Country-Wide December 2018

GROWING NZ FARMING

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December 2018

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December 2018

Owen Maher has got his hands on a rundown farm in the Manawatu. p36 1

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December 2018

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December 2018

EDITOR’S NOTE

Opportunities NEXT ISSUE Country-Wide January: • BUSINESS TOOLS: Our key performance indicators series continues.

• PAYS OFF: A farming couple with three farms are big fans of same-day lamb killing.

• BRANDING EXPERT: The future of farming lies in growing guilt-free food.

• THE DEER FARMER: An endangered species – the independent agent.

• WINE OR WHINE? A vineyard manager loves to muster with his team of dogs.

• HOT STUFF: Building your own biomass grain dryer.

@CountryWideNZ @CountryWideNZ

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December 2018

T

he wet and at times wild weather has been a common topic of conversation especially in the southern South Island.

As we went to print, farmers were struggling to plant summer and winter crops even young grass. The fear is that there will be a sudden ‘turning off of the tap’ as in past years, pastures will dry up and feed supplies become short.

In this issue we look at what farmers can do to prepare for an El Nino and one of the first is have a plan.

Homeblock columnist Blair Drysdale is one of those southern farmers affected by the weather but thanks to a break in the weather and light soils got his crops in.

Blair was so up with his work, he was able to go whitebaiting with his father for the first time on the West Coast where after three good days, the rain tracked him down.

Opportunities for extra revenue are opening for farmers but they need careful consideration. With fine wool worth more than three times crossbred, farm consultant Simon Glennie examines the potential for farmers to make the wool clip finer. However, he warns the right environment is an important factor.

Looking to earn some extra cash by renting land to beekeepers? Another columnist Dan Shand has advice and a list of questions to ask the beekeeper.

Technology writer Alan Royal gives tips on how to avoid being stung by online scams.

Report cards are not just for school children, farmers should use them for the farm business.

Key performance indicators (KPI) are an opportunity for farmers to gain a better understanding of their business. Farmers need to identify what KPI will improve profitability and monitor them.

A rundown farm in northern Manawatu was seen as an opportunity for farming

Tulips growing on land leased from columnist Blair Drysdale, who managed to take a break whitebaiting on the West Coast with his dad.

couple Janelle Gillum, her partner Owen Maher and his mother, Teresa Lowry.

Teresa bought the farm six months ago which is ‘the worst house in the best street’ scenario.

Owen manages the farm and Janelle works as a fertiliser rep by day and they have two small children. They saw tremendous potential in the farm and are already starting to realise some of it.

North Canterbury’s Richard and Mez Power are successfully running a simple sheep operation on their drought-prone farm. All prime and store lambs plus cull ewes are gone by late November regardless of the season.

They carry a lot of stock through the winter on the light soils and cash in on them in the spring. A problem has been turned into an opportunity.

Terry Brosnahan

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

Facebook.com/terry.brosnahan

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More: p47

BOUNDARIES When Mum’s away.

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9

Farm-saved seed royalty not just an arable issue.

HOME BLOCK 10

Nick Loughnan takes time for a little perspective.

Blair Drysdale relishes a crop of tulips.

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Robert Carter throws his hat in the council ring.

Charlotte Rietveld adopts parental diplomat role.

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Amy Hoogenboom ticks off her last days at vet school. 14 David Walston observes the count-down to realities of Brexit.

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NOTEBOOK 16

What’s on when and who’s doing what

FACTS

Reece Brick. US dependence about to bite for beef.

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BUSINESS KPIs: Report card for the business.

KPIs: Monitor what’s critical.

Editor: Terry Brosnahan, ph 03 471 5272; mob 027 249 0200; terry.brosnahan@nzfarmlife.co.nz Deputy Editor: Cheyenne Nicholson, ph 06 280 3168; cheyenne.nicholson@nzfarmlife.co.nz Managing Editor: Tony Leggett, ph 06 280 3162 mob 0274 746 093, tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz

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The business of bees.

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Mycoplasma bovis: Shortage of killing space.

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DOG FOOD GUIDE Top tips for a happy, health working dog.

Don’t ignore fleas.

Deer Farmer Editor: Lynda Gray, ph 03 448 6222, lyndagray@xtra.co.nz

Country-Wide is published by NZ Farm Life Media PO Box 218, Feilding 4740 General enquiries: Toll free 0800 2AG SUB (0800 224 782) www.nzfarmlife.co.nz

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Where to with wool?

Contents

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KPIs: Definition needed.

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Sub Editor: Andy Maciver, ph 06 280 3166, andy.maciver@nzfarmlife.co.nz Designer: Joanne Hannam, ph 06 280 3167 Junior designer: Cassandra Cleland Production Planning: ph 06 280 3164 Social Media: Charlie Pearson, ph 06 280 3169 Reporters Andrew Swallow ph 021 745 183 Anne Hughes ph 07 863 3361; Lynda Gray ph 03 448 6222; Robert Pattison ph +64 27 889 8444; Sandra Taylor ph 021 151 8685; Tim McVeagh 06 329 4797; James Hoban ph 027 251 1986; Russell Priest ph 06 328 9852; Jo Cuttance ph 03 976 5599; Rebecca Harper ph 06 376 2884.

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Partnerships Managers: Janine Aish, Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, ph 027 890 0015 Janine.aish@nzfarmlife.co.nz Tony Leggett, Lower North Island, ph 027 474 6093 tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz David Paterson, South Island, ph 027 289 2326 david.paterson@nzfarmlife.co.nz Subscriptions: nzfarmlife.co.nz/shop ph 0800 224 782 or subs@nzfarmlife.co.nz Printed by PMP Print, Riccarton, Christchurch ISSN 1179-9854 (Print)

ISSN 2253-2307 (Online)

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December 2018

More: p27

LIVESTOCK

More: p67

Persistence pays off.

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Flystrike: Prevention better than cure.

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Beltex: More meat per sheep and sooner.

Success for simplicity in North Canterbury.

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Genetalk: Testing the two-legged animal in the top paddock.

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Stock Check: Drench failure under the panels.

CROP AND FORAGE NZ’s seed laws set for shake-up.

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Heli-cropping not just for hill country.

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Satellite pilot project findings.

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Preparing for an El Nino.

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PLANT AND MACHINERY 58

ENVIRONMENT 60

Keri Johnston: In the land of the pivot.

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Denis Hocking: A mix of messages.

How to lose money easily.

Streaming: Listen to the music.

December 2018

COMMUNITY Travel: Asia will knock your socks off.

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Travel: Long-haul lessons from an old lag.

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SOLUTIONS Flystrike: Battling the blowflies.

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Kelvin the thermo kennel.

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ESTATE 79

FARMING IN FOCUS 82

OUR COVER

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Photo: Brad Hanson

YOUNG COUNTRY

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Young farmer Owen Maher this year finally got on to his farm, a classic ‘doer-upper’.

TECHNOLOGY

Extra help makes money.

Bark Off: Heading in the right direction.

More photos from this month’s Country-Wide.

Where there’s muck.

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Wairoa’s hidden secrets.

Maxam 3300IV Twin Wilter: Mower kicks grass.

Worth a shot.

More: p36

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BOUNDARIES | JUDGING

When Mum’s away

C

harlotte Rietveld’s July Home Block column referred to her attending the ANZCO Being Bold for Change conference for farming

women.

James Hoban reckons he knows she would have been missed from the farm.

“Having experienced firsthand the vacuum that the female business partner, mother and wife leaves when she attends a two-day empowerment experience, I thought it useful to describe the impact on her family and farm business,” he says.

Day one of the ANZCO conference was novel. With one child at school and one thrilled to be having ‘boys time with Dad’ on the farm, the work hours flew.

“The wheels were fastened securely until the usual routine zoo hour. For us, with ‘Mum’ away, zoo hour lasts for four.

“At the beginning of those four hours, I realised the wheels were no longer on. The Zimbabwean-like chaos peaked when I left two children in bed - having been well fed, washed and read to they were presumably only moments from sleep.

“I started to chair a conference call - a painful experience at the best of times but made much worse by a chairman dropping the phone intermittently to attend to children who needed another pillow or book or toilet visit…”

The few degrees of separation in New Zealand farming circles meant that the children’s mother knew her husband was failing miserably and publicly at multitasking, via text messages from other conference call participants.

It is a fine line to walk when a full-time mother leaves her husband in charge of her usual post.

“If we make it look too easy she can be offended or, worse, it might lead to extended time in sole charge.”

In some ways the most lasting marital happiness results from a traumatic experience for Dad and children while the pillar who holds everything together Mum - is gone.

Mum arrives home to pick up pieces and return to her charges - smugly knowing that without her they were lost, partly clothed, nutritionally

As a home-alone dad, James was pedalling flat out but going nowhere.

deprived and living in a constant state of stress.

The lesson for men is that struggling while in charge can offer long term benefits.

“For this reason I made sole parenting appear difficult.

“Bring on next year’s conference and the inevitable boy’s trip which can hopefully be negotiated as a trade-off.”

New crop of junior judges Tom Small, Blairich Merino Stud, shared his knowledge on judging Merinos to 10 Marlborough shepherds, with the message to keep it simple.

Walk right around the sheep at the start, including the front, looking at structure and heads and rank them on this, he said. Structure is the most important.

“Then look at wool – the coverage on the face, length, quality, colour, and put it all together.”

“When summing up talk about your number one sheep first and why you like it; for example, largest frame, most wool length, ideal feet.”

“Talk about why you’ve put the sheep in fourth; either a fault or simply a lower ranking in structure or wool quality.”

The local Merino Association ran the training day ahead of the junior judging competition at the Marlborough A&P Show. Open to under 26 years, the winner and runner-up went through to compete at The New Zealand Agricultural Show.

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Shepherds from the Awatere, East Coast Marlborough and Wairau at the Marlborough Merino Association junior judging training day, Blairich Merino Stud. Tom Small, right, with a selection of Blairich rams.

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December 2018

BOUNDARIES | FSS OPINION

Farm-saved seed royalty not just an arable issue

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n December 21 consultation on plant variety right (PVR) legislation closes. A key issue is the right to farm save seed (FSS), which at present, New Zealand is a laggard among OECD nations. Plant breeders’ representatives have suggested failure to develop a system to recover royalty on FSS could see the latest germplasm withheld from NZ. That alone could cost growers dearly as the

pace of genetic improvement accelerates.

The greater risk is that international investment in our seed industry dwindles.

Livestock farmers as well as cropping farmers would suffer too as local forage breeding programmes are cut. What’s needed is a simple system that keeps us in line with our international competitors.

An annual declaration of FSS used and a royalty paid at 50% of the certified seed rate should do it.

More on PVR p52

Beer price hike coming?

Seems it takes more of a price hike to make Paddy pass on a pint of Guinness than it does to get Pedro to put down a lager, judging by the findings of a recent study published in the journal Nature Plants.

The study, by University of California Irvine scientists and others, predicts global barley yields will be cut 3 to 17% by more frequent droughts and heat waves due to climate change.

In turn, less elastic demand for feed means barley availability for brewing will be reduced even more, spiking prices in

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December 2018

Acupuncture is a jab well done Dijon vu – the same mustard as before Practice safe eating – always use condiments Shotgun wedding – a case of wife or death A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy A hangover is the wrath of grapes Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion Reading while sunbathing makes you well red

wealthier, beer-loving nations such as Belgium, Canada, Denmark and Poland while in poorer nations intake will be more affected. Ireland is tipped to face 193% price hikes, while Argentina’s consumption would tumble 32%. What will happen in NZ wasn’t spelt out in the paper.

Top ag students The best and brightest of Massey’s top rate agriculture, horticulture and equine programme gathered at the university’s Ag Awards Dinner recently.

In total, there are more than 400 students across all levels, a number that has been steadily growing over the years.

On that October evening though, the focus was on the most promising faces this programme has fostered, the thirdyear students soon to complete their studies and who of them would take away the nine most prestigious awards of the night. And this leaving class shows real

PUNS FOR FUN

hope for the wider agriculture industry; almost all those who have been looking for employment for 2019 have found it. Furthermore, the days of ag being a man’s business are surely receding, seeing a class of students split 50:50 boys and girls. Charlie Pearson interviewed some of the winners from the night: Sam Pike (Agriculture Student of the Year), Bradford Smith, Mathilde van Baarle and twins Alisha and Jacinta Harrop.

More? go to the Young Country website: www.youngcountry.co.nz

A bicycle can’t stand on its own because it is two tired What’s the definition of a will?

It’s a dead give away In democracy your vote counts In feudalism your count votes She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but broke it off A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion If you don’t pay your exorcist, you get repossessed With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered You feel stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it

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HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Time for a little perspective Nick Loughnan has yet to discover the secret of being able to work fewer hours as he still enjoys farming, but has gone back to hosting international visitors.

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s another year closes out, it delivers the full stop to 12 months in the farming calendar which seems to be getting both busier and more complex.

The spotlight is on us as farmers for all sorts of reasons, in a country that seems to be confused about the direction it should be taking with agriculture.

As the fashionable trend of key performance indicators brings our collective farming operations into measurable sets of data for analysis by bankers, accountants, climate scientists, food exporters, environmental groups, Treasury and government policy makers, it is becoming apparent that no one from officialdom is sure about whether to just ignore us or actively discourage us.

As farmers, we have never held so much debt.

ALEXANDRA We have never been under so much scrutiny for the effects of our operations on water quality. We have never been so productive and earned so much for the country in the value of our exports. And we have never been on the receiving end of so much bad press.

No longer can profit alone be the yardstick for our satisfaction or success.

Yet there are small moments in life when hearing simple words of wisdom can help put a little healthy perspective around us. Two such moments I have never forgotten.

The first was at our daughter’s final school prizegiving. Her principal in his

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address to a hall full of proud parents noted that it is not until our grandchildren start growing up that we can gauge our true worth as parents.

The second moment came when I was listening to Ed Hillary in his later years talking about success. As a man who had modestly and capably achieved so much, he had an extraordinary view on just what ‘greatness’ meant. He simply said that holding his grandchild’s hand was about as special as it gets.

At the time I heard it, I thought Ed might have been getting a little soft in the head. But now I get it.

Certainly, having a little grandchild coming to stay and have about the farm brings a fresh take to each day. And as for old Ed, the memory of how so many tens of thousands of Aucklanders stood out on the streets to watch his funeral cortege drive by after his death said it all about his greatness.

Meanwhile, here at home we have yet to discover the secret of being able to work fewer hours as we still enjoy farming in our mid-60s. Perhaps it has something to do with our venture into producing sheep and goat cheeses commercially on the farm.

After five years, feedback and sales keep us more than happy with progress.

And we have begun hosting young international tourists again – they usually fit in extremely well, love the experience, and can always find some way to be useful around the place.

Whatever the nationality, we have

And there is some superb French cuisine on the menu at our place tonight, thanks to our guests.

taken to them all and enjoyed sharing our lifestyle with them. And perhaps there’s a little payback involved, as our daughter in her late teens travelled extensively and was well looked after in the countries she visited. It’s nice to be able to do the same for someone else’s teenagers.

Our latest visitors are a young French couple, both city dwellers, and both enthusiastic and willing to have a go at anything. Bolting down the stock crate on to a trailer the other day reminded me to take nothing for granted. They had never seen a socket set before, let alone used one! But they do rate our cheeses, and we’re grateful for their encouragement.

And I can learn something about confidence and self-promotion from one young man from Japan who wanted to come and stay. He said he had plenty of experience with animals as he owned a cat. And he also knew all about machinery because he had used a cordless drill. He then sent a picture of himself with the cat and a tiny, old and very stern looking grandmother. A bit worried that all three might arrive on the doorstep, we turned him down.

While the world seems to become a smaller and faster place each year, we are so very lucky in choosing the land of our birth.

It is no coincidence that tourism has become our biggest ‘export’ earner – the word is out that New Zealand is one special country.

And there is some superb French cuisine on the menu at our place tonight, thanks to our guests.

Au revoir until 2019.

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December 2018

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Tulips from Balfour The blaze of colour from a leased block of tulips on Blair Drysdale’s northern Southland farm lifts his spirits in a moist and miserable spring.

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uite often when farmers share their frustrations about the weather in conversation with others, we’re accused of just being a “whinging farmer”.

But for farmers and horticulturalists alike among others, it dictates our day-today operations, our state of mind and the bottom line result at the end of the financial year.

