring growth peak.

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Jersey heifers grazing on the lease block to be mated as heifers in October. Tim said they should be putting on 1kg/day with the spring growth peak.

for gorse and ragwort. Clearing sales can be a great place to find what he needs for the farm development. At one sale he paid $80 for a water trough that would have retailed for $400. He recently made a stainless steel vat delivery to the South Island, returning with a backload of cut-off posts from a vineyard being disenfranchised in Blenheim. The posts are being used for new fencing on one of the lease blocks.

Keeping it real

Before taking on a lease, you must have realistic expectations of the farm’s carrying capacity. Tim Mason says farms can often carry more stock on paper than in reality. “I went to university and spent a lot of time with farm consultants and I still got the stocking rate wrong.”

Tim bought this milk silo from a dairy farm and was on-selling it to the wine industry.

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Tim Mason bought the posts used in this new fence from a Blenheim vineyard and brought them home on a backload after making a stainless steel vat delivery.

Despite regular coming and going of trading stock, Tim is always mindful not to push the carrying capacity of his lease blocks too far. “You’ve got to be so careful and you never know how the weather is going to go. “The most important thing about leasing land is keeping the farm owner happy and that the farm can do what you think.” He walks and drives around his two lease blocks weekly, assessing stocking rates and whether or not he needs to buy or sell any trading stock. Stock manager Wayne Adams lives nearby off-farm, while Tim lives in the converted woolshed on one of the lease blocks. Tim’s lifestyle is not extravagant and he plans to rent out his house to help make the lease blocks more financially viable. Tim might live in town or on-farm in a

portable building. “I had a Portacom, but swapped it for a whole lot of sheep.” He would like to buy one of the lease blocks one day and is confident he will achieve farm ownership, mainly because of his off-farm business. “It’s a hard road getting to the exit strategy from leasing to buying a farm. “Lease blocks are hard to come by and get snapped up quickly, often by larger farmers, but I love working for myself.” Income from stock trading is variable and hard to monitor. Tim goes through the financials every two months with his accountant, looking at cash flow and the financial performance compared to the previous year. “I have debt, but I could get rid of lots if I sold stock. “It’s just making sure you know when you’ve got ahead financially and making sure you’re not going backwards.”

Cash flow in the silos Calf-rearing inspired Tim Mason to develop an off-farm business that will help realise his farm ownership goals. Before taking on larger lease blocks, Tim was rearing calves and storing their milk in a stainless steel vat. He saw an opportunity to buy and sell the vats for a range of uses, sourcing the most competitive prices on behalf of farmers looking to buy new or used vats. Milk storage on dairy farms is their main use, but the vats are also in demand for honey production, water storage and chemical processing. It’s a low-overhead business. Tim buys vats and makes adjustments or additions, such as a pre-cooling system, depending on the buyer’s requirements. He will often source a vat for a farmer looking to upsize and buy their smaller vat to on-sell. Until now Tim has been doing a lot of the work himself, such as welding, and out-sourcing the fabrication. He has now hired a fabricator to work full time in the business and provide on-farm vat repairs. This will free up Tim’s time to focus on sales, building the business, stock trading and developments on the lease block.

SAM TIPPING By Grace Pettit

A TIP TOP HERD

Sam Tipping’s interest in Herefords was sparked by his grandfather.

pastime has evolved into an income for Sam Tipping. His Kamaro Hereford Stud is based on the family farm in the Waitomo district and cattle are a regular feature on Sam’s SnapChats. After finishing school at St Paul’s Collegiate, Hamilton, Sam spent some time in Canada before developing valuable skills fencing with his father around the wider Waikato. With the money from fencing and selling 30 Jersey bulls, Sam bought his first breeding cows from Graeme Harford’s herd, along with some Big River cows from the stud in Tamahere, Waikato. The name Kamaro comes from the first two initials of the middle names of the three Tipping siblings; Katherine, Mark and Rose. The inspiration for Sam’s Hereford herd came from several sources, Sam’s grandfather Bob Osborne and Ross Flintoff. “My Poppa has always had a passion for breeding cattle and I grew up drawing that passion from him,” Sam says. “Along with my Poppa’s cattle, Ross always had his Herefords next to the main road through to Otorohanga and I would always marvel at the red and whites when driving past.” Last year was a big one for Sam. He was

in the process of taking full ownership of the herd while in his final year of Bachelor of AgriScience at Massey University. He also won the South Auckland Hereford club and Perrin Agricultural scholarships. Sam has been active in the university’s Young Farmers Club since he began his studies in 2014. He is now chairman, after being vice chairman and professional development officer. In 2015 Massey YFC, the largest in the country with 160 members, held its first ever ‘Bull Comp’ fundraiser. Members sourced a bull calf from either family or local farmers as a donation which is grown and sold. While most of the proceeds go to the club, a portion goes to a selected charity. In 2016 proceeds went to Manawatu Rural Support Services. Sam confesses to not always being the most confident and easily spoken individual he is today. He attributes his steadily developing confidence and tact to his partner Krista Jensen and her father Graham. Both are strong personalities and great conversationalists. With his sights set on farm ownership and the expansion of his Hereford herd lon-term Sam has kept a close eye on roles within the agri support area. In doing so has landed his next step after university in a rural banking graduate role for 2017.

Board co-op

takes on Board interns Words by Cheyenne Stein Provelco is looking to the future with the recent appointment of two intern directors, Lorna Humm and Hamish Clarke. The deer velvet co-operative’s general manager Ross Chambers said the board wanted to develop a mixture of experience and youthful enthusiasm. The internships are for 12 months. They will receive governance training, be involved in strategy discussions and the way the business operates with the opportunity to become full board members in future. Hamish and Hamish Clarke. Lorna will also

have the opportunity to undertake training with the Institute of Directors later in the year. Lorna, 35, and her husband Duncan run a deer farm at Mount Somers, MidCanterbury, where they have built up venison and velvet herds. Lorna came from Scotland when 20 years old to work and study. She is a veterinarian, having practised in Ashburton for five years before becoming Deer Industry New Zealand’s deer health project manager. “It was a great fit for me to have an opportunity to learn good governance practice from a company that we supply.” Lorna is also an active farmer member of the Canterbury Originals Advanced party and the Next Generation deer farmers group as well as facilitating the Mid-Canterbury Advanced party. The internship ties in well with Kellogg’s Rural Leadership programme Lorna starts in January. Hamish, 27, grew up on the family Te Mara farm, a dairy, beef, deer and dairy

Lorna Humm.

support farm. He recently became Te Mara’s farm manager after they expanded their deer enterprise. “I’m still very hands-on with the deer and it’s something I hope to continue with long term.” Hamish completed the Kellogg Rural leadership programme in 2015. His report focused on RFID technology and its potential. During the project he spent time at Provelco headquarters and started to take an interest in the co-op. Hamish hopes to gain important governance experience and to meet a mix of people who, like him, are passionate about the success of Provelco and the wider velvet industry. “I hope to identify what skills I need to go away and work on.”

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BARK-OFF Words by Lloyd Smith

ACQUIRING A GOOD WORKING DOG

s we start another year and many young people enter the work force or move on to ag training there are always lots of inquiries for suitable dogs to accompany

them. They should first make sure the dog in question is going to be an asset not a liability. Sometimes young people can be a dumping ground for old dogs that are past their use-by date. But a genuine dog with a few useful years left is a good option. Unfortunately these are not always easy to source. A dog’s useful working life is usually pretty much over by 10 years, so if you are buying a dog take this into account. I would be hesitant to buy a dog more than seven years old as old dogs are pretty set in their ways and you are limited in what you can change, so don’t have high expectations. The price is obviously directly related to the age of the dog and its ability and level of training. Well-trained dogs – obedient and well-mannered – are usually cheap compared to their lesser counterparts so the dog you can expect for your dollar depends on the dollars you want to spend. A young dog going and chasing sheep confidently and competently is usually in the $1500-$2500 range depending on its level of compliance. From there on you would expect to pay about $1000 for each new command or step-up in training up to $5000-$6000 for a well-trained work dog that obeys and conforms to instruction. To justify this spending you would need to be able to give your dog stock work every day to keep them fit and focused. Most will end up with a dog somewhere below this level which is expected, but through the caring of, working of, and by association you will learn a lot about dogs and their role in farming.