And this year just like all before it, has had its perils and is no exception. A dull winter with little sun and few frosts, has continued on well into spring with plenty of precipitation, a combination of a lack of equinox winds and little sunshine to dry the soil out, has made it very frustrating trying to get spring barley in the ground here.

October was spent battling average soil conditions with cultivation on the dry days, spraying all the autumn sown cereals with fungicides and growth regulators on the calm days, spreading fertiliser on the breezy days and staring out the window of the ute, workshop, or house in disgust on the wet days of which there were plenty!

Mother nature finally provided five much-needed days in row of sunshine and nor-west winds leading up to Labour Monday and with the help of my ever-reliable father also on a tractor, we managed to get all the ground worked to a seed bed state and got all the young grass and spring barley in the ground

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December 2018

which is all now up and going nicely. I must say though that some farmers on heavier soils around our area aren’t so fortunate and are very much still battling the inclement elements.

October on our farm does, however, provide some gloriously colourful paddocks here, in the form of 25 hectares of flowering tulips which even from a bloke’s perspective is pretty spectacular and lifts the spirits on a dull or wet day.

We have nothing to do with the dayto-day management of the tulips, as we simply lease between 20-30ha to the bulb farm next door which provides a very good quarterly cash injection and fits well into our cereal rotation.

Something I remind myself of quite frequently is that, “In every negative situation there’s a positive to be found, you just have to find it”. Easier said than done, I know. My parents have been shareholders in a whitebait syndicate with two stands on the West Coast for seven or eight years and I’ve never been able to get over there with them.

So, come October 31 I was relatively well on top of the workload onfarm, ideally one block BALFOUR of wheat could have had another fungicide, but it could wait as I still had days up my sleeve from the last spray.

The forecast for us was, well…you can work it out and use your own language,

because mine is far from printable.

So, I packed my gear, left Jody (I’d be stuffed without her) with instructions for the mobs of cattle that needed shifting onfarm, along with our three kids and all her other jobs and buggered off for five days because I wasn’t hanging around here to see more of the same.

The first three days of weather on the coast were nothing short of stunning, shorts and sunscreen stuff. The fishing wasn’t great, the sandflies a right pain in posterior, but spending some time with dad on the stand having a chat, relaxing with a few beers and enjoying the scenery was something I was well overdue to do and I’m so pleased I did. To be a whitebaiter you have to be exceptionally patient and dad is no exception, a trait that failed to be passed on to the same degree!

On day four the weather really packed a sad, full on West Coast-style it did. It’s near impossible to explain to someone what real West Coast rain is like, you really have to experience it. South Westland is insanely beautiful and the rain simply adds to it with the resulting waterfalls, raging rivers and torrential seas showing off the powers of nature.

One day in between tides I was sitting on the beach with mum having a yarn when I spotted a pair of Hectors dolphins.

To see them surfing together in the wave side by side, sun shining through it highlighting their perfect symmetry, very cool indeed. I thought to myself then that I just hope my kids and even their children get to see them in the future, we just have to look after our planet to make sure they do.

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HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Robert Carter: Down to business.

Throwing my hat in the ring Ohura’s Robert Carter has been persuaded to stand for his district council, and he’s getting excited.

I

’ve just done something rash which I hope will work out well in the end.

There is a part of me that has always made me get involved in things in my community, some think it is a failing, others admire it, albeit, from a safe distance.

Back in 1989 when the local government reforms were enacted I found myself on the Ohura Community board for the Ruapehu District.

I served on that board for nine years, (three terms) at the time I thought it was worthwhile as we had a way of getting local issues and concerns aired in a wellrun forum. The desired end point was that council would do some of the things that had survived the filter of the board.

Coming forward a few years, the community board was disbanded in favour of regular “valley meetings” with locals, council staff and elected representatives along with the contractors who do the work.

Some folk miss the community board but I have to say that the valley meetings are more effective and a lot less expensive to run.

The real winner here is that all the

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people in the valleys and hamlets in the area get to have a say rather than just a few.

Stuff gets done too!

We have had a recent sad event in our area, our muchOHURA respected member of the Ruapehu District Council, for the Ohura ward, Mrs Marion Gillard, suddenly passed away.

Marion was a straight-shooter, dedicated to the rural cause with the added bonus of being able to see the big picture and promote the greater good.

Marion was also our deputy mayor, a great help to our Mayor, Don Cameron.

She is sorely missed and after a respectful period of mourning, the council has called for nominations to replace her.

A number of locals approached me and after some arm-twisting, I’ve thrown my hat into the ring as we need to carry on the work that Marion was doing for us.

There are three other candidates, which is a great thing as there is some talent there as well as enthusiasm.

It’s an interesting process, being a local political hopeful, I’ve had to learn some of the art of self-promotion, this does not

sit well with me. In the past I’ve been critical of the types who stand for such positions. The boot is on the other foot now.

I’ve been able to review some of the things I’m doing now as well as my past endeavours and I can see that my skills may be some use in the team environment that is a modern council.

I’ve decided to use the local newspaper as my platform as it goes to everyone in the area. I have written some ads and sent them off to the editor to be shaped up and published.

On paper day, usually a Friday, I ask my wife Suzanne to have a look at the ads for me and see if I look like a complete Wally before I can bring myself to have a look as well.

It’s a bit like an out of body experience reading about this guy called Robert Carter who is standing for council. He seems like quite a good chap and I’m a bit amazed at all the things he’s done or doing.

I can see that the whole area is poised for growth, particularly around rural tourism. Council can help facilitate this.

To me, it’s all about removing any barriers and making sure that the environment is conducive to encouraging economic opportunities.

Do the maths, 10,000 visitors spending $800 each on average, = $8 million extra income for the area, no wonder I’m

excited!

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December 2018

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Being the parental diplomat Power-sharing is a tenuous thing, as Charlotte Rietveld observes away from the Beehive and outside the sandpit.

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nd just like that, December is upon us and we’re left wondering where 2018 has gone. The year has been a good one for farming fundamentals – the weather has been kind and product prices sound.

This might be enough to keep the rural world chipper were it not for the odd sandfly in the sauvignon.

We are now the land of milk and honey and Mycoplasma bovis. While public empathy may be improved, it would be foolish to think the daggers are down. Farmers have come under attack more so in prior years but you could be forgiven for thinking our nation is trying to eradicate more than one of these three.

Our unprecedented government structure has turned one and it is clearly beginning to flex its muscles. As it happens, my son has also recently turned one and is starting to do the same.

Much like the coalition, he’s just finding his feet, still gets the wobbles and has many a meltdown, but true colours are starting to shine through. Still short of a few teeth, he has a horizontal grin to rival that of our smiling assassin deputy prime minister and is just as crafty.

Much like ’Cinders, his big sister is still holding the reins, but the power play has begun. The sandpit toys encounter an ever-increasing leadership challenge and it seems inevitable that mud will begin to fly. Power-sharing is a tenuous balance – in my experience held together only by sending one on an occasional diplomatic envoy to the biscuit tin for peace talks.

The wee fella also likes a regular drink as

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December 2018

RAKAIA GORGE

much as I suspect the old fella does but fortunately he’s yet to show any interest in the fillies.

Not that we’re to mention any such extra-curricular activities. For a while there the nation had the Netflix subscription on hold, the Beehive offered a far better soap opera. One mention of bedsheets and we couldn’t hit the refresh button fast enough.

The Year of the Sheila has delivered us the golden defence against all antifarming’s marginalisation, mis-information and bullying so here’s to us being the stars of 2019 #EweToo

Alas, the health and safety flag was rightly raised and we were left in wonder, peering through the cracks of political correctness.

It seems ironic that the very institution creating legislation for concepts such a NAIT and anti-money laundering has such trouble reporting its own financial position and mating records.

Stepping up for some sandpit power play, pants optional.

Indeed procreation has been a recurring theme of 2018. Along with a bevy of royal babes, our own prime minister – an unmarried female, heaven forbid – marked the year of the suffragist in style. It really has been the Year of the Sheila. But that’s probably not the correct term. And if I am unsure of the appropriate title, the much-maligned poor ol’ financially-sound middle-aged white man is probably too scared to even open his gold-crowned mouth at all.

Little could epitomise Year of the Sheila more than the #MeToo movement but in true Kiwi style, the brief has expanded.

The lovely concept of a kind and caring government is admirable until me too becomes we too and before we know it, half the country is striking, albeit understandably, for better wages and conditions.

But before you think this ol’ girl has really gone to the dogs, fear not. On the contrary, I think we humble farmers have never been better poised to stand up proud. The Year of the Sheila has delivered us the golden defence against all anti-farming’s marginalisation, misinformation and bullying so here’s to us being the stars of 2019 #EweToo .

13

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Last days of vet school Fresh from Massey University’s vet school, Amy Hoogenboom is heading south to Central Otago.

T

he veterinary school marathon is over. Blink and you may have missed me crossing the finish line, or more realistically, crawling out of my final exam on November 22 after six exams in 10 days. How did five years of late-night study, early morning lectures, getting naked, happy hours at the Masonic, parties on the hillside and too many exams go so quickly?

Time flies when you’re having fun and when you’re not (you’d be foolish to think every day at vet school had been easy and enjoyable).

The final few months of vet school have been filled with production animal rosters and calving placements; this meant plenty of cows, a few sheep, sunburn one day, full wet weathers the next and a welcomed lack of small angry fluffies (more commonly referred to as cats and small-breed dogs).

Highlights included c-sections, breach calvings, discovering what a torn uterus feels like (not so much of a highlight for the farmer), and ‘Sheep and Beef Special Topic’.

Special topic involved a week of travelling around Hawke’s Bay and Taihape visiting high-performing sheep and beef farms learning about different management systems and the role of the vet in helping farmers optimise productivity. That week we also learnt the Massey University Toyota Hiace van is not four-wheel-drive and not capable of off-roading after 200mm of rain the week before.

Genetics and onfarm technology were hot topics at ‘Lunesdale’ (home of Kelso rams); at Mt Herbert Station, Waipukurau we observed ewes and lambs grazing what has to be the most lush plantain-

14

chicory-clover sward any of us had ever seen, and we were all blown away by the scale of the expansive Ngamatea Station.

Thank you to those farmers who opened their gates to show us around their farming operations at MASSEY UNIVERSITY what is a busy time of year.

Wrapping up my life as a veterinary student inevitably meant I would have to face the formidable accumulation of veterinary school “stuff”. It was no small task sorting the mountain of storage boxes filled with workbooks, study guides, marked assignments, papers, and whatever else I had accumulated over the past five years.

Moving out and moving on while reliving some forgotten memories of the vet school journey and feeling guilty about having cut down a small forest worth of paper to document my vet school learning.

Speaking of moving on and life after vet school, where to now? I had always been certain that I would never take a job at a clinic that I hadn’t done placement

at (or an area I had never visited) but as we are all too aware, the road of life is full of twists and turns. And while I am still venturing to the Mainland in 2019 the road leads not to the mosaic of paddocks and braided rivers snaking across the Canterbury plains but the small town of Ranfurly in the mighty Maniototo, Central Otago.

I have already had more than enough people tell me ‘that’s quite isolated’ or ‘very rural’ but after a visit in October, Central Otago already feels very much home and I think I will be more than happy spending my days working with farmers on some stunning sheep, beef and deer farmland surrounded by magnificent mountain ranges and rocky tors.

The Massey Vet School marathon – five years, four flats, one broken ankle, 3456 hours in the lecture theatre, 36 papers, somewhere close to 100 tests and exams, many late nights finishing assignments, 68,459 kilometres travelled around the country, add in 546 hours in the foaling hut, five trips across the ditch and one to Scotland. It is incredible to look back on what I’ve manged to cram into the past five years. If the next five are anything like it, I’m in for one heck of a good time!

Finally able to sign off as Dr Amy Hoogenboom BVSc!

Cattle pregnancy scanning practice at Massey.

Country-Wide

December 2018

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Count-down to realities of Brexit Winter ahead.

Britain’s farmers await the great unknown with the country’s imminent departure from the European Union, writes Cambridgeshire farmer David Walston.

B

ritish farmers have all (hopefully) read the new agriculture bill. We’ve all (probably) heard Enviroment secretary Michael Gove talking about how great United Kingdom agriculture is going to be, and what high standards we will continue to have. And we have all definitely thought about what will happen to our businesses after Brexit, as the threat of unlimited imports in our own sector looms large.

The hot topic this month seems to be whether we should allow imports of food made using techniques that are outlawed for UK producers. Several months ago that centred on hormone-fed beef, and chlorinated chickens. More recently, perhaps due to farmers thinking about flea beetles and aphids, we are talking about neonicotinoid seed dressings.

Personally, I’ve never used these on cereals, but did on oilseed rape until a few years ago, and always have on our sugar beet, but many people rely (or at least think they do) on this chemistry to protect their crops. It’s now fairly clear – for better or worse – we’ve seen the back of this particular technology in Europe.

So now, when we think how we would like UK agriculture to look in a few years, the very obvious point has been made that having decided that neonicotinoids are not safe for use here, isn’t it morally wrong to import food from other countries that is produced using them?

The logic is so strong that even the RSPB and NFU are singing from the same song sheet.

Country-Wide

December 2018

Even more bizarrely, I too agree with both of them, and would strongly support imports to be required to meet our own standards. There’s really just one problem with the whole thing, though: It’s never, ever going to happen.

How can I say this with such certainty?

Easy – just look at any one of a thousand examples of asymmetrical regulations to be found happening right this second.

‘yttrium mining pollution” and see what comes up. Or how about the graphite used in all our rechargeable batteries?

Same story.

Perhaps most damning of all, is that we already import thousands of tonnes of food produced with pesticides that we are not allowed to use. Paraquat would be a good example – and we haven’t even touched on the GM soya that is fed to so many of our pigs and chickens.

Somewhat amusingly, many of the farmers who voted a few years back to leave a huge trading bloc with aligned standards are the same ones who now complain that we may have deal with countries using different standards. What a shock!

Somewhat amusingly, many of the farmers who voted a few years back to leave a huge trading bloc with aligned standards are the same ones who now complain that we may have deal with countries using different standards. What a shock!

How about labour laws? It’s not difficult to find cheap clothes on the high street, and why are they cheap – because they are made by kids in the far east, something that would never be permitted here.

It’s not just poor countries though, look at anything imported from the United States. They have zero days mandatory annual leave, and zero days maternity leave – neither of which is legal in the UK. OK, I can hear you thinking – but isn’t that different to polluting the environment, as neonicotinoids are supposed to do?

Anyone who owns a smartphone can’t really complain about this; they full of rare earth minerals that are often mined with terrible pollution effects. Just Google

We don’t really need to look abroad, or on the internet, we need to look at our own lives: I’ve just written the above on an American computer, made in China.

The clothes I’m wearing come from Godknows-where, but certainly not the UK. My car is German, and my supper will be Japanese.

With the possible exception of the last point, I’m no different to so many farmers in the UK. Wouldn’t it be great if we could have this choice, whilst compelling everyone else in the country to buy our produce (or something else made to the same standards), and to probably pay a premium for it? Too right it would! But can we do that without being massive hypocrites? I’m not so sure.

15

NOTEBOOK

SUMMER RESILIENCE

SHOWTIME New Zealand agriculture comes to town in December at the following regional A&P shows.

Whangarei Agricultural & Pastoral Society, December 1, 2, Barge Showgrounds.

More? www.whangareishow.co.nz Te Kauwhata Agricultural & Pastoral Association, December 8, Te Kauwhata Domain.

More? tekauwhatashow@gmail.com Feilding Industrial Agricultural & Pastoral Association, November 30, December 1 Manfeild Park.

More? feildingshow.co.nz Taranaki Horse & Pony All Breeds Show, December 2, Stratford A&P Showgrounds.

More? mousejt@xtra.co.nz Motueka Agricultural & Pastoral Association, December 1, 2, 62A College Street, Motueka.

More? motuekashow.co.nz Tokomairiro Agricultural & Pastoral Society (Milton), December 8, Tokomairiro A&P Showgrounds, Milton.

More? tokoap@xtra.co.nz Wyndham Agricultural & Pastoral Society, December 1, 16 Balaclava Street Wyndham.

More? gav.fi.mccabe@xtra.co.nz

NOTEBOOK 16

Beef&Lamb NZ presents the opportunity for farmers to come along and learn more about what they can do onfarm to build some summer resilience from a well-known farm systems scientist, Tom Fraser.