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Consequently you will become very much wiser when in the future you rear and train your own. When acquiring a dog remember you spend a lot of time with it so while natural ability and handling skills are important so also are manners and a friendly disposition. Don’t end up with a sour dog that will not respond and relate to you and others around you. A dog that exhibits good shepherding skills and works stock in a good clean manner is desirable as opposed to an unruly dog that ends up among stock displaying no natural ability. Try to get a dog to suit your circumstances.

MAKE SURE YOU GET A DETAILED RUN-DOWN ON ALL THE DOG’S COMMANDS. Rather than a sub-standard older dog, you may be better to spend the same amount and buy a younger partly trained dog showing potential. At least you can train and improve the younger one and there are resources to assist and advise you. If you get limited opportunities to give your dog practical work, one with a bit of age (five-seven years) would be more suitable than a young enthusiastic dog that requires work and plenty of exercise to maintain acceptable control and discipline. Ask about any injuries and major operations the dog has had as both can reduce the dog’s expected working life or cause problems in future. Make sure you get a detailed run-down on all the dog’s commands. It is of great benefit

to record these on a recorder, dictaphone or at least on your cell phone. Always attempt to simulate as closely as possible the commands used by the previous owner. This will assist the dog with changing over and adapting to your ownership. Too many buyers take the dog away after viewing a demonstration by the seller and expect it to automatically do the same for them. They fail to understand the importance of getting an accurate record of all commands. Consequently they have a new but very confused dog. The two commands crucial to your success are a good call-off or “Wayleggo” and a definite “stop”. These are the secret to achieving obedience and allow you to enforce every other instruction, so make sure they are in place and being obeyed. Make sure the seller gives you a good demonstration which allows you to view and assess all aspects of the dog’s ability. Do not take their word for it, make them show you. Where possible take an experienced stock person and dog owner with you for guidance and advice. After acquisition, allow your dog time to adjust to a new owner and a new environment. Spend time with the dog trying to form a healthy bond where the dog enjoys your company. When running free keep your new dog on a good length of light rope until you are confident it will not run away and demonstrates good compliance to the “Wayleggo” or “Come to me” command. Observe the dog’s body language and attitude and it will become obvious whether it is responding to your attention and introduction of the commands used by its previous owner. Be firm but fair and make sure you recognise and reward any progress. 67

COMMUNITY | EARTHQUAKE

e m o s e r e ‘We w ’ s e n o y k of the luc Tom and Angela Loe, farmers on Ward Beach Rd Just a few kilometres from the roadblock on State Highway One (SH1) Tom and Angela Loe have a sheep and beef farm on Ward Beach Rd. The house was a tip, everything that could break, did, and they slept in a tent the week following as the continual aftershocks rocked the building and there was far less noise sleeping under canvas. “It disrupts you, there’s no way around that. You just have to carry on,” Tom said. They were unscathed after the 6.5 magnitude quake that shook nearby Seddon in 2013, but not this time. Some farmers ha Getting things done as efficiently and safely as possible was ve lost significant grazing country due to the slips, most important; and they had water on pretty quickly. which remain un stable. The property had a lot of slips and the seabed rose significantly. “But we were some of the lucky ones. We could still get north to Blenheim.” Tom Loe, left, and Seymour Having a community communication strategy was Lambert farm at Ward Beach important, like a community congregation point at and headed straight for higher the Ward Hall. ground the night of the quake as tsunami warnings were “If you think you can’t get to where you need to announced. Photo Angela Loe go, just don’t go anywhere. Someone will find you.” The Civil Defence station at the Ward Hall with the showers, toilets and water, and an abundance of food and survival supplies was massive, he said. “Community spirit is something you don’t know is so great until you are part of something like this,” Tom said. Seymour Lambert is Tom and Angela’s stock manager and has been in Ward two years. It was a great community with everyone pulling together, he said. “It’s just what we do, people helping each other out, it’s been fantastic.”