December 11, Taumarunui RSA. More? rachel.jukes@beeflambnz.com

CATHERINE LIVE The Catherine Tate Show, featuring the awardwinning British television comedian rolls into New Zealand in late November and early December. Auckland Nov 28, Wellington Nov 30, Palmerston North Dec 1, Christchurch Dec 3 and back to Auckland Dec 8.

More? www.eventfinda.co.nz/artist/ catherine-tate

CROPS 2018 Foundation for Arable Research holds a presentation from herbicide resistance expert Dr Peter Boutsalis from the University of Adelaide at the Chertsey Arable Research site, December 5.

More? www.far.org.nz/events

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

Country-Wide

December 2018

FACTS

US dependence about to bite for beef US consumers are eating beef at very positive levels, partly down to an excellent employment rate. However, if this hits some road bumps you can be certain consumers will begin to turn away from beef to lower-priced alternatives like chicken.

The spread of markets for NZ prime beef is still more diverse than for manufacturing beef but has become increasingly reliant on China.

Luckily the short-term outlook for China is still positive, while the signing of the CPTPP agreement should increase NZ’s competitiveness within Japan longer-term.

After years of short domestic supplies, the United States is now awash with manufacturing beef.

Kiwi suppliers are facing a fall in the market, AgriHQ analyst Reece Brick writes.

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December 2018

US. The impacts are already being felt at the works, where bull is making 50c/ kg less than prime cattle – usually this difference would be 10-20c/kg.

So what’s the outlook?

Well it likely depends on how strong the US economy stays. The one redeeming feature of the whole situation is that

NZ beef exports (12 months to Oct)

Thousand tonne

200 160 120 80 40 0 US

5-­yr ave

China/HK

Taiwan

Last year

Korea

Japan

This year

Canada

Source: B+LNZ

US cow kill (year-­to-­date)

5.6 5.2 Million head

F

or years the United States has been a key outlet for New Zealand’s beef without too much issue, however our dependence on this market is causing some headaches for producers and exporters alike.

Official StatsNZ data indicate the US has taken 45-48% of all NZ beef exports in the past three seasons, essentially twice as much as the second largest market.

Obviously, with these numbers any downturn in the US market is going to cause problems for beef farmers, however it’s bull finishers that should be a little more anxious than the rest.

Manufacturing beef – aka lean bull and cow meat – is almost solely reliant on sales into the US, with only the China and Canada taking any other significant portion of this meat (8% and 5% respectively in the past 12 months).

It’s little surprise that NZ has funnelled so much meat into the US in the past five years. Droughts caused large-scale herd culling, to the point where there was eventually a shortage of beef and NZ was in a position to take advantage of the hole that developed.

The problem is this has completely reversed in the past 18 months and the US is now flooded with its own beef.

The tit-for-tat trade war between the US and China has been an added nuisance, keeping a larger amount of competing meats such as pork and chicken in the

4.8 4.4 4.0 3.6

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018 Source: USDA

17

BUSINESS | KPI

Report card for the business In the first of a series, Country-Wide writers look at tools which can help farmers gain a greater understanding of how their farm business are performing.

Records of pasture growth rates and stock intake (through a feed budget) can add an extra dimension to KPIs, giving production or financial returns on a kg of feed eaten basis.

Getting the records and data together to even begin the process can be daunting.

Taking the school approach of breaking it into four reports a year, with the final ‘exam’ or KPI findings done at the end, is one approach.

Farmers could crunch the numbers four times a year; at the end of lamb sales, at the end of the beef sales (either weaner sale or finishing time), after the wool is sold, and then at the end of the financial

18

When KPI results are compared to ‘classmates’ this is known as benchmarking. Benchmarking is only useful if KPIs are accurate (no cheating) and calculated in a similar way to others.

Common cheating includes not removing lamb birth weight when calculating growth rate, or ignoring the ‘rats and mice’ store lamb mob.

To get started in the process, farmers can use one of the free KPI templates available, hire a farm consultant or accountant, or do a mixture of both. Either way, it takes some effort to get records collated (tallies, slaughter weights, sale receipts, expenditure), but usually not much beyond what is needed for the accountant’s stock reconciliation and income/expenditure reports.

Records of pasture growth rates and stock intake (through a feed budget) can add an extra dimension to KPIs, giving

Figure A: THE BIG PICTURE EBITRm Gross Farm Revenue

Result

K

ids get school reports four times a year. Why not sheep and beef businesses?

Running the ruler over the business has been made easier with new templates for key performance indicators (KPI) for sheep, beef and deer farms. Released by the Red Meat Profit Partnership (RMPP) group in July, they are designed to give farmers and consultants uniform and straight forward steps to calculate 16 KPIs, to understand how the farm business is performing.

Each describes how to calculate the KPI and what data a farmer needs to input.

year. Collect the data on kilograms of meat and wool sold in one place and use it to calculate basic KPIs like kg meat grown/ effective hectare. Most farm software will provide a report to help this.

At the close of the financial year (or, if preferred, when the farm accounts arrive) wrap-it all together into a KPI report.

Having already done the leg work on sheep, cattle and wool performance, it makes calculating overall financial KPIs much simpler.

Which KPIs to monitor comes down to what feeds the financial success of the business. Just like a preference for physical education over classics, farmers need to identify what areas are most important to their overall idea of success. These KPIs can then be tracked and compared each year. For example, farmers may rank a KPI of area of damaged pasture over winter, as important as R2 bull weights in August.

Net Production kg/ha Feed Conversion Efficiency

Driver

WORDS: JOANNA GRIGG

Liveweight Gain

Survival

Price $/kg

Feed Consumed

livestock Reproductive Mix Efficiency Conception

Farm Operating Expenditure

Pasture Grown

Feed Crops

Supplements

Weaning Weight

Start at the top and work your way down to see how the success of one Key Performance Indicator, relies on the other. Monitor the Drivers first (production KPI) and use these to calculate profitability KPIs. Courtesy RMPP KPI Booklet.

Country-Wide

December 2018

Figure B: Ewe Flock Efficiency: One of the 16 core KPIs described in the recently released Red Meat Profit Partnership KPI Booklet 2018.

What is this? A combined indicator of flock fertility, feed quantity and quality, and management practices.

Example Number of lambs weaned from ewes multiplied by

2320 x

Average lamb weight at weaning (kgLW)1 Total weight of lambs weaned (kgLW)2 (a) divided by

27.2 =

multiplied by

63,104

1840 x

Average ewe weight at mating (kgLW)

60.7

Total weight of ewes mated (kgLW) (b)

=

111,688

Ewe Flock Efficiency

=

57%

production or financial returns on a kg of feed eaten basis.

For DIY farmers, the KPI booklet is a great place to start the process. It involved getting 15 industry professionals together (including farmers), to select a master list of 16 KPIs that they consider a starting point to understanding a farm business.

It describes KPIs for the likes of ewe flock efficiency, earnings before interest, tax, rent and any wages paid to manager and many more.

The KPI list will be the main tool for farm analysis in the RMPP Action Network Groups and a starting point to identify how farms are tracking from year to year.

It provides a uniformity of language.

For example, farmer’s know lambing percentage is defined as lambs tailed to ewes joined to the ram. The booklet does not include feed KPIs because of their complexity. Instead it suggests farmers use a feed budgeting tool and consultancy service.

Some of the more challenging KPIs to compute are listed as animal reproductive rate (a combined indicator of flock or herd fertility, feed quantity and quality, and management practices) and net production per hectare (production weight of all animals produced on the farm). These more complex indicators may require help from a farm consultant.

The KPI booklet comes with a video module which goes through the how’s and whys of KPIs. Booklets, videos and the online calculators are available on the Beef + Lamb New Zealand Knowledge Hub.

Country-Wide

December 2018

Monitor what’s critical WORDS: JOANNA GRIGG

∕

Number of ewes mated3

BUSINESS | KPI

R

ichard Gorman sees huge value in monitoring.

“It’s the foundation of a farm’s progress.”

The lambing percentage on the 770-hectare farm is 150% typically, from both mixed-age and twotooth ewes. Close to 70% of these lambs are weaned prime along with 62% of the lambs from hoggets.

Richard has an end goal with the breeding flock of 90% of lambs finished prime off the ewe at weaning. His monitoring and management responses all works towards this.

This is a big one for him.

“If it is high, then kilograms of lamb weaned per ewe mated will be high.”

To achieve this, he knows he needs ewes to be over condition score three at mating. He monitors body condition at weaning and will preferentially feed the under threes but also tries not to get over condition four, as this is inefficient, he said. He and his wife Victoria won the Marlborough Farmer of the Year in 2017.

Another key monitoring time is weighing and condition scoring at ram in (joining) and weighing a sample after the second cycle, when he does a ram change. He is very particular on this.

“It’s a check stage, to see if they are on target.”

›› Definition needed p20

TIPS FOR MAKING MONITORING HAPPEN • Don’t overwhelm yourself with trying to monitor and analyse too much.

• Identify important measurements to your flock profitability e.g. lamb weaning weight. Break down the end goal into steps you need to achieve during the year eg: 70kg tupping weight, 1400kg DM pasture cover at lambing. Monitor progress during the year and make a plan to meet them.

• Add reminders to your calendar (phone or wall) when you need to measure.

• Get help: Subscription programmes like StockCare provide resources and protocols to follow, plus on-farm support and the all-important analysis and planning help.

and paddock record features.

FarmSmart NZ (ANZCO) enables farmers to record on farm activities to demonstrate safe and sustainable practices (especially around animal treatments).

AgRecord is designed to collect information ‘on the go’, which can then be viewed and exported back home.

• If using paper to record data, have a stack of pre-printed weigh/condition score/paddock tally sheets handy at yards and in vehicles, in a waterproof lunchbox. Date the top. If it’s handy, you’ll do it.

• Body condition score booklets (and record sheets) are available on the Knowledge Hub, Beef + Lamb NZ.

• Consider ‘The Full Package’ EID system like FarmIQ as a long-term investment in understanding your stock performance.

• If using those famous small blue notebooks, email/text final result to yourself, in case it goes through the wash.

• There are great apps for storing and using digital records.

Agrimap can store farm records in the cloud and has timeline

• Get a teenager to back up your phone contents to a laptop or Cloud. You don’t want to lose all your records.

19

Ewes are allowed to lose some weight mid pregnancy but evenly, not with a tail end losing too much. For this reason, he will condition score each ewe at scanning and not just monitor a few and average the result. His response to lighter ewes is remove and feed.

Pasture cover target of 1600kg drymatter/ha at set-stocking for lambing is non-negotiable. This must be achieved for lamb survival, good growth rate and maintaining ewe condition.

The best result achieved to date is 52kg of lamb weaned/ewe mated. He knows this because he takes the results from the kill sheets, store lamb weights from truck weights, and a sample weight of retained lambs.

An accurate ewe tally at mating is vital, and Richard tries to keep good records of ewe numbers. This is recorded into his phone.

Richard says he would like to record more on lamb and ewe survival but time has been an issue. They recently took on a part-time fencer/shepherd to take some time pressure off.

He has a working list of ‘wet day jobs’ available on his phone. Most importantly he has a master list of goals for the year and strategic Marlborough Farmer of the Year winners in thoughts, for 2017, Richard and Victoria Gorman, see example adding huge value in monitoring.

20ha of lucerne, fertiliser targets and fencing goals. Keeping this current and relevant is something he can do easily, because he always has his phone with him.

“I will sit down and scroll through these at the end of the day; changing it or adding to it.”

Stepping back further, he calculates how much each stock unit should return to him over a set period. Using this knowledge, he decides whether chasing high lamb weaning weights is going to be more profitable than other stock options e.g. lamb trading 2018.

This season, the winter lamb trading margin was so good he was prepared to sacrifice some pasture covers destined for ewes at lambing, for higher trading lamb weights.

“We won’t wean nearly as many prime lambs but we made more money from the feed from trading lambs.”

“I’m a bit reluctant to repeat this though.”

As part of the Farmer of the Year prize, the Gormans won a year of StockCare consultancy, with Peter Anderson. Richard started this in February and rates it highly, although he recognises the more you put in the more you get back.

“Pete is very proactive with written feedback on our meetings; he encourages, gives reminders which is all very valuable.

“It’s great having someone like that on your team.”

StockCare analysis during judging showed the Gormans in the top quartile for lamb weight weaned per ewe mated. Judges commented that farm surplus was well above average for the region, given the rainfall. Return on capital in 2017 was an impressive 7.5%.

Richard thinks monitoring progress from year to year against yourself is the biggie; it tracks direction over time.

“No two farmers, systems and business positions are the same.”

More on KPIs in the next issue

20

Definition needed Agreeing on the language is the first step towards accurate comparisons.

Lee Matheson, Perrin Ag Consultants, says lambing percentage is a good example of a KPI that varies widely in its definition.

He defines it as ‘lambs at weaning compared to ewes joined with the ram’. The Red Meat Profit Partnership KPI booklet defines it as ‘lambs at tailing compared to ewes mated’.

“In the sheep industry I do see a need to have KPIs that are standardised.

“But they need to be a driver of profit to be relevant, and become popular.”

He gives the example of dairy farmers widely adopting the KPI of ‘six week in-calf rate’ as a universal indication of the number of cows pregnant at six weeks related to cows presented at mating.

“About seven years ago it wasn’t that common, but as farmers saw this measure as a having a big effect on financials, it has become part of the dairy farmer language.”

The sheep industry equivalent KPI could be lambing percentage, he says.

“Or even better, have a cost component built in too, like ‘cost per kg of meat grown’.”

Only 20% of farmers in his Action Network Group that he facilitates could come up with a figure for kg meat and wool produced per hectare for their business. The firm runs nine groups and is using a template of their own KPIs to start business analysis.

Matheson suggests farmers ask their accountant to put their financial data in a format that is useful to generate KPIs. “Yield, kill weight figures, wool sold, number of ewes sold, is all useful information that the accountants will have.”

Software programmes like Figured, Xero, Cash Manager, Farm IQ, all have options to record data too, he said.

“What we are all waiting on is a cheap EID tag that makes it viable to put into lambs, so farmers can easily record weights of ram lambs and replacements.”

Country-Wide

December 2018

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Country-Wide

December 2018

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21

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22

Country-Wide

December 2018

BUSINESS | WOOL

Going finer may be tempting for crossbred growers but do they have the right environment?

Where to with wool?

WORDS: SIMON GLENNIE

T

he onfarm energy levels for crossbred wool seem to be at an all-time low (along with the price). There is little doubt that the relentless pressure on price has chipped away at the resilience of the crossbred farmer.

Few begrudge the recent pay increase for shearers but most despair the erosion of margin and lose more faith. Wool-related infrastructure is increasingly viewed as a cost rather than an investment and the industry is hanging on rather than forging ahead.

From a crossbred farmer’s perspective, declining price for wool has been compensated for by a corresponding improvement in the meat value. But the question is what do we do about wool? Is the strategy to wait until the market see’s sense and consumers swing to natural biodegradable fibres?

Will the beachhead products be the mid micron wearable diameters? Over the last two years of sales the crossbred wool indicator price has dropped from $6.00 to $3.00 while over the same period mid micron wool has steadily increased from $7.50 to $10.00/kg.

In order to see the potential impact onfarm we can compare two systems providing a set of reasonable parameters including not only the difference in wool value but taking into account factors such as anticipated ewe weight and lamb sale impacts from sale timing.

Listed in table 1 are the key assumptions made: While lambing percentage is 5% behind,

Country-Wide

December 2018

Crossbred

Halfbred

Lamb %

135%

130%

Lamb wt

17.5

17.5

Lamb $/Kg

Parameter

$5.44

$5.84

Ewe cwt

28

26

Ewe $/kg

$3.70

$3.65

% Ewe sale

12%

12%

replacement rate

26%

26%

Lamb wool wt Lamb wool $/Kg Hogget wool wt Hogget wool $/Kg Ewe wool wt

1.3

1.4

$3.50

$9.00

4.0

3.8

$3.40

$10.50

5.5

5.2

Ewe wool $/Kg

$3.00

$10.00

Mean kill date

1-Mar

1-May

lamb kill date is two months later, this allows for a portion of the lambs to be carried and killed in early spring. Because the half-bred ewes are assumed to be 5kg lighter, the net effect on stock able to be carried works out identical. With this being the case, we can look at the outputs on a per ewe basis including the wool from lambs and hoggets.

Revenue pe ewe from: The meat production works out surprisingly similar due to the higher product price where a portion of lambs are

Revenue/ewe from

Crossbred

Halfbred

Lamb

$103.77

$106.29

Cull ewe

$12.43

$11.39

Wool (incl lamb + hog)

$26.18

$78.75

Revenue

$142.38

$196.43

wintered and sold at a higher per kg value.

The glaring and substantial difference is the wool revenue which sets the two systems apart. For crossbreds, wool makes up 18% of revenue while the half-bred system derives 40% of annual revenue from wool. There are a few additional costs with the half-bred system being animal health and a fractional increase in winter feed. However, the differential per ewe is sufficiently large to cope with some additional costs.

The model does however assume a suitable environment for the half-bred ewes and their lambs to survive and thrive.

Parasite challenge has the potential to derail the assumed levels of production relative to crossbred counterparts. A combination of more lambs in autumn and over winter along with genetics leave the system prone to performance crashes.

Interestingly, the same comparison could be made between half-breds and Merinos and many of the same arguments would exist.

Once again the environment needs to suit the system but the wool price differential still drives the economics.

Recent sales have been very strong for both Merino and mid-micron wools with Merino in the mid $20s.

As product price is a strong driver of revenue, the temptation to go fine is powerful. However, careful consideration as to the suitability of the environment needs to be taken into account before embarking on a change. • Simon Glennie is an AbacusBio farm consultant based in Dunedin

Next issue: a halfbred operation

23

BUSINESS | HONEY

The business of bees WORDS: SANDRA TAYLOR

is reproduction and after they have mated they are banished from the hive and will starve to death.

The worker bees live for around six weeks during the summer and over that time will produce one teaspoon of honey.

The queen may live for up to two years. She will only do a few flights in her lifetime for mating before spending the rest of her days in the hive.

Bees predominantly produce four types of honey; monofloral, multifloral, polyfloral and honey dew.

A

n increase in the value of honey alongside an awareness of the importance of ecosystem services has seen a revival in interest in bees and honey production.

For North Canterbury farmers Dan and Mandy Shand, honey is another income stream in their farming business which is based on their 7000-hectare Island Hills Station near Culverden.

Speaking at Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s recent Farmsmart event in Christchurch, the couple explained that Island Hills covers a lot of marginal country and while they were running a commercial walking track alongside their sheep and beef operation, it was both time and labourintensive which came at the expense of family time.

Instead the couple, who have two children, diversified into honey production, initially to generate an income off the tracts of native vegetation on Island Hills. The business has grown and they now provide bee services and produce honey for farmers throughout North Canterbury.

Dan, who is a Country-Wide columnist, outlined the basics of honey production, explaining that within each bee hive there are a number of components, these include brood chambers where the queen

24

Mandy working in the honey shed.

lays eggs, honey boxes and queen excluder which helps keep the honey separate from brood.

Some hives will have up to two queen excluders and these are often particularly tall hives that can occasionally be seen in apiaries around the countryside.

The worker bees are all female but they don’t reproduce. The queen is the only bee with the ability to reproduce. She is fed royal jelly when at the larval stage and this gives her the ability to produce sexual organs.

The drones are the males. Their only role

When hives are sited for honey collection, consideration should be given to how far away they are from boundaries.

Dew is unique in that it is produced from a mite that lives in the bark of certain trees. It is not pollen and this means the resulting honey stays runny permanently.

While the value of manuka honey has been well publicised, Dan says it is important to understand the difference between kanuka and manuka honey.

Manuka has individual flowers and bigger leaves than kanuka, where

Country-Wide

December 2018

QUESTIONS FOR THE BEEKEEPER

Dan Shand with a frame of honey.

When negotiating with a beekeeper, Dan suggests the following questions to clarify expectations and ensure a mutually beneficial relationship: • How many hives will you winter on my property?

• How many will you have over the summer pollination and honey production season?

• What is your hive stocking rate? One per flowering hectare is considered average.

• How much honey does each hive produce? (A typical average is about 32kg of honey) • Am I being paid per hive or as a percentage of the crop?

• Do you have single or double queen hives?

• What type of honey is produced?

• If it is manuka, what is the UMF or MGO of that honey?

• How much information about the honey produced on my farm are you willing to provide?

• What systems do you have to keep accurate records?

the flowers are in bunches. Under a microscope, the pollen from both plants looks identical which led the Ministry for Primary Industries to look for markers to differentiate between the honey from the two plants.

Scientists now have the ability to test for monofloral and multifloral manuka honey, but Dan says the tests are not perfect yet but rather give a strong indication of the make-up of the honey.

Manuka honey has long been recognised for its ability to help heal wounds. Dan explains that honey has peroxide qualities and unlike sugar which absorbs moisture, it draws moisture away from a wound.

Manuka honey also has antibacterial properties which was originally measured by the honey’s UMF - or Unique Manuka Factor - a measurement that was developed and patented in New Zealand. This is now measured using the chemical MGO or Methylglyoxal and can be correlated with UMF.

Country-Wide

December 2018

Wintering sites or collection sites Apiarists will often have different sites for wintering hives and for collecting honey.

Wintering sites will typically have good access so the hives can be fed and the hives will then be moved away in early spring to begin honey collection.

Dan says when hives are sited for honey collection, consideration should be given to how far away they are from boundaries.

‘It’s bit like grazing livestock on your neighbour’s property.”

Where, by necessity, they need to be sited near a boundary, there needs to be negotiations with the neighbour about the use of his or her land.

This, says Dan, is becoming more of an issue, particularly in the North Island.

Some farmers, such as some specialist seed producers, pay for hives while other farmers will be paid for the honey produced off their properties.

Dan says some specialist seed crops produce very little honey and the hives need to be moved around a lot- which is labour-intensive. Other crops, such as manuka, are of higher value and farmers

will be paid for the honey that is produced.

Farmers need to think about what they have flowering on their farm and when.

They also need to consider access around their farm, the hive numbers they are expecting and proximity to boundaries.

They also need to think about health and safety and their relationship with their beekeepers - how trustworthy are they?

Dan and Mandy extract their exportgrade honey in a highly regulated food grade processing facility.

This is very much Mandy’s domain and she says there is a lot of paperwork involved as everything needs to be recorded.

This includes the date the honey was harvested, when it came into the shed and the farm and apiary it came off.

“Everything needs to be labelled and recorded.”

They are audited twice a year so need to ensure that all the paperwork is up to scratch at all time.

“It’s just not as easy as putting hives on a property.”

Dan and Mandy Shand and their two children, Amalia and Hugh.

25

BUSINESS | M BOVIS

Shortage of killing space WORDS: TIM FULTON

T

he Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) says it is working with the industry on a shortage of killing space that is holding up the testing process for ‘trace animals’ due to be removed from properties. The killing-space congestion was affecting the testing regime, MPI incident controller Catherine Duthie said.

It was also true that limited kill space meant animals were staying onfarm for longer than MPI would like, she said.

The ministry was moving cattle off farm “as quickly as possible” once a decision is made that they should be slaughtered, Duthie said.

“There is a generic plan for testing on all properties. Trace animals need to be slaughtered and tested and these results reviewed to guide further testing on the rest of that particular property… MPI recognises this limitation in kill space as an issue and is working with industry to find a solution.”

Duthie was specifically asked: How often has MPI seen clinical signs of infection?

If PCR/nasal swab testing is only used on stock under 12 months and through milk testing, how are beef cattle undergoing thorough surveillance? How many positive swabs have been identified through live tonsillar swabs, swabbing of swollen joints and semen/preputial swabs?

“As you may be aware, the clinical signs are not specific to M. bovis. There is a small number (three) of properties where there have been clinical signs that we can confidently attribute to an M. bovis infection.”

She also answered criticism of why it may take more than eight weeks for M. bovis test results to be returned to farmers, even though MPI’s target timeframe is two weeks.

26

MPI is moving cattle off farm “as quickly as possible”.

Testing and return of results may take longer than two weeks given the extraordinary number of samples being collected, she said. “It is worth noting that since the first case of M. bovis was detected in July 2017, more than 230,000 samples had been collected with more than 223,000 tests completed.”

Tests were timed so that they occurred when an infected animal was more likely to be shedding, such as during times of stress, or another illness.

The testing timeframe for properties under surveillance was improving with additional laboratories being subcontracted, Duthie said.

Every New Zealand farmer was relying on every other farmer to act in the best interests so that the eradication attempt had the best chance to be successful, she said. “It would be disappointing to New Zealand as a whole if farmers are purposefully withholding information and putting the response effort at risk.”

‘For any tests to be meaningful, they must be carried out on an adequate number of animals, according to the provided recommendations, at an appropriate time, and they should be interpreted as part of a larger picture.’

“It means testing a lot of animals from all the different “in contact” groups on your farm and testing those groups multiple times. This is why testing programmes for each farm take some time and several tests.”

Every time a new property was identified MPI uncovered new animal tracing that needed to be completed. “This is done by conducting a census of the farm and involves a review of NAIT records as well as questioning the farmer. Given the large amount of animal movements this can take some time.”

The animal tracing work was comprehensive and there was a team working solely on tracing animal movements between farms, she said. “This work can be complex and time-consuming and involved staff checking historical movements and often calling farmers who have not owned the animal/s in question for some time.”

Any farm which was subject to testing was issued a notice of direction, a legal notice with consequences if farmers did not comply.

“For any tests to be meaningful, they must be carried out on an adequate number of animals, according to the provided recommendations, at an appropriate time, and they should be interpreted as part of a larger picture including all available information about herd composition, movements, and health history”.

This was why testers tried to improve the chance of finding any infected herd by testing large numbers of animals and testing multiple times.

The animal tracing work could be complex and time-consuming and involved staff checking historical movements and often calling farmers who had not owned the animal/s in question for some time, Duthie said.

Country-Wide

December 2018

BUSINESS | DOG FOOD GUIDE

Top tips for a happy, healthy working dog For a farm working dog’s optimum performance, getting the right food is vitally important. Country-Wide writers present the annual dog tucker guide, with a review of data and manufacturers’ claims.

WORDS: REBECCA HARPER

F

eeding is an important element of keeping your working dogs in top condition, but as founder of Retired Working Dogs New Zealand, Natalie Smith, tells us, animal husbandry is just as important.

A former vet nurse, Natalie lives on a farm near Pirinoa in south Wairarapa and is a North Island rural sales representative for Royal Canin and Eukanuba.

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December 2018

She shares with us her top tips for keeping your four-legged workmates happy and healthy.

FEEDING At this time of year when work really comes on, look for a good quality working dog feed with a good amount of both fat and protein.

Fat is important for energy, while protein helps repair the muscles after hard work, high protein diets are also

thought to help reduce soft tissue injuries.

Most working dogs are also fed a component of homekill. Homekill alone won’t provide the balanced diet your dogs need, so ensure the biscuit component of their feed is a high quality one. Keep in mind that at different times of the year the quality of homekill meat will also vary and might not provide the same levels of energy.

Bones are contentious because of the

27

health problems associated with dogs swallowing small, sharp pieces of bone, or constipation.

It seems to be common practice to freeze homekill meat, then defrost it before smashing it up and feeding it to dogs.

A tip is to run meat through a bandsaw, which will ensure decent sized pieces of bone and minimise the risk of smaller, sharp bones.

“At this time of year when dogs are busy, they need more from their diet. Look at feeding a higher quality biscuit at this time. There are other associated benefits from such products, like joint support and anti-oxidants, which will help keep dogs healthy and fit.”

KENNELING Having a warm, draught-free kennel is important. If a dog is working all day and then sits in a cold kennel shivering all night, it will lose weight. Warm dogs will hold their condition better and shouldn’t need to be fed as much, which could save you money.

They are also less stiff in the mornings, more ready to work and less likely to injure themselves.

Once ambient temperature in the kennel drops below 18-20C, dogs have to actively burn energy just to keep warm.

This is energy that would otherwise go to immunity, muscle repair and body condition.

“When it’s cold, all of our working dogs wear a coat to bed – they’re not just for pets. You can really see the difference and now they actually wait to have their coats put on.”

As far as bedding goes, it can be hard to find something dogs won’t destroy. You need something that won’t soak up water and stay damp. Old canvas horse rugs are good, as are the hessian pads, provided you can air them out. Look for something that is waterproof.

The benefit of bedding, other than warmth, is it provides padding at the bottom of a hard kennel. This supports the dog’s joints and can potentially keep them working for longer, delaying arthritis or helping older dogs that have arthritis.

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY Fleas: Fleas are a big issue and it can be expensive to treat a whole team.

Prevention is better than cure – if your dogs are scratching then you’ve already got a problem.

In the cooler months fleas are not as active and you may not need to treat dogs

28

Natalie Smith with a pair of retired working dogs.

as often, but from spring onwards it is important to flea dogs.

“We use Seresto collars and I love them.

They seem expensive, but they last eight months and it’s much cheaper than spottreating dogs every month. We copper wire them to the dog’s collar so they can’t get hooked off.”

Fleas can affect a dog’s performance and body condition too. If you treat your dogs, you need to treat everything on your property, including pet dogs and cats.

Fleas also live in kennels and in the environment around kennels, so pick a warm day and ripcord kennels. Make sure you wait a while before putting dogs back in the kennels. Raised kennels will help combat fleas.

Worming: This is hugely important.

Puppies need to be wormed every two weeks until 12 weeks old, then once monthly until six months. Adult dogs should be wormed three-monthly with Drontal, and a sheep measles treatment in between.

A good tip is to talk to your vet clinic and see if your dogs can go on a mailing list programme, that way worm treatments will be mailed to you regularly.

If you’re bringing a new dog on to the farm try to worm it two days prior to arrival. If that’s not possible, it will need to be wormed on arrival and then quarantined for 48 hours to eliminate the risk of sheep measles.

Ensure anyone who brings a pet or

hunting dog on to your property has also dosed their dogs.

Water: Access to fresh water in kennels is an obvious one, but also consider the needs of your dogs while they are out working, especially on a hot day.

“A 20kg dog will usually drink 1.2 litres of water a day. If it’s hot and the dog is working hard, that intake can increase to six litres a day. It’s something to think about if you’re out mustering and then dogs are tied to the fence in between times.

Give them the opportunity to drink, or consider taking water with you. I know people worry about dogs drinking and then working, but heat stroke can be an issue in summer and it can kill a dog very quickly.”

Signs a dog may be suffering from heat stroke include excessive panting, extremely pale or bright red gums (gums are normally a nice pink), trying to crawl into shade or if they are very lethargic and don’t want to work. If a dog collapses, put it in a trough immediately and then take it to your vet.

Lameness: There are many reasons for lameness in working dogs, including sore pads, especially when the ground gets hard. Talk to your vet about options for pads and toughening them up. “Lameness doesn’t often heal itself. If you’ve rested the dog a few days and it’s still lame, it needs to see the vet.”

Joint support: This can be beneficial for older dogs and really make a difference to them. Have a chat to your vet about the options.

Country-Wide

December 2018

Vaccinations: If you vaccinate for nothing else, make sure you vaccinate all dogs for parvo. Even if your dogs never leave the farm, other dogs will come on to the farm from time to time and they could be carrying parvo.

Once you have parvo on a property, it is very difficult to get rid of. Puppies should be vaccinated and then boosted yearly or three-yearly, depending on your vet clinic. “It’s a relatively cheap outlay that could save you massive amounts of money in the long run.”

PUPPIES Puppies need special care to ensure they grow and reach their full potential. The biggest factor is good feeding, particularly for Huntaway puppies, and it is strongly recommended they be fed a specific large breed puppy diet product.

Puppies grow for at least 18 months, so feeding them a puppy feed for as long as possible will give them the best start to life.

Also, be aware they’re still growing and try not to work them too hard or run them behind the bike for long periods while they are young.

• Want to know more about Retired Working Dog Adoption NZ? Find them on Facebook/Retired.