Country-Wide January 2017

This series of massive slips have closed State Highway 1 and the main north railway north of Kaikoura. Photo Grant Poswillo

one Mit Brereton was of the first to see the the sky destruction, high in 5. from his Cessna 18

Mit the pilot Mit Brereton was one of the first to see the destruction, high in the sky from his Cessna 185. The owner of an adventure flight business in Golden Bay, he rescued a honeymooning couple from Kaikoura soon after the quake and he mentioned on his Facebook post he had room to take supplies. This snowballed; receiving 96,000 views, 500 shares and thousands of messages of support. The initial one-off flight turned into something huge. Working alongside some young rural folk in Blenheim who started up the Coastal EQ Relief Facebook page, they spent a solid few days flying supplies many times a day from Omaka Airfield to Kaikoura, Conway Flat and Culverden. A givealittle page was set up to cover fuel, which funded nine flights for the

first week, with more planned. “There are some big hearted people out there, to help us help people.” Mit said it was amazing what everyday Kiwis and businesses were willing to fork out of their own pockets, for people they don’t even know. “They were pretty chipper. They are Kiwis, they pull their socks up and carry on.”

children from the area. “There were plenty of choppers to get people to where they needed to be,” Hamish said, who stayed on the farm for another couple of days. Dumping the milk was the only option. “‘That is the least of my worries, and there is nothing we can do,” he said. His main concern how the bulls were going to get into Kaikoura for mating. He needed about a dozen. Hamish managed to drive his fourwheel-drive down to his family, but has no idea how long it will be until normality will return to their farm and they can build another dairy, as that relies on a new access road. “The job will get done, but it’s a huge one,” Hamish said.

Hamish and Julia Bruce Hamish and Julia Bruce were just days away from extending their family from three members to four, when the quake struck their dairy farm up the Kaikoura Inland Road. The 40-bail rotary dairy was flattened, but they’ve been lucky enough to continue milking their 460 cows at the next door neighbours. The main priority was getting heavily Home baking do pregnant Julia nations have been much appr eciated at the to her family road block south of Ward. near Rangiora. A helicopter came just hours later, taking Julia and other pregnant women and young

• More quake photos p82

This bridge in North Canterbury shows the bending of the steel girder from the earthquake. Photo by Johnny Houston.

Country-Wide January 2017

SOLUTIONS | TECHNOLOGY

Checking growth from the cloud Rebecca Harper New supply chain management software, pureFarming, is a cloud-based programme that helps farmers with farm assurance, planning and performance monitoring. Developed by Rezare Systems, it is a relatively new kid on block in the software world, but managing director Andrew Cooke has hopes for rapid growth in the next three to four months. PureFarming is cloud-based, mobile software that connects with onfarm devices like weigh scales and EID readers. It shows how livestock are growing, how they are performing and what factors onfarm are affecting that performance. “A number of years ago we noticed the rise of EID tagging and farmers wanting to capture information and make better decisions,” Cooke said. They saw the opportunity to develop a tool that could be used for traceability and sharing data between farmers and the people they work with, like meat processors. A prototype was trialled by a customer before being used by FarmIQ as a pilot until it built its own system. People in the industry asked Rezare to continue with the software, so it did. Through a new joint venture with Gallagher Group, pureFarming will soon be promoted and distributed internationally. While only small numbers of farmers are using the programme, Cooke expects that number to grow rapidly over the

Rezare Systems managing director Andrew Cooke: “Most of the software we develop doesn’t carry our name – it’s developed for other people.”

next three to four months as promotion ramps up. He said there were two main users of the programme – those wanting to collect farm management information and keep track of livestock inventory, particularly people with multiple farms, and stud breeders using it to capture day-to-day data and feed it into the Beef + Lamb New Zealand Genetics sheep database (SIL). Different farmers have different needs, but for a regular commercial farmer

Cooke said the chief benefit was being able to see the status of your livestock resource at any time. “How are they growing? Those animals that I sent to the works, what’s the hit rate (in spec)? What factors onfarm affected that hit rate?” “For example you might decide you need to pick your ewes a bit lighter because they are going over fat, or buy stores from one supplier over another.” In the stud space, pureFarming has been developed with a strong connection to SIL and Cooke said it was likely the programme will become the preferred data-capture system for stud sheep recording in this country. The programme is NAIT-accredited and full traceability from birth to slaughter means that not only could animal movements be tracked but also animal health treatments. For example, over the lifetime history of an animal the programme will provide proof that the animal has never been treated with antibiotics. Tools like pureFarming can help support a NZ provenance story in the future, Cooke said. “There’s a story to be built around our provenance and where food comes from – this provides the proof that sits behind that story.” • For more information, go to the pureFarming website at www.purefarming. com. A free trial is available as well as a help line. Gallagher support staff are also be able to assist interested farmers.

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Originating from a science and IT background, Rezare Systems was started nearly 12 years ago to develop software specifically for the agricultural sector. “Most of the software we develop doesn’t carry our name – it’s developed for other people,” managing director Andrew Cooke said. Names like Farmax and Overseer will be familiar to many farmers and were developed by Rezare. The company works with industry professionals like livestock agents, fertiliser reps and consultants to develop software, usually under contract. “We understand agriculture and the science of farming, and know how to turn it into good software,” Cooke said.

Country-Wide January 2017

Tough trailers for farm duties With more than 40 years’ experience designing and building trailers for the New Zealand market, Prescott Trailers is one of the country’s leading trailer manufacturers. Prescott Trailers are designed and built to exacting and demanding safety and engineering specifications. The trailer range starts with small shepherd-dog trailers to large tandem trailers and flat decks. The range includes everything from car and commercial trailers, to farm, boat and custom designs. The company’s farm trailers have a tipping deck for loading farm bikes, optional collapsible crates, are fully galvanised and come with 205/65 x 15-inch wheels. With the ability to be used both off-road behind your four wheeler, or between jobs on the farm behind the ute, this is the ultimate multipurpose trailer. Prescotts’ quad bike trailers are designed specifically to be towed by a four-wheeler bike and come with an optional four-piece crate with half sliding gate, fully galvanised, and ride on 22/11 x 8-inch tyres. Tandem models are equipped with walking beam axles to ensure a smooth wellbalanced ride over the roughest terrain. The tandem model also comes standard with a rear towball attachment for towing calf feeders or another trailer. All trailers have the option of having a swing slide front gate and the tandem has the option of a centre

divider. Alloy grip-tread decks are also available as an option. All Prescott trailers have fully sealed hubs and the highest quality taper cone bearings for long-lasting and hard wearing even on the swampiest farm. Features include: • All RHS and panel steel is manufactured at NZ Steel with other smaller components from other reputable companies. • Plywood Decking – Milled and manufactured in Greymouth from sustainable forestry. • Tyres –Supplied by Firestone and other tyre suppliers. • Guards – Manufactured in both in house and in Christchurch. • Leaf springs – Manufactured in both Rotorua and overseas. • Galvanising – Hot-dipped galvanised by local companies. • Fabrication and finishing – All Prescott Trailers are built with the best welders and finishers we can find. • The company supports local business and the Buy NZ-Made ethos and are proud to be 100% NZ owned and operated. Prescott Trailers is an established and well-known company with loyal customers who have done their research and often become repeat buyers. Before you buy, call to discuss specifics for the right advice, right trailer at the right price.

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ESTATE | SNAPSHOT

Oio shines in southern King Country Anne Hughes

io Farms is a traditional sheep and beef station with an added wow factor. The property combines scale and reliability with natural features rarely available in the central North Island. Property Brokers Taumarunui rural real estate agent Katie Walker says the southern King Country farm has attracted significant interest since coming on the market in March 2016. The asking price (by negotiation) reflects the farm’s natural features, which also offers tourism and diversification opportunities. Walker says the asking price is based on a professional valuation and includes a premium ($200-$300/ha) for the 14km of Tongariro Forest and Whakapapa river boundary, plus the location at the foothills of Mt Ruapehu. The 1457-hectare farm is attracting interest from corporate buyers and syndicates, but Walker says most enquiries have been from private buyers within New Zealand. “Some are looking to expand their farming enterprise and looking for something to complement their existing farm. A lot are ex-pat Kiwis who are coming back, or have come back, and have done very well overseas and want to buy a slice of New Zealand. “We’ve had some buyers come through who are starting to light up when they see the special features of the farm.” George Gardener & Sons Sawmilling bought the first piece of Oio in 1898. Since 1936 it has been known as Oio Farms and is being run by fourthgeneration family members. Oio consists of two separate blocks – one of 1339ha block and a smaller 118ha block used mostly for beef finishing. The farm runs 6000 mixed-age Romney ewes, 1600 replacement hoggets, 430