WorkingDogs/ or email retired.workingdogs@ gmail.com

Summary of general information provided by dog food suppliers Product name

Type

AAFCO status

Ingredients list (first 3 only)

Acana Prairie Poultry

Formulated

Chicken meal, steel-cut oats, fresh chicken meat

N

Blackhawk Working Dog Adult Formula

No

Lamb & beef meal, oats

N

Champ Max Biscuits

Formulated

Wheat, meal and bone

N

Chunky Original

Formulated

Beef, lamb, selected cereals

O

CopRice Working Dog Food

Formulated

Animal protein meals & by-products, cereal, rice bran

N

Country Mile Vitality

Formulated

Cereal & cereal by-products; meals & meat-meal; animal fat

N

Country Mile Dog Kibble

Formulated

Cereal & cereal meals; meat & meat by-product meals; animal fat

N

Eukanuba Premium Performance

Approved

Chicken, chicken by-product meal, corn meal

N

Hills Science Diet Adult Active

Approved

Corn, chicken by-product meal, animal fat

N

No

Beef, beef liver, beef tripe

Y

Formulated

Cereal; meat products and fats (beef & mutton); honey

N

No

Fats, meats & products from meat cereal, salmon

Y

Nutrience Performance 30/20 Formula

Approved

Chicken meal, oatmeal, chicken fat

N

Pedigree Working Dog Formula

Formulated

Meat & meat by-products (poultry, beef &/ or lamb), wheat, wheat bran

N

PROPLAN *

Approved

Chicken, wheat & animal fat

N

Possyum

Formulated

Possum meat, lamb &/or beef, selected cereals

O

Royal Canin Endurance 4800

FEDIAF

Dehydrated poultry protein, animal fats, rice

N

Royal Canin Trail 4300

FEDIAF

poultry protein, rice, maize flour

N

Tux Energy

Approved

Cereals &/ or cereal by-products, meat & animal by-products, beef/sheep/poultry/ goat/venison fats

N

Tux Energy Nuts

Approved

Cereal &/or vegetable by-products; meat & meat by-products &/or poultry byproducts, tallow

N

Ultra Active Working Dog

No

Beef meal, ground corn, dried blood

N

Wag Original

Formulated

Chicken, beef, lamb

Y

Wag Garlic & Rice

Formulated

Chicken, lamb, rice

Y

K9 Natural Frozen Beef Feast

Frozen raw

Mighty Mix Large Dog Formula Mighty Mix Frozen Concentrate

Frozen concentrate

›› Nutritional info p30

* Proplan All Sizes All Ages Performance with OPTIPOWER Kibble Pet roll Biscuit Y Yes N No O Once opened

Country-Wide

December 2018

Refrigeration Made needed? in

New Zealand Australia France Canada USA

NOTES • AAFCO status: Approved-has passed independent AAFCO testing, considered non-toxic, a complete and balanced diet. Formulatedgood intent to meet AAFCO standards but not AAFCO tested.

FEDIAF:-indicates the product complies with the European Federation of Pet Food Manufacturers’ (FEDIAF) standards. AAFCO standards.

• Ingredients are listed in order of proportion, highest listed first.

Only first three are listed in this table. In general, where the first is a high-quality ingredient, the shorter the full list, the higher the food quality.

• Mighty Mix recommends feeding their frozen concentrate with Mighty Mix large dog formula, either together or alternately.

• All products listed are claimed to be complete and balanced diets

29

Summary of nutritional information provided by dog food suppliers Fat (%)

Protein (%)

Fibre (%)

Carbohydrates (%)

Moisture (%)

M Energy (k/cal kg)

Acana Prairie Poultry

17

29

5

29.5

12

3969

Blackhawk Working Dog Adult Formula

22

32

3

23

10

4090

Champ Max Biscuits

15

20

2

40

10

3200

Chunky Original

10 min

21 min

1.1 max

62

No data

4000

CopRice Working Dog Food

15

25

3.8

40

8

3870

Country Mile Vitality

18

18

4

Not tested

5

Not tested

Country Mile Dog Kibble

15

20

4

No data

No data

Not tested

20 min

30 min

4 crude max

31.3

10 max

3768

Hills Science Diet Adult Active

25

27.5

1.7

32.8

7.5

4239

K9 Natural Frozen Beef Feast

37 min

35 min

2.6

3.7

8 max

5269

Mighty Mix Large Dog Formula

12

23

1.9

42.3

11

3729

Mighty Mix Frozen Concentrate

53

25

5.1

11.7

31.1

5800

Nutrience Performance 30/20 Formula

20 min

30 min

3.0 max

23

10 max

3920

Pedigree Working Dog Formula

15

24

2.5

45

9

3600

PROPLAN *

21

30

4 max

27

12

3860

Product name

Eukanuba Premium Performance

Possyum

8 min

21.5 min

1.09 max

65

No data

4000

Royal Canin Endurance 4800

30

32

6

15.9

8 max

4549

Royal Canin Trail 4300

21

28

7.1

28.3

8 max

4085

Tux Energy

18

20

4 max

42

8.7

3800

Tux Energy Nuts

16

24

4.5 max

40

8.6

3560

Ultra Active Working Dog

15 min

30 min

4 max

No data

10 max

3187

Wag Original

28

39

3.7

18

Dry basis

4350

Wag Garlic & Rice

28

39

3.7

17

Dry basis

4400

NOTES • Content of fat, protein and other ingredients may be specific i.e 20%; or vague i.e at least 20% or up to 20%.

• Fat provides the energy for endurance work. Veterinary Enterprises Group (VetEnt) guidelines say hardworking farm dogs should have at least 20% animal fat.

• Good-quality protein is needed for repair and recovery. VetEnt’s recommends a minimum of 30% animal protein.

• Fibre is the indigestible carbohydrate portion and as a general rule should not be more than 10%.

• Carbohydrates are needed for sprint type energy.

• Energy: Farm dogs get most of their energy from fat. Energy may be quoted as “energy”, “gross energy”, “digestible energy” or the most relevant, “metabolisable energy (ME)” which is the energy available to the dog.

Energy requirements should consider the intensity, frequency and duration of work.

• The consensus of most veterinarians is that a working dog’s diet should be based on high fat and protein and “low” or “low to moderate” carbohydrate.

• Nutritional data is presented on a drymatter basis.

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Contact Us- 07 895 9272 or www.jelkennels.com Country-Wide

December 2018

The twist that kills WORDS: JOANNA GRIGG

L

arge-chested Huntaways are prone to gastric dilatationvolvulus (GDV). In plain language it’s a stomach twist that kills.

Huntaways are almost 19 times more likely to suffer GDV than other dogs. The stomach becomes engorged with air and froth and the dog will only survive if it is untwisted within a few hours.

Symptoms include a bloated abdomen that feels tight like a drum, attempts to vomit every five to 30 minutes (sounds like a cough, only foam and mucus come up), significant anxiety, restlessness and a hunched-up appearance.

Fixing the torsion involves passing a tube down the oesophagus and into the stomach, in an attempt to allow air to escape. Often this is not possible as the stomach twist also obstructs the oesophagus as it enters the stomach.

Alternatively, a needle is inserted into the stomach through the side of the dog’s abdomen in order to release the pressure.

The next step is to stabilise the dog on fluids before performing emergency surgery to untwist the stomach.

The longer the stomach remains twisted, the more likely it is that areas of the stomach become necrotic (die off), due to the lack of blood supply.

Stuart Burrough, veterinarian, The Vet Centre Marlborough, says he sees about four to six cases a year in his clinic for treatment. Of these, around three quarters of them are farm working dogs. Many more don’t even make the clinic.

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December 2018

“The problem with working dogs is they are usually fed in the evening and not seen until morning, so it’s often too late to save them.”

Emergency surgery costs $2000$3000. A Massey University study found 68% returned to work while 32% died or were euthanised.

The good news is that stomach torsions can be prevented by suturing the stomach to the abdominal wall.

Known as gastropexy, the surgery has been practiced for at least 20 years, Burrough says.

It is usually performed straight after a torsion has been resolved but can be done as an elective preventative surgery.

Cost is the biggest inhibitor, with this preventative surgery costing about $800. Reducing the cost would require a clinic to invest in laparoscopy equipment, not commonly available in New Zealand nor justified for rural clinics.

Open surgery requires a 10cm incision and at least two weeks off work, then light duties for another two weeks minimum, he says.

“It can be good insurance for a valuable Huntaway.”

The most cost-efficient time to attach the stomach is when a bitch is being spayed, or is already under surgery.

The Vet Centre monitors sheepdog teams through their Working Paws programme and big-chested Huntaways are identified as potential cases for gastropexy.

“We recommend the surgery for dogs that had a family member with a torsion as there is a link.”

Huntaway Liv had a stomach stitch at the same time as hysterectomy surgery. The stitch will hold the stomach in place, reducing the risk of twists.

Gastric dilationvolvulus (GDV) is the second most common nontraumatic reason working dogs are taken to a vet in New Zealand.

Some farmers are choosing to stitch all their Huntaways, as a preventative.

A study at the Massey University Working Dog Centre showed GDV was the second most common non-trauma related reason for a working dog to go to a vet and the most common non-trauma related reason not to return to work – 85% of affected dogs were fed once a day and 96% had eaten meat, bones or scavenged a carcase. Dogs between five and seven years are most at risk.

“Reducing hunger urges is why we recommend feeding 25% of their feed allowance in the morning, and the rest at night. Dogs also work better with some food in their stomach.”

“It is one of those freak things of nature, but a really full stomach increases the risk.”

›› Daily rations p34

31

Grant McMaster General Manager, Closeburn Station Central Otago

Farm life is unpredictable.

32

Country-Wide

December 2018

With the right food, you can rely on your dogs every day.

Grant McMaster has been a farmer for over 40 years. He knows only too well how uncertain farm life can be.

Black Hawk Working Dog has been developed specifically for New Zealand working dogs. Packed with 32% real meat proteins and 22% high quality fats, the formula promotes strong, lean muscles and provides sustainable energy throughout the day. ®

® Black Hawk and other associated trademarks are registered trademarks of Masterpet Australia Pty Ltd.

Since Grant has been feeding Black Hawk Working Dog to his dogs, he’s noticed a real difference – “you can see them improving in their muscling, their coats are shinier and they have more energy.”

Available at your rural vet clinic.

Country-Wide

December 2018

workingfarmdogs.co.nz

33

25kg highly active dog required/day

Summary of daily rations recommended by dog food suppliers

Product name

Pack/price details

Grams of food/day

$/day

Pack size (kg)

RRP ($)

Acana Prairie Poultry

335

2.64

17

135

Blackhawk Working Dog Adult Formula

415

2.8

20

135

Champ Max Biscuits

510

1.33

25

64.99

Chunky Original

440

1.73

2.2

8.65

CopRice Working Dog Food

488

1.46

20

59.99

Country Mile Vitality

500

1.16

25

57.99

Country Mile Dog Kibble

563

1.41

20

49.99

Eukanuba Premium Performance

355

2.25

20

127

Hills Science Diet Adult Active

297

2.62

22.67

199.95

K9 Natural Frozen Beef Feast

500

4.87

20

194.99

Mighty Mix Large Dog Formula

352

1.65

20

94

Mighty Mix Frozen Concentrate

225

0.87

25

97

Mighty Mix Frozen + Large Dog

288.5

1.26

25 + 20

94 + 97

422

3.62

15

90

PRICES CAN BE MISLEADING • Different bag sizes make the price for each bag irrelevant. Price per kilogram also has little relevance because daily rations vary widely between products.

The calculated cost for each dog per day must be balanced against food quality, which should be the major consideration for working dogs.

• For hard-working farm dogs, energy is an important factor in assessing rations. A 25kg dog has a resting energy requirement (RER) of about 820kcal per day.

For dogs’ mustering, it’s more likely to be three to five times their RER, equating to about 2500kcal-4000kcal.

• This is a wide range but then so is their workload.

Knowing the ME of a specific food means a daily energy requirement (DER) can be used to determine the daily ration of a food needed to provide this energy.

• Daily ration (kg) = DER (kcal) /ME (kcal/kg) • For example, the daily ration of 4000kcal/kg to provide 2500kcal: DER = 2500 / 4000 = 0.625kg or 625g.

542.5

No data given

20

79.5

PROPLAN *

405

3.14

20

159.9

Possyum

400

2.31

2

11.55

Royal Canin Endurance 4800

550

4.45

20

162

Royal Canin Trail 4300

450

3.86

17

146

Tux Energy

490

1.5

25

76.5

Tux Energy Nuts

450

1.68

20

74.5

Ultra Active Working Dog

200

1.25

20

125

Wag Original

1200

2.96

3

7.39

NOTES • A dog’s nutritional requirements vary with size, age, workload, reproductive status and climatic conditions.

• Daily rations quoted are those recommended by suppliers and may be based on different nutritional assumptions.

• Monitoring body condition is the best way to finetune ration sizes for a particular food.

• Farm dogs should ideally have a condition score of four on the Nestle Purina Body Condition System: • Ribs easily palpable, with minimal fat covering.

• Waist easily noted, viewed from above.

• Abdominal tuck evident.

• Recommended retail prices from suppliers may vary from those seen at retailers, and bulk purchasing and specials reduce costs. Prices may vary from those in this table. Prices include gst.

Wag Garlic & Rice

1200

2.96

3

7.39

* Proplan All Sizes All Ages Performance with OPTIPOWER

Nutrience Performance 30/20 Formula Pedigree Working Dog Formula

MEAT NO.1

INGREDIENT

FOR HARD WORK & HIGH PERFORMANCE. NUTRITION FOR FITNESS, STRENGTH & STAMINA.

 HIGH IN PROTEIN & ENERGY  RICH IN OMEGA 3, 6 AND 9  23 NUTRIENTS FOR WELLBEING  ANTIOXIDANTS FOR IMMUNITY  NO COLOURS OR FLAVOURS PROTEIN ENERGY

25%

AUSTRALIAN MADE. 34 FARMER OWNED.

kg 3,870kcal/

Freecall 0508 267 742 Country-Wide December 2018 www.coprice.com.au

Don’t ignore fleas WORDS: JOANNA GRIGG

C

ollars, pour-on, spray or pills; whatever the method the message is treat sheepdogs in spring to shut down autumn flea issues.

Flea collars have moved on from the traditional accessory; the diazinon collar. In 2015 the use of diazinon (an organophosphate) for use in flea collars was reassessed by the New Zealand Environmental Protection Agency. It was listed as having potential to cause major adverse effects on human health for adults and children, although negligible for the environment (EPA assessment under the Section 63 of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996).

A flea collar alternative is the Seresto collar, which contains two different active ingredients; imidacloprid which kills adult fleas, flea larvae and lice – and flumethrin, which repels and kills adult ticks, larvae and nymphs. This collar should provide eight-month continuous protection from fleas and ticks, through slowly releasing low doses of the active ingredients into the lipid layer of the dog’s skin and hair, and through the entire body surface. It won’t wash off.

Stuart Burrough, Veterinarian, The Vet Centre Marlborough, says the collars have been sold for about four years through the clinic and are popular with both farm and companion dogs.

Fleas and ticks die on contact. The clinic

Country-Wide

December 2018

Stuart Burrough, The Vet Centre Marlborough, says the way to prevent a miserable autumn infestation of fleas in sheepdogs is to break the breeding cycle in spring with a long acting treatment.

Diazinon collars have been superseded by non-organophosphate options.

has not seen any major issues with adverse reactions to the collars.

“There will always be some animals with sensitive skin, so you might see some hair loss but it’s not common.”

For the working dog, Burrough also recommends the topical or chewable product Bravecto. The liquid gives six months’ continuous cover for fleas and ticks and can be applied in early spring to give good protection over the warm season, he said.

He describes Bravecto as safe and effective for dogs over six weeks of age, a convenient choice for working dogs because one liquid dose lasts six months.

Bravecto is about $90 for six months’ flea and four months’ tick protection while the

Serestro collars are around $80 for eightmonth flea and tick protection.

Spraying the kennel area for fleas is only necessary if treatment is left too late and a large population of flea eggs has been allowed to build up in the dog’s environment, Burrough says.

“Early treatment in spring will prevent this.”

Whatever the control method, ignore fleas at your peril, he says.

“Prevent the flea population getting a head start by using long-acting products to break the breeding cycle in spring.”

“If you don’t, you may have a heavy infestation by autumn.”

Problems develop when dogs develop extreme reactions to bites. Dogs can suffer from flea allergy dermatitis causing large patches of thinning coat and severe itching.

“We do see bad flea allergic reactions; extremely itchy dogs which lose hair around the base of their tail and the backs of hind legs.”

“From a welfare and work point of view, life is miserable.”

Reported adverse reactions in dogs from flea treatments include vomiting, hair loss, diarrhoea, lethargy, decreased appetite, moist dermatitis/rash and seizures in dogs without a history of seizures.

Burrough is dubious of products that are supposed to repel fleas, or just using washing and brushing to remove fleas.

“An effective product needs to kill them.”

35

LIVESTOCK ONFARM

Persistence pays off Russell Priest drops in to check on a young farmer who in April this year finally got on to his farm which is a classic ‘doer-upper’. Photos: Brad Hanson.