mixed-age cows (mostly Angus), 120 replacement heifers and 700 rising-one and rising two-year-old beef cattle. All stock are bred onfarm and cow numbers have been increased over the past five years to optimise the finishing potential of the smaller block. Any lambs not finished by the end of May are sold store, in preparation for winter and to ensure ewe hoggets can be grown out well. “This family has been farming Oio for more than 100 years. They know what it’s capable of and are farming in a way that’s sustainable and manageable,” Walker says. Altitude ranges from 550-650 metres ASL. The cooler temperatures ensure good grass growth through summer and healthy livestock. “Instead of drying out from Christmas to March, this is when Oio starts to shine. Stock continue to put on weight and grass grows really well.” Despite the huge facial eczema challenge in many parts of the country last year, no sheep showed clinical signs of the disease on Oio. Walker says the ewes lambed very

well and were in good condition postlambing. Good summer grass growth also produces a lot of additional feed to be made into silage and fed out over three months during winter. On a smaller scale, Walker is also marketing an 85ha specialist deer farm near Taumarunui, which is attracting strong interest for a range of uses – deer, beef, dairy support or even as a lifestyle block. “Taumarunui has always been a good place to farm, but people are realising it’s not a bad place to come and live.” A 172ha effective hill country farm at Mapiu, north of Taumarunui, sold recently for $8500/ha. Walker says farms around Taumarunui with finishing ability are currently selling for $8500-$9500/ha. Steeper blocks suitable solely to breeding are selling in the $5500-$8500/ ha range. Walker says buyers looking for breeding land are competing with manuka honey producers, making it harder to acquire these farms at a price viable for breeding lambs.

aahughes@gisborne.net.nz

Oio breeds all its own sheep and cattle, with a small separate block suited for finishing.

ESTATE

s r e v h i l e i v d e m o r f a c t v i a i t f y l a Coast

The Pacific Ocean beckons behind this headland on Te Au Station.

A coastal sheep and beef farm with growing revenues from honey production and tourism is on the market. Te Au Station near the isthmus of Mahia Peninsula in northern Hawke’s Bay is a 710-hectare waterfront property traditionally capable of carrying about 4500 stock units. However, entrepreneurial owners Malcolm and June Rough have been diversifying their asset’s revenue streams over the past decade through the development of several complimentary farm operations. Over the past few years the freehold property has been steadily building up the volume of its honey production, and is now home to some 350 hives – well up from the 250 hives used at the same time last year. In addition, Te Au Station operates a fully self-contained luxury cottage which sleeps eight guests and has been let as tourist accommodation – with guests taking advantage of Te Au’s privately accessed trout-rich river. After 23-years on the land building the business in all its formats, owners Te Au homestead is a 600 square metre villa with extensive veranda decking.

Malcolm and June Rough have placed the property for sale through Bayleys Gisborne – with offers being taken until January 26, 2017. Bayleys Gisborne director James Macpherson said that by broadening Te Au’s economic activities in several directions, the potential buyer pool for the property was wide-ranging. “Te Au Station’s business model is representative of where many farms are now heading in New Zealand – utilising the traditional and established productive sector as a foundation, then adding on other revenue streams. In this case, the commercial accommodation and apiary activities,” Macpherson said. “It’s a financially sensible approach, as the diversity of revenue streams helps smooth over any operational troughs which may arise from the primary activity – which in Te Au’s case is sheep and beef rearing and grazing. “The abundance of trout in the almost three kilometres stretch of Kopuawhara River running through the property underpins the attraction of the lodge-

style dwelling – with trout fishing enthusiasts appreciating access to the fishery towards the rear of the farm. “The property also has extensive ocean frontage for guests seeking to undertake sea fishing as an alternative leisure activity, or take advantage of Mahia Peninsula’s nationally renowned beaches.” Water on the property is derived from a variety of streams and springs, complimented by multiple man-made dams. The locality has a recorded average rainfall of 1600mm, with the farm’s altitude ranging from sea level to 370 metres. “In the 23 years which the current owners have run Te Au Station the farm has only browned off twice,” Macpherson said. The property is subdivided into 28 paddocks with post and batten wire fencing and is served by a wellmaintained network of tracks and access lanes. The farm has been thoroughly fertilised – with 90 tonnes of sulphur super spread over the past five seasons and 15ha of pasture sown in new grass. Farm building infrastructure includes two three-bay lockable implement sheds. Meanwhile, the farm homestead is a 600 square metre four-bedroom/three bathroom villa with extensive veranda decking overlooking an in-ground salt water swimming pool and BBQ patio area with views over Mahia Peninsula. The fully self-contained short-let is located nearby. The farm contains two QEII Trust native reserves totalling 58ha of plantings, with a further 60ha of bush adjacent to gullies and streams.