T

he sound of “sold” as the auctioneer’s commanding voice filled the room was music to the ears of Owen Maher and partner Janelle Gillum (37) who even shed a few tears of relief. They had just bought on behalf of Owen’s mother, Teresa Lowry, a farm with a “doer upper” tag.

Owen (35) and Teresa (60) had previously looked at a number of farms in the central North Island and were becoming increasingly despondent as farm ownership seemed to be slipping out of their grasp.

“We attended an auction of a Taihape

36

farm on the Friday and it went for ridiculous money and I was shattered,” Owen says.

The farm sold for $9600/ha and another sold for similar money.

However, an email from his bank manager Mike Russell that evening alerting him to a rundown farm advertised on the internet. When they looked at the farm, initial observations from the road generated a comment to his mother “not another one of these”.

As they dropped from an altitude of 590 metres at the top of the farm to 370m more favourable comments were forthcoming.

KEY POINTS • Bought a 294ha farm in Manawatu • Infrastructure needed serious attention.

• Large areas had reverted to manuka • Sheep could roam the farm at will.

• Focus on subdivision, soil fertility and stock • First scanning 160% and docking 134%

›› Tonka toy p38 Country-Wide

December 2018

After a number of disappointments, Teresa Lowry and her son Owen Maher are finally farming in the Manawatu.

Country-Wide

December 2018

37

By the end of the viewing they had decided this was for them.

“It felt good and all the ducks lined up and, as long as the price didn’t go crazy, I was determined to buy especially after the disappointment of missing out on Friday,” Owen says.

Teresa says they could see beneath the obvious things that needed attention was a farm with good bones and significant capital value could be added in a short space of time.

“The hard work required to get there didn’t put us off.”

‘It felt good and all the ducks lined up and, as long as the price didn’t go crazy, I was determined to buy especially after the disappointment of missing out on Friday.’

A quick meeting with the bank manager on the Wednesday, a rehashed budget and a heap of determination was all the ammunition Owen required to blow the opposition away at the auction on the Thursday. He had learned some valuable lessons from previous auctions.

The auction was on March 1, 2018 and the farm cost about $5600/ha with the takeover April 12.

About halfway between Kimbolton and Rangiwahia in the northern Manawatu, the farm now called Whakatiwai (in memory of Teresa’s father) needed serious attention.

Described by many as a model farm before being leased for 17 years, the infrastructure was in bad shape and large areas of manuka had re-established.

Very few fences were stock proof at least for sheep with numerous holes underneath, large sections lying on the ground and countless broken posts. Even much of the northern boundary fencing was not secure.

Owen says when they arrived the farm was virtually one paddock when there should be 25-30 paddocks. By the end of winter they had nine blocks fenced.

He wasted no time hotting up the top wire in cattle paddocks so further damage to the fences would be minimised.

Because the sheep could range freely over the farm they had become strongly territorial and would often hide in the scrub when they heard a bike or dogs. This made full musters difficult.

38

THE ULTIMATE TONKA TOY With a mountain of track work to be done Owen sold most of his machinery and bought a second-hand 12-tonne Caterpillar digger for $32,000. Whenever he’s had a spare moment he’s been reforming tracks, establishing water tables, building dams and opening up swampy areas. He’s also found it useful for demolishing sheep yards, flattening trees and shifting large quantities of soil.

“The digger’s been the best farm investment we’ve made to date. It’s already clocked up over 100 hours.”

About $15,000 has been allowed in the budget for scrub cutting.

Horizons Regional Council is in the process of doing a Farm Plan. It will be involved in advising Owen what scrub can be removed as well as helping to develop a soil stabilisation strategy. The intention is to remove some but not all of the scrub and leave some for bees, soil stabilisation and stock shelter. The worst areas will be cut using contract labour leaving Owen to deal with what is left. To determine how productive honey-wise the area is likely to be a beekeeper will be introducing hives on to the farm this season for a year’s trial.

Owen quickly learned their escape routes and his dogs would follow them into the scrub and flush them out.

Fortunately fence repairs are made easier as most fences are constructed with 10, 2.5mm high-tensile wires with no battens, requiring only broken post replacement and filling in the numerous holes underneath. This is a work in progress and the bulk should be completed by the end of summer. About $30,000 has been earmarked in the budget for fencing.

Whakatiwai was generously tracked however regrowth manuka covered many of them and most were extremely wet and needed reforming.

The sheep yards required immediate replacement and the new ones had to be finished by July 3 in time for scanning.

A multi-purpose Farmquip crutch and weigh combo was hastily installed on half round posts on a temporary site leading to the drafting race. This allowed Owen to scan, capsule and pre-lamb crutch the ewes beneath a temporary $100 gazebo.

Fortunately the woolshed was sound although new lighting was required. The cattle yards could be used as long as not too much internal pressure was applied.

Cows couldn’t pass through the old crush so it was replaced with a new one.

›› First docking surprises p40 Country-Wide

December 2018

TRADITIONAL 5’N’1*

COGLAVAX 8

DISEASE

CLOSTRIDIUM TETANI TOXOID

TETANUS

CLOSTRIDIUM PERFRINGENS TYPE A TOXOID

SUDDEN DEATH, ENTERTOXAEMIA

CLOSTRIDIUM PERFRINGENS TYPE B TOXOID

ENTERTOXAEMIA

CLOSTRIDIUM PERFRINGENS TYPE C TOXOID

ENTERTOXAEMIA

CLOSTRIDIUM PERFRINGENS TYPE D TOXOID

ENTERTOXAEMIA (PULPY KIDNEY)

CLOSTRIDIUM CHAUVOEI TOXOID

BLACKLEG

CLOSTRIDIUM NOVYI TYPE B TOXOID

BLACK DISEASE

CLOSTRIDIUM SEPTICUM TOXOID

MALIGNANT OEDEMA

Country-Wide

December 2018

39

LEFT: Teresa and Owen. RIGHT: When Owen started the fences were shot and the farm was virtually one big paddock.

RUNNING A BUSINESS Ownership of Whakatiwai is vested in a trust owned by Owen’s mother Teresa. Owen’s managerial relationship with the trust is entirely a business one.

Teresa has total trust in Owen’s ability and integrity because she knows how he operates.

“His decisions will be based on the best financial outcomes for the business and not on family sentiment.”

Owen has surrounded himself with professionals and has hosted a Red Meat Profit Partnership action network group.

He admits he is a person who is prepared to listen and adopt new ideas if he thinks they will benefit the business. He has been able to call on the invaluable services of his brother Derek (37) who is completing an engineering degree at Wellington. Between them and with some assistance from Teresa they have been able to achieve far more in the last six months than has been achieved in the last 17 years.

Owen and Janelle have two daughters Ashlee-Rose (3) and Maddison (2). The family are grateful for the support and advice from the local community.

“When you come back in two years’ time to do a follow-up article you will hardly recognise the place,” Owen says.

First docking surprises Stocking the farm and applying fertiliser were Owen’s first priorities after takeover.

The farm had previously wintered 1200 ewes, 100 cows and 90 weaners.

Many of these were bailed stock under the lease agreement. Owen had first dibs on the ewes and ewe hoggets.

Unfortunately many of the ewes proved to be unsound so Owen’s stock agent Gareth Williams was charged with finding 700 ewes late in the selling season to top up numbers.

This proved difficult but was achieved in time for Dorset Down rams from the Totaranui stud to go out on March 3.

Since Owen had no historical information on animal health treatment of the bailed ewes, no expense was spared in getting them in the best possible condition to take the ram.

The ewes only scanned 160% and

40

initially Owen expected 125% docking.

However, the farm has good shelter and there was high lamb survival rate with few ewe deaths. The docking tally hit 134% and the lambs averaged about 26kg.

A weaning draft will be made before Christmas. All lambs bred on the farm will be killed and young ewe replacements will be bought in each year to maintain the flock. The farm is running Perendale and RomneyCoopworth ewes but heading towards all Romney.

Owen is looking to establish a longterm relationship with a breeder of quality ewe replacements.

With no fertiliser history available from the previous 17 years, Owen was keen to get some soil tests done to give him some idea of what and how much to apply.

Fortunately Janelle (37) is a fertiliser

Perendale ewe with lamb. The farm is running Perendale and Romney-Coopworth ewes but heading towards all Romney.

rep for Ballance Agri-Nutrients so no time was wasted in getting this information.

The budget for capital fertiliser is $6000.

Owen had ordered enough fertiliser to cover the whole farm with 300kg sulphur super plus 80kg urea a hectare. Application of the nitrogen on July 12 provided excellent lambing covers.

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December 2018

When Owen started the fences were shot and the farm was virtually one big paddock.

Angus cow and calf.

Pure Angus target Owen’s primary stock focus was buying high-quality cows, heifers and bulls.

“We wanted to get the genetics of the cows right first because it’s easier to change the ewes’ genetics so we did a lot of research on the cattle before we bought,” Owen says.

His agent sourced 140 top capital stock Angus cows, 103 R1 Angus heifers and five Angus bulls.

Initially Owen bought just 70 cows and 1250 ewes as he didn’t want to be over-stocked for the first winter. Upon hearing this, his bank manager fearing it would delay getting the place up to speed, suggested his stocking rate was a little light.

“Are you going to farm conservatively or are you going to hit it with a tonne of bricks,” he asked Owen, suggesting strongly that he buy another 30 cows.

Owen decided to get stuck in so he bought another 70 cows.

The downside in being selective when buying high quality cows was that calving date had to be compromised.

Calving began on July 12 which is far too early for the area.

So immediately after takeover a large area was shut up for calving cows with the surrounding fences having to be made sheep proof to prevent ewes from eating the saved pasture.

More cows were bought than Owen intended to run long term to clean up pasture roughage before the spring.

After completing this job cows were break-fed on a sacrifice paddock adjacent to SH54 allowing easy tractor access for feeding balage.

All R1 heifers will be run with two low birthweight EBV bulls for two cycles with dries being slaughtered, the best 40 retained in the herd and surplus ones sold in calf.

Future replacement heifers will be bred in the herd and mated at 15 months. The plan is to sell all weaner steers and winter all weaner heifers. Establishing a reputation for producing high quality stock is one of Owen’s prime objectives. To this end all animals sold will be tagged with Angus Pure tags.

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December 2018

41

LIVESTOCK | FLYSTRIKE

Prevention better than cure WORDS: REBECCA HARPER

W

hen it comes to flystrike, prevention is better than cure, and there are some practical steps farmers can take to guard against it.

In what could be shaping up as a bad year for flies, farmers should be particularly vigilant in a warm, humid summer, when soil temperatures reach above 12C. Maintaining regular shearing and crutching, and keeping a close eye on stock are important general practices.

Vet Services Wairarapa veterinarian, Sara Sutherland, says the timing of shearing is an important consideration, as UV rays will destroy eggs and larvae, followed by a preventative fly treatment applied four to six weeks after shearing.

‘If you do get hit, say the sheep are due for shearing but the contractor has been delayed because of wet weather, try to move them somewhere windy and dry.’

“It’s also about being aware of the weather conditions that bring flystrike on, particularly when it’s warm and humid.”

Sutherland says flystrike is not only an animal welfare issue when stock are affected, but also impacts on fertility.

“They can become infertile, which has a financial impact. If they get flystrike in December, they can still be infertile come mating time.

“If you do get hit, say the sheep are due for shearing but the contractor has been delayed because of wet weather,

42

try to move them somewhere windy and dry. If they’re not due for shearing, get a treatment on them. There are different options for short or long-term withholding, so talk to the person you buy your chemical from.”

Sutherland says there have been some cases of resistance to chemicals used to treat fly in New Zealand and, if you suspect you might have resistance to a product, have it investigated immediately.

“Most of the time when a fly treatment doesn’t work, it’s more to do with application than resistance, though.”

Another thing to be aware of is any issues causing skin damage, such as rain scald, foot rot or facial eczema, which can then lead to flystrike.

“Preventing those issues will help and, obviously, removing dags.”

While she has no personal experience with fly traps, Sutherland’s impression is that they are better for telling when flies are around, than for controlling them.

Veterinarian Abi Chase has a PhD in parasitology and works as the technical product manager for animal health company Boehringer Ingelheim. She agrees prevention is key.

Chase says there are two chemical treatment options for farmers, the first being the use of an Insect Growth Regulator (IGR). An IGR won’t kill the fly or stop it laying eggs, but acts by stopping the larval stage developing into maggots.

Typically, the IGR is applied by running animals through an automatic jetting race.

“The big thing with these is to make sure you put enough product on and don’t run them through too quickly.”

The biggest issue with lack of efficacy when it comes to flystrike treatment is incorrect application, she says, particularly putting too little product on, so make sure you follow manufacturer’s instructions.

“The product works by sticking to wool, so if you go too soon after shearing that can be an issue. Normally the

Sara Sutherland: Timing of shearing is important.

recommendation is that the product will work ‘up to’ a certain number of weeks.

If it is a high fly challenge year, the treatment may last for a shorter time and you’ll need to treat more often.”

Heavy rain immediately after application without sheep having time to dry properly can also affect the efficacy of a product.

The second treatment option for farmers is something that kills maggots, a nerve poison, usually used in conjunction with an IGR. Nerve poisons will usually kill lice as well.

Chase says Cyromazine and Dicyclanil are the two IGRs that have successfully been used in NZ for more than 30 years, with little recorded resistance.

“There are some reports in Australia and New Zealand of resistance to Dicyclanil and, although it’s not causing any issues at the moment, we know it will happen eventually, so using a nerve poison as well gives extra insurance.”

If you do get flystrike, a nerve poison will act quickly and Chase says Ivermectin is the most effective and fastest-acting product available to treat fly.

“If you do get fly, first speak to your vet and determine an appropriate treatment to knock down maggots quickly. Something with Ivermectin in it is a good choice.

Shearing them to get rid of the wool and clean it up is also good.”

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December 2018

Buy with confidence “If one of our Romneys or Maternal Composites break out with facial eczema,, we will refund your entire ram purchase.”

Ka

Will Jackson

Pere

• Ewes run in commercial

conditions under no drench policy • Modern and prolific ewes lambing between 140 PIQUET HILL ELITE ROMNEY

Extremely FE tolerant sire. Fertile and productive medium sized sheep suitable for hard hill country. Sires tested at 0.68 mg per kg of live weight.

PIQUET HILL MATERNAL COMPOSITE

Highly FE tolerant and prolific sire suitable for high production systems.

High growth and early maturing lambs.

High hogget lambing rate. sires tested at 0.6 mg per kg of live weight.

150% on hard hill country • All rams guaranteed for soundness and structure for 2 years • Romney and Maternal Composites have a lifetime guarantee against FE

PIQUET HILL F1 PERENDALE

Using purebred Cheviot rams over stud Romney ewes. Extremely hardy and low maintenance rams that have been successfully used as a back cross over straight Romney and maternal cross ewes. The F1 introduces highbred vigour helping in production increases. Rams have been tested at 0.45 mg per kg liveweight.

PIQUET HILL SUFFOLK TERMINAL

The ultimate terminal sire. Good lamb marker with strong growth and lamb survival. Ewes run under commercial conditions with the main focus of developing rams that will perform on hard hill country in a high FE environment.

Penciling in ramDecember orders now, for sale by Private treaty early January.

Country-Wide 2018

Will Jackson phone: 07 825 4480 or email: william@piquethillfarms.co.nz

www.piquethillstud.co.nz 43

LIVESTOCK | BELTEX

More meat and sooner In March, Canterbury breeder Blair Gallagher held the first ever sale of Beltex rams in New Zealand. Andrew Swallow caught up with him on his farm near Mt Somers earlier this spring.

M

ore lambs prime at weaning and a heap more meat per sheep is what Canterbury breeder Blair Gallagher expects the newly introduced Beltex breed to bring to the New Zealand industry.

The double-muscled strain of Texel originates from Belgium, hence the name, but Gallagher, in partnership with former AgResearch Invermay head Dr Jock Allison and local farm consultant John Tavendale, imported embryos and semen from the United Kingdom where it is popular for its ability to sire lean, premium-earning crossbred lambs, often for export to Europe.

That’s what attracted Gallagher to it.

“I first saw them in the UK 10 or 12 years ago. They were so different to any other sheep we had here in New Zealand.”

However, preliminary inquiries into imports revealed it would take three to five years of quarantine and cost about $3 million. “So I quickly lost interest!”

Fast forward a decade and a conversation with Allison on the way to the 2016 Sheep Industry Awards revealed MPI had just changed the import rules. “We were on the plane in 10 days,” Gallagher recalls.

Quarantine requirements had been replaced by a much shorter isolation period for imports, subject to rigorous testing of origin flocks prior to embryo or semen collection.

A tight timeframe in 2016 meant they only went to the one flock, the Buckle & Broxty stud in Cumbria, because it was already geared up for exports. From 40 ewes put up to view, they selected 25 to take embryos from.

“We were looking for conformation and structural soundness. Unfortunately in the UK there’s not a lot of recording and their equivalent of SIL isn’t widely used yet,” Gallagher says.

The ewes were put to six rams, including two imported to the Buckle & Broxty flock from the Ardstewart stud, Northern Ireland, and two imported from Belgium.

Unfortunately, of 150 embyros collected, frozen, and airfreighted to New Zealand, only 38% took when implanted into Gallagher’s Perendale ewes.

“It was a very disappointing result.”

They also imported semen from one of the UK’s leading rams, Eskdale Tangent, and put it across stud Perendales on Gallagher’s Rangiatea property near Mt Somers, Poll Dorsets bought-in from Neville Greenwood’s Adelong stud, Lincoln, and Suffolks from Kate Paterson’s Rangiora Suffolks, Hawkes Bay. Much to Gallagher and Allison’s surprise, it was the resulting Suff-Beltex rams that commanded the highest prices at their inaugural sale back in March.

Purebreds were sold first, achieving a full clearance of the 16 offered at an average

of $4900 and top price of $12,000. Then came the Suff-Beltex.

“That’s when the bidding really took off,” Allison says. “$15,000 for one, $12,500 for another and $7200 for another: record prices for crossbred sheep.”

The Poll Dorset x Beltex averaged $1700 and the Per-Beltex $1200.

It later emerged there had been a lot of chat about the pure Beltex being too small to mate larger ewes, and possible problems with birth difficulties. Gallagher believes those fears were unjustified, particularly in the case of birth problems.

“I’ll say categorically that over crossbred ewes you won’t have any lambing issues because the lambs are quite small and they look completely normal.

It’s only at two or three weeks that they really start to put on muscle.”

His Perendales have had no problem lambing the purebred ET lambs either, with birthweights ranging 3.5 to 5kg, he adds. Unlike in double-muscled cattle

KEY POINTS • Double-muscled Texel developed in Belgium.

• NZ lines selected from UK studs.

• First embryos and semen imported 2017 & 2018.

• 240 purebred lambs in NZ this spring.

2017 CT Scanning of Ram Lambs, Breed Averages, Scottish Agricultural College (SAC), Edinburgh, Scotland.

Breed

• Unrivalled meat yield with low fat.

Flocks

Lambs

kg

Fat (%)

Muscle (%)

Bone (%)

Total kg

KO%

EMA / cm2

EMA Ratio *

Charollais

15

93

63.0

7.1 (23)

18.4 (60)

5.3 (17)

30.8

48.9

30.4

0.48

Hampshire

13

77

56.5

7.5 (27)

14.6 (56)

4.5 (17)

26.6

46.8

27.4

0.48

Suffolk

10

81

60.3

6.2 (21)

16.4 (60)

5.0 (18)

27.6

45.5

28.1

0.47

Texel

35

286

56.4

4.9 (18)

17.9 (66)

4.6 (17)

27.4

48.5

28.8

0.51

Beltex 2017

2

16

46.6

3.0 (11)

18.7 (71)

4.7 (18)

26.4

56.6

28.8

0.62

Beltex 2016

4

33

45.7

2.7 (10)

18.6 (73)

4.3 (17)

25.6

55.8

28.6

0.63

Beltex 2015

4

34

47.9

3.6 (13)

19.2 (71)

4.5 (16)

27.3

56.8

28.1

0.59

*cm2 / kg live weight Note : Beltex ram lambs a) 8%+ higher killing out percentage, b) 5 to 17% higher meat yield in the carcass, c) 12 to 30% higher EMA / kg of live weight.

44

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December 2018

HICKFORD ON BELTEX Lincoln University’s Jon Hickford says it is always exciting to have new breeds enter New Zealand, but invariably it takes time for them to adapt to local conditions.

“We are learning how to hasten this process, and crossing new breeds into existing breeds is one approach, but there will always be negative traits that need to be worked on too. That is both the joy and challenge in sheep breeding,” he says.

He’d like to see more breeds with distinct characteristics develop appropriately branded products to add value. In the case of Beltex, that could be a line of speciality cuts to capitalise on the breed’s unrivalled meatiness, perhaps with lambs finished on specific herbage mixes to add particular taste characters, he suggests.

As for why Beltex sheep are so meaty, Hickford says it’s unlikely to be solely the consequence of the myostatin gene.

“This gene is frequently and erroneously identified as the under-lying cause of doublemuscling but increased muscling is under the control of many genes.

You can have highly muscled sheep that don’t have the myostatin gene variation that you see in Texel sheep: “I have seen NZ Romneys that have very high lean meat yields, but that have never been crossed with Texel or Beltex.”

With meat yield not well rewarded by processors yet, despite the major meat companies having tests that could allow it, the case for building a brand around taste and eating quality is even stronger.

“Eating quality will reign supreme in developed, high-value markets and those markets have to be our primary goal.”

British Beltex: two-tooth rams on David Thornley’s Dooley stud in the UK where some of the NZ genetics came from. Supplied by Jock Allison

Not pork: a loin cross-section from a 20kg, three-quarter Beltex carcase in a UK butcher’s shop. Supplied by Jock Allison.

Short tails have been sought-after by some buyers.

breeds, it’s the pelvis angle of the purebred mother that sometimes causes problems, rather than the size of the purebred foetus.

While he’s yet to lamb any purebred ewes, in selecting lines to import they avoided those with a more acutely angled pelvis, and studs with a history of caesareans. One of the UK breeders they imported embryos from earlier this year, David Thornley, told Country-Wide he’d not had a caesarean performed for six years, and even that one hadn’t been for a Beltex but for a recipient ewe carrying transplanted purebred embryos that had a twisted uterus.

“I can give you the number of my vet if you want!”

Besides Thornley’s Dooley stud, Gallagher and Allison imported embryos from Andrew Baillie’s Callacrag stud and the Davis’ Rathbone stud this year, bringing in another 150.

They also bought semen from Callacrag and another stud, Terracrosset, and have flushed the 26 purebred hoggets resulting from their first lambing at Rangiatea, yielding about three embryos per hogget which were implanted with a 70% take into recipient Perendale ewes.

“So we’ve got about 240 purebred lambs on the ground this spring, and we’ll have a lot more this time next year,” Gallagher says, in light of plans to flush purebred two-tooths twice this coming autumn, hopefully yielding six or seven embryos each for transplant into recipient

Perendales, and then to naturally mate them to a Beltex. No purebred hoggets were mated last autumn but they did put a purebred Beltex across 45 Beltex-cross hoggets, a mix of Per-Beltex, Suff-Beltex, and Poll Dorset-Beltex.

“I lambed the odd one, but some I probably didn’t need to, and I think we lost one lamb that was coming backwards, but no ewes.”

Gallagher says the lambs are quite vigorous at birth, a point buyers from their sale have also noted.

“They’ve all mentioned how quickly they are up on their feet and have suckled.”

So far he’s not seen anything to make him think they’re any different from other breeds for foot problems or parasites.

The short tail has attracted interest from people looking to breed that type of sheep which is why they’ve not tailed ram lambs.

Wool is a down-type and short, similar to a Texel’s, and they avoided the more extreme wool shedding types in their imports. They also avoided more hunched, short-necked animals.

Besides the range of crossbreds they had at the first sale, this year they’ll have a few Cheviot-Beltex cross rams resulting from AI of some Cheviot ewes in Gallagher’s stud flock of 120 ewes at Rangiatea. His thinking is they’ll be ideal for hogget mating, or perhaps using over a Merino two-tooth, producing “a smaller lamb that’s very vigorous.”

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December 2018

Other breeders will no doubt try their own crosses and look to infuse the best traits of the Beltex into composites, but Gallagher believes the real potential is as a purebred terminal sire across maternal or composite ewes.

Allison sees the breed becoming a cornerstone of terminal composites, “with

›› First-time buyer feedback p46 45

higher kill-out percentage and increased meat yield. Why wouldn’t ram breeders take advantage of that?”

Scottish research has shown that Beltex carcases have more meat and less fat and bone than those of other breeds at the same weight (see table). In the UK, that sees prime Beltex and Beltex-cross lambs regularly command $19-$38/head premiums over other breeds.

Here, to date, the maximum premium available for high meat yield is about $7, Gallagher says.

In due course, once there are sufficient Beltex-cross lambs being finished, schedules should be extended to reward producers for the higher meat yields, he believes, as does Allison, especially given most of the extra yield is in the high value areas of the eye muscle and rump.

But even without that they’re confident the breed will pay dividends as a terminal sire because the kill-out percentage is also consistently better than any other breed.

“The real advantage I see on our type of country, or any type of country where people are using terminal sires, is to be able to finish a crossbred lamb at about 34kg,” Gallagher says.

“With a 54% kill-out that’s an 18kg carcase from quite a light lamb.”

FIRST-TIME BUYERS’ FEEDBACK Buyers of rams from last March’s inaugural Beltex NZ sale say they’re pleased with their first crop of lambs from the novel breed.

“They’re nuggety, solid lambs and there were no lambing issues,” George Williams, of Grassendale Genetics, Wairarapa, says.

“If we can shift the meat yield curve on a hill country lamb we should get our money back pretty quickly,” he added, having put the Suff-Beltex he bought to stud SuffTex ewes.

Brent Robinson, Wyndham, bought two purebreds. In three weeks they got in-lamb 55 of 72 Texels, 42 of 50 South Suffolks, and 15 of 30 Suffolks.

“Some of the Suffolk ewes were probably a bit big but I don’t think that will be a problem when the rams are two-tooths,” Brent says.

They had no lambing problems and the lambs looked pretty impressive in the paddock, he says.

Ross Mitchell, Clinton, also bought two purebreds, putting them to mixed mobs of 50 consisting Coopworth ewes, Suffolk two-tooths and hoggets, and Sufftex hoggets. Growth to tailing averaged 300g/day, 340g/day, and 370-380g/day respectively.

“There were no real lambing issues with them and I’m pretty happy with the way they’re looking. They’re heavy wee lambs!”

FIRST KILL SHEET Figures on four purebred ram lambs sent for slaughter at Silver Fern Farms’ Pareora plant during the winter illustrate the meat yield potential of the breed, Gallagher says.

The lambs were rejected for breeding, hence their destination.

Liveweights the day before slaughter

were 41kg to 49kg, and they hung up at 23kg to 29kg, a kill-out of 57%.

Meat yield was 18kg to 23kg , a 79-81% meat yield per carcase compared to 71-72% for some good non-Beltex prime lambs of similar weight processed at the same time.

“There was $25 to $30-worth more meat on the Beltex carcases.”

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December 2018

LIVESTOCK | ONFARM

Mez and Richard Power run a simple but highly effective sheep operation on their North Canterbury sheep.

Photos: Lucy Hunter-Weston

Success for simplicity A North Canterbury couple’s simple lamb finishing policy has won top honours in a national competition. Sandra Taylor reports.

R

ichard and Mez Power’s sheep operation is strikingly simple.

All lambs, prime and store along with cull ewes are sold by late November irrespective of the season. This means all feed can be partitioned into capital stock giving them the ability to grow award-winning ewe lambs - in fact the best in the country.

The Hawarden couple won the supreme award at this year’s New Zealand Ewe Hogget competition, but this was not an anomaly and builds on previous section wins at both national and regional level.

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December 2018

Visiting the couple’s 600-hectare farm Tenterden in late October, the reasoning behind their farm system is apparent. The north faces on their rolling country are burnt off and in a typical summer, the whole farm will be a gold colour by the end of December.

Rather than struggling to finish lambs on a falling schedule in the height of summer, the couple decided many years ago to quit all trading stock by mid-November and mechanically harvest any grass surpluses.

Silage and balage squirreled away has proved a life-saver in the past, and Richard

says during the last drought they were feeding out four-year-old silage.

The couple say that lifestyle - a desire to spend summers with their three children rather than drenching, dagging and dipping lambs - was one of the drivers behind their decision to sell all lambs early.

The other was what Richard had seen during his nine years as a lamb drafter.

He had watched farmers struggling to finish lambs on feed crops, yet in most years, the margins simply weren’t there to make it worthwhile.

›› FVital too p48

47

Richard also saw what the good operators were doing to the maximise the productivity and profitability of their lamb crop and learnt from them.

Eighteen years ago, they decided to change their ewe genetics and introduced North Island Romneys into their flock.

This proved a game-changer as these genetics improved fertility, hardiness and the ewes had the ability to grow lambs fast - exactly what the couple needed in their environment. They say winter is their strength and it is when they carry their maximum number of stock units. Their free-draining soils and some grass growth makes for ideal wintering country, but spring is where they make the money and they manage their pastures to maximise pre-weaning lamb growth rates.

Terminal sire ewes (they use Suftex and Lamb Supreme) start lambing on August 5, the maternal ewes on August 14 and the hoggets on September 5.

By early November, Richard says pasture quality is going off, so they wean on November 20 with about 70-75% drafted prime at 17.5-18kg carcaseweight. The balance are sold store at 30-32kg to repeat buyers. The couple retains 950 ewe lambs and after weaning these are grown out on 25ha of lucerne. Over the subsequent 18 months, their numbers are whittled back so 820 two-tooths enter into the 3350-strong mixed-age ewe flock.

Richard says in selecting replacements, he is looking for type, size, feet and body structure and will cull heavily on black fibres. “…when wool comes back, there will be a real issue with black fibres in the NZ wool clip.”

The hoggets are grown out on a separate 100ha block, which is also where the couple grow 40ha of grain every year.

Not all hoggets are mated, generally the heaviest 780 are mated for 24 days (to retained ram lambs) to achieve 600 inlamb hoggets.

Richard says they simply don’t have room to have all the hoggets lambing. This means they do retain dry hoggets, but he hasn’t seen an obvious improvement in two-tooth performance between those that lambed as a hogget and those that didn’t.

The hoggets’ lambs are weaned and sold as store at 10 weeks and this allows plenty of time to get condition back on the ewes before they are mated as two-tooths.

Richard judges the success of hogget mating on the two-tooth scanning results.

“Take a look at your two-tooth scanning - if it’s terrible then you’ve failed at hogget

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Hayden Churchward has been employed for eight years, but now only works mornings alongside his own farming interest.

Condition scoring vital tool Richard and Mez don’t own a set of sheep scales but Richard, like his father before him, has always body condition scored and views this as a valuable management tool.

He body condition scores the ewes three times a year; straight after weaning, a month before mating and again at scanning.

He aims to maintain the ewes at a Body Condition Score of 3.5 or better all year round and any that fall below this are taken out for preferential feeding. Ewes that have not recovered condition before mating are culled.

Over June and July, the twin-bearing ewes are wintered on 20ha of a rape, Italian ryegrass and turnip mix that the couple has been using for years. Richard says the mix expresses itself differently in different paddocks, but works well, and gives a more balanced diet.

Scanning sits at about 176% (twin/ single) and the ewes are lambing between

150 and 155%, which for Richard and Mez, is ideal.

“It’s where we want to be.”

Any more lambs would increase the number of triplets and put more pressure on the whole system.

The ewes are spread out over wellsheltered ryegrass and clover paddocks for lambing, but after tailing they are mobbed up and rotated around paddocks to look after the subterranean clover that is endemic in their pastures.

It is the flush of feed in early spring that helps realise the ewes’ milking potential and drives the pre-weaning growth rates that are pivotal to the sheep component of their business. Between 5% and 10% of their pastures are renewed annually through either a winter feed crop or in a straight grass-to-grass renovation.

The lucerne stands – 25ha – are cut for baleage and then used for growing out the ewe lambs.

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December 2018

A ewe with its tripets – scanning is about 176% (twin/single) and the ewes are lambing between 150 and 155%.

Growing great hoggets In April, the ewe lambs are moved down to their separate 100ha block while the twotooths are brought back to join the main ewes. The heavy soils on this property complements the free-draining more rolling country on the balance of the farm.

Here they grow 40ha of grain every year all of which is sold into the dairy industry.

The hoggets are mated and will lamb on this block and the heavy country means

there is good grass growth over much of the year.

Hayden Churchward has been employed at Tenterden Downs for eight years and now only works mornings alongside his own farming interest.