Country-Wide January 2017

ESTATE

The vendors have planted numerous specimen trees around the property.

Growing possibilities near Edendale The horticulture and cropping soils of Riverlea in Southland could just as easily grow tulips or potatoes as carry on its sheep and beef finishing operation. In 100 years, the 144-hectare farm has had just three owners, with the latest now reluctantly retiring and offering the property for sale at $4.725 million. Located beside State Highway 1, just north of Edendale, the property has some of the best soils in the region – Jacobstown, Ardlussa, Riversdale and Otama – which are generally freedraining soils sought after for tulips or cropping. “They’re just awesome soils,” Philip Ryan from Country and Co Realty Ltd says. “It’s probably going to see a change of land use and possibly a mixture of vegetables, tulips, grazing or fattening, or dairy grazing and maybe even dairy conversion.” The vendors have been winding their farming operation back a bit as retirement approaches and carry 1250 mixed-age ewes, 400 hoggets and 1500 lambs as well as a number of cattle. Lambing achieves 135% to 140% and lambs are sent away between 16 and 17kg, while R2 cattle reach 300kg plus and 18-month olds 270kg. Over the years, the vendors have planted numerous specimen trees around the farm and Ryan says it’s now a parklike setting and a picturesque property to live and work on. “In my 30 years of rural real estate, I

The farm’s

graceful twodon’t think I have ever storied homes tead was bu ilt in the 1920 seen a place planted so s. well with English trees.” Riverlea spills over flat land and small terraces beside the Mataura River, where it has access to an appealing beach and brown trout fishing that attracts international fishers. Twenty-six main paddocks are mainly in permanent pasture, plus Near the houses is the threestand raised-board woolshed. 9.3ha sown in a Moata ryegrass and clover. Each renovated in 1983 and today it has four year the farm usually makes bedrooms, a large separate lounge and 300 bales of balage and 55 large square a handy, large farmer’s wet room for bales of hay out of surplus pasture to feed cleaning up before entering the house. to stock. Barley is bought in to feed to The home is set in a mature, sheltered the ewes three weeks prior to lambing. garden that has been nurtured and loved Stock water is supplied from a well over the years. Nearby is a second home below the terrace with pressure to most that is also spacious. paddocks, plus a spring and natural “Riverlea is a farm that has been waterways. carefully landscaped and planted with Near the front of the property and stunning, mature English trees that close to the houses is the three-stand provide shade in summer, shelter in raised-board woolshed with a night pen winter and beautiful autumn colours. It for 300 ewes on grating and another has the feel of a classic English property. 1100 ewes under the substantial covered It’s a beautiful farm to be proud of. yards. “And it’s an awesome location that is A concrete block implement shed has easy distance through to Gore or back to five bays and a workshop, plus there’s a Invercargill.” five-bay hayshed and sundry store sheds. To view Riverlea, visit countryandco.nz Part of the farm’s history is reflected in ID CC20018 the graceful two-storied homestead that was built in the 1920s and retains the More? Contact Ryan on 0274 325 770. charm of that era. Inside, it was totally Lambing achieves 135% to 140%.

Country-Wide January 2017

FARMING IN FOCUS More photos from this month’s Country-Wide.

Wheat on David Keeley’s farm at Hinds, Mid Canterbury.

The Publican’s Dam at 457m is the source of water for the new farm water scheme.

Lauriston Farm Improvement Club (from left to right) Farmer,David Keeley, advisors Ross Polson and Nick Sinclair, and farmer, Roger Baxter Hill country hazard: wreckage of a long-ago topdressing plane crash.

The Raukura Station team: co-owner Anne Hewetson, consultant Chris Harris and general manager Stu Helm

Bird wetland reserve.

Raukura Station co-owner Anne Hewetson.

The homestead, Raukura Station.

Country-Wide January 2017

Productivity increases have been dramatic on Raukura.

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