The couple say Hayden is an integral part of their operation. He is given sole responsibility for the hogget block and terminal sire ewes, making all the decisions

(in consultation with Richard) around where to grow crops and how to manage the livestock grazing on it.

Trading cattle are part of their business but they run a very flexible policy in terms of type and numbers.

Cattle are only ever on the farm between autumn and spring so they not competing with ewes for feed over summer. Richard keeps an eye out for opportunities to buy finishing cattle of some description over autumn. The Powers are very happy with the performance of their ewes and hoggets.

Looking ahead, Richard says he is trying to maintain a fine wool crossbred flock that can look after themselves.

When buying rams, he looks for physical attributes - constitution, wool and type - as well as the numbers, but the figure he puts most emphasis on is lamb weaning weight.

“This tells me that the ewes are good mothers and have the maternal traits in place.”

Richard and Mez will hold a field day on their farm on December 7 starting at 12.30pm.

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December 2018

49

LIVESTOCK | GENETALK

Testing the twolegged animal in the top paddock Genetic testing has yet to take off in a big way for agriculture, but humans are flocking to the service, geneticist Nicola Dennis writes.

I

t is 10 years since I hit the streets as a youthful and hopeful science graduate. It was the dawn of the genomics age and it was time to change the entire world with genetic testing.

Well, it is fair to say, genetic testing has yet to take off in a big way for agriculture.

However, one industry is going great guns.

Direct-to-consumer genetic testing for humans is a “thing” now. Once, studying the human genome was hard work. It required tedious steps such as applying for funding and proving the study was ethical.

But companies such as “23andMe” have turned that on its head. Why undertake all that legwork when you can simply sell genetic tests directly to people on the internet? The 23andMe database has five million consumers serving as a slightly shady resource for private genetic research and new drug development.

The people of the internet are happy to give up their genome for two main reasons. First, it is a great way to answer some questions about your lineage. If you have someone as distantly related as a fourth cousin already in the database, you will be alerted. Testers can then arrange to put you and your newfound relative in contact with each other. This can be useful for adopted children to track their birth parents (eg: start with a willing distant cousin who is happy to interrogate the rest of their family).

This method has also been used by the FBI to solve cold-cases. Historic DNA samples from the “Golden State Killer” crimes were matched to 10 or so distance relatives in the “GEDmatch” database and

50

authorities shook the family tree until their suspect fell out.

Not sure what to get that hard-to-buy-for family member this Christmas? How about gifting them a genetic test. Nothing says “I love you” like dredging up a previously unknown sibling or implicating the giftee in a historic crime. It may be the last present you ever have to buy them.

Nothing says “I love you” like dredging up a previously unknown sibling or implicating the giftee in a historic crime. It may be the last present you ever have to buy them.

Of course, families with nothing to hide only get a scientifically sketchy, but nevertheless fascinating, report on their ethnic background and how much Neanderthal DNA is in their mix.

The second, much more controversial, reason people buy these tests is to predict their health future.

A lot of work is still to be done. For example, it is only possible to explain about 20% of the heritability of human height with genomic testing. That is a little discouraging since height would have to be one of the easiest traits to measure. But it’s a big step from knowing next to nothing 10 years ago.

The FBI shook the family tree in GEDmatch database and the Golden State Killer, Joseph James DeAngelo, fell out.

Observant readers might be a little taken aback to see the terms “heritability” and “human” used in the same sentence. If you are imagining performance recording and breeding values, fear not! Human heritability is usually calculated by recruiting identical twins. If the trait is highly heritable such as height or Alzheimer’s Disease (genetics explains about 70% to 80% of the variation in these traits), then identical twins are likely to have very similar results.

If the trait has a lower heritability and there is more “room” for environmental effects in the trait (dementia, obesity and high blood pressure have a heritability of about 40%) it is more likely that the identical twins have different results (if one twin hits the gym and the other hits the pies, and they end up looking like two sides of a funfair mirror).

Back to predicting health outcomes, 23andMe has FDA approval to report three mutations in the BRCA1 and 2 genes (commonly associated with breast cancer).

The company will also report on risk of Alzheimer’s disease, your carrier status for diseases such as sickle cell anaemia, your genetic weight, your ability to match musical pitch and about 90 other things as well.

None of this is available to Kiwi customers because the low accuracy of some of these predictions means the service falls short of NZ consumer laws.

However, you may feed the raw results (all 700k DNA markers) into an online service such as Promethease to receive an eyewatering amount of data about health and behavioural traits. It will also make predictions on your hair and eye colour, in case you do not own a mirror.

What an exciting time to be alive, eh?

Should consumers be dubious about using these services? Absolutely. But, if anyone wants to get me a genetic test for Christmas, I am happy to out myself and my family as Neanderthals!

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December 2018

LIVESTOCK | STOCK CHECK

Drench failure under the panels Lambing ewes outside under several hectares of solar panels was novel.

A recent trip to Europe presented Kiwi vet Trevor Cook with a series of challenges.

T

his last month has challenged me with information overload, being sourced from both sides of the world. The fascinating experience was in Denmark when looking at their sheep industry. A flat country that grows pastures but with no idea of how to use them.

Lambing ewes outside under several hectares of solar panels was novel, but the drench test results which showed total failure of some families was at first puzzling. Sheep on pastures but far from being intensive and not a lot of anthelmintic used.

How could such drench failure occur?

It all fell into place when I found out that it is common practice for the areas that grow crops most of the time to be grazed with livestock for a year or two to build up organic matter. Sheep are largely used for this and it is standard practice to drench the sheep as they go on to these areas that will be as worm-free as is possible to get.

So immediately these areas are contaminated only with worms that survived the treatment. That is, resistant ones. These introduced sheep would be drenched again, so just exaggerating the dominance of the resistant worms.

I had seen the same happen here many years ago when a British-owned breeding company drenched their sheep with all families available and put them on to a newly converted sheep farm, one with a

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December 2018

long history of only dairy cows.

Within a year there were high levels of drench resistance to all families. The power of refugia is never as obvious as in these situations. In Denmark this extreme drench-resistant state will be very difficult to counter because there are no combination products available and the resistant worms are now well spread.

It was no comfort being overseas hearing about the huge lamb losses due to extreme rain on the East Coast and beyond. Such losses are very depressing but made much worse because there are no actions that can be taken that will counter that threat.

Finally reflecting on a sojourn to Europe was the huge interest in New Zealand sheep and beef cattle genetics.

At a lesser challenge, the buffers of adequate feed and good body condition can make a difference, but this year for many those seem to have given no protection. The other negative consequence is public perception, the only saviour being that there is nobody to blame.

Finally reflecting on a sojourn to Europe was the huge interest in New Zealand

sheep and beef cattle genetics. The beef cattle one is understandable given that at least our Angus have been selected for more than 100 years in our environment and reflect that in their small size but good production. I am referring here to the true Aberdeen Angus that are here.

With the move to get livestock out of sheds and on to pasture this smaller but productive animal is in demand. The sheep one surprises me. Romney’s do not though because they are a sheep that suits this move to outdoor living. It is the Texel’s that I find strange. I was on a farm in Denmark from which the Texel’s came to New Zealand in 1983. On that farm now they are huge, over muscled and ugly.

They want New Zealand Texel’s because they are free moving, not so big and not so muscle bound.

In less than 40 years the Texel here has taken on its own form and easy care characteristics. Much the same has happened with Suffolk’s but it is much longer since the New Zealand influence has been applied. While we have selected for easy care they have selected for size and muscle.

The last farm I was on this last trip had sheep with no wool. Selected for a long time for no wool, no foot rot and no worms. No indoor living or shepherded lambing as well. These are the outcome of a bunch of non-traditional farmers who wanted least cost easy care sheep that did not shed wool.

Bringing in a smidgen of hair sheep genetics gave them the edge over the standard shedding sheep and allowed them to concentrate on the main production traits. Scanning about 180% unsupplemented and aggressively selected for weight gain they surely have a place here?

51

CROPS & FORAGE | SEEDS

NZ’s seed laws set for shake-up Bringing New Zealand legislation in line with that of its main trading partners on farm-saved seed should encourage investment in plant breeding and importation of new varieties MBIE maintains. Andrew Swallow reports.

A

fter decades of lobbying by seed industry interests, it looks like New Zealand is finally set to reform its Plant Variety Rights Act, spurred by ratification of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

One of the key issues is farm-saved seed, and whether there should be a royalty on that and if so, how to collect it.

The current PVR Act was passed in 1987 and has had only minor amendments since. The Act gave effect to the 1978 International Convention on the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV78) but UPOV was updated in 1991.

A Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment consultation paper released in October notes most of our main trading partners, including Australia, the United States, Japan, the European Union and Canada, have ratified UPOV91. NZ hasn’t. Bringing our legislation “more in line with” UPOV91 should encourage investment in NZ plant breeding and importation of new varieties, it maintains.

Under CPTPP, NZ must either ratify UPOV91, or put in place a regime that gives effect to it within three years of CPTPP’s ratification.

MBIE says this obligation will strengthen plant breeders’ rights. How much is what

52

the consultation, which closed December 21st, is about.

In the United Kingdom, a crash in grain prices in the 1990s prompted a rapid increase in farm-saving of seed and with it, protests from plant breeders about the royalties they were missing out on due to the decline in use of certified seed processed through a registered plant.

Following considerable debate, farmers’ unions and the British Society of Plant Breeders agreed to a system whereby farmers were, from 1998, legally obliged to make a payment on FSS to the BSPB at a discounted rate to the royalty due on certified seed.

However, concerns over abuse of the scheme and an estimated $4 million/ year (£2m) shortfall in payments on FSS prompted, in 2005, a “Fair Play” campaign which has more than doubled FSS collections since.

UK FSS payments now account for more than a third of the total income available to support UK breeding programmes (see www.fairplay.org.uk), with declarations posted to growers and returns expected bi-annually; one after each of the main sowing windows (ie autumn and spring).

The FSS payments are based on either seed quantity if paid through a BSPBregistered seed processor, most likely a mobile operator, or on declared area of

FARM-SAVED SEED (FSS) SITUATION • CPTPP forcing PVR Act review.

• FSS a key issue in review.

• NZ legislation outdated internationally.

• Other countries grappling with similar reviews.

• Contract FSS royalty clauses increasingly common.

• NZ consultation closes Dec 21: see www.mbie.govt.nz

crop sown if paid direct to BSPB (see table).

EU subsidy systems mean declared crop areas are easily verified.

As in NZ, sale or other transfer of FSS, processed or not, to other farm businesses is prohibited. UK FSS royalty rates are calculated annually based on a formula agreed between BSPB and the UK’s farming unions, typically at about half of the royalty paid for a commercial supply of certified seed, though those royalty rates are not publicly available.

An EU ruling means growers producing less than 92 tonnes of cereals do not need to pay FSS royalties.

In the US and Canada FSS is still royaltyfree across the board, though for how

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In the US and Canada FSS is still royalty-free across the board, though for how much longer in Canada remains to be seen as it too is reviewing PVR legislation, despite passing new laws as recently as 2015. much longer in Canada remains to be seen as it too is reviewing PVR legislation, despite passing new laws as recently as 2015.

Six Canadian seed associations are lobbying for ways to recoup revenue from FSS under the banner of the Seed Synergy Collaboration Project (see www. seedsynergy.net).

It’s proposing so-called “trailing” contracts on seed sales either prohibiting re-sowing or making it subject to further royalty payments.

A report prepared for Seed Synergy notes certified seed accounts for just 35% of the 2.5 million tonnes of seed sown each year across Canada, though it’s as high as 93% in Quebec where crops grown with FSS are ineligible for crop insurance and income stabilisation programmes. Most of the FSS is in cereal and pulse crops as patents and/ or hybrid cultivars either prohibit it or make it uneconomic in canola, corn, and soybean.

Similar variation in use of FSS is seen around the world, from just 15% in Sweden where FSS royalties are charged at 70% of the certified seed rate, to 95% FSS in Australia. Unusually, some trading of FSS is also permitted in Australia provided “Variety Not Specified” rules are met.

However, all grain produced is subject to an end point royalty.

Argentina’s situation is more like NZ’s, in that PVR laws are still based on UPOV73 allowing free re-use of all farm-saved seed.

Its government is also grappling with an overhaul of the legislation.

While that’s ongoing, Argentine farmers and seed suppliers earlier this year reached a voluntary agreement to pay royalties on farm-saved GM cultivars after some seed companies had, since 2016, stopped releasing new cultivars.

Andres Murchison, Secretary of Food and Bioeconomy at Argentina’s Ministry of Production, Labour and Agroindustry, told Country-Wide new seed law, protecting seed and research companies and communities while allowing farmers to farm-save at reasonable cost is still “much needed” owing to widespread farm saving without declaration or royalty payment, especially for wheat and soybeans.

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However, it’s much less of a problem with corn (maize) because the yield and income loss of sowing F2 seed saved from an F1 hybrid crop is greater than the extra cost of buying F1 seed every year, which comes in at about US$180 per sack of 80,000 seeds.

“Some is held back for forage use but in general farmers purchase hybrid corn seed each year. It’s a similar situation for sunflower,” he says.

Despite some companies’ recent block of new material, notably in GMO cotton and soybean, Argentina is still a leader in GMO crops, he adds.

“We have over 51 approved, mostly corn and soya beans but also alfalfa, safflower, potatoes and cotton.

This provides the farmers with a competitive edge in increased yields, enhanced by good weed and insect control with minimal environmental impact.”

UK FSS royalty rates 2018/2019 Wheat

$96/t or $17.40/ha

Winter barley

$91/t or $16.70/ha

Spring barley

$100/t or $18.84/ha

Peas

$81/t or $19.80/ha

Beans

$114/t or $26.31/ha

Oilseed rape

$4.43/kg or $17.73/ha

Source: www.fairplay.org.uk. Currency converted at £0.51 per NZ$.

53

CROPS & FORAGE | NZGA

Heli-cropping not just for hill country The New Zealand Grassland Association and The Agronomy Society of New Zealand headed to Twizel for their parallel annual conferences in early November.

Here, Andrew Swallow relays a couple of the more timely topics tackled, with more to come in subsequent issues.

D

on’t be afraid to broadcast brassica seed: it’s almost bound to germinate, delegates at a session on heli-cropping at the Agronomy Society conference in Twizel last month were told.

As such, the practice could be much more widely used to improve feed quality and reduce erosion provided other key steps in the planning, establishment and

use of such crops are followed, Ballance Agri-Nutrients’ Murray Lane said.

Presenting a paper on a simulated helicropping trial with turnips in Waikato, Lane said existing pasture needs sprayingout with a cover of about 1800-2000kg drymatter (DM) and the spray should include insecticide to combat pests such as springtail and cut-worm, prior to broadcasting seed.

Soon after spraying “the pump stops”,

Simulated heli-cropped turnips with fertiliser on the left, without on the right.

meaning pasture evapotranspiration ceases and rain accumulates in soil moisture reserves, a very important aspect of the practice in dry areas. The cover of sprayedoff vegetation is also important as it helps keep the soil surface cool and moist, promoting germination of seed once broadcast.

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Country-Wide

December 2018

HELI-CROP SIMULATION TRIAL Starter fert* nutrients, kg/ha

Plants/m² @ 5 weeks

% bare ground @ 5 weeks

Turnip yield @ 7 weeks, kgDM/ha

Turnip yield @ 13 weeks**, kgDM/ha

Nil

30

53

2800

7160

33kgN, 39kgP

31

24

4410

8310

66kgN, 78kgP

37

11

4880

8710

99kgN, 117kgP

31

6

5230

9300

66kgN, 0kgP

27

19

3950

8040

Results of simulated heli-cropping on replicated 3x8m plots, Olsen P 11, sprayed, sown and fertilised Oct 31, 2017. Near nil rain Nov 10-Dec 31. *Applied as Cropzeal Boron Boost. ** After all plots top-dressed with 92kgN/ha at 7 weeks.

Adapted from: Conference Proceedings of the Agronomy Society of New Zealand, 2018

No ‘hoof-and-tooth’ is required and that may even be detrimental, removing cover that would otherwise protect seed and prevent wind and water erosion, he added.

However, the moist surface and dead plant matter is a perfect environment for slugs and snails so slug bait should be applied with seed.

“We don’t recommend mixing seed with fertiliser, though that may be what you do commercially,” he commented to one delegate.

Best results are achieved applying seed at half the target sowing rate in each pass and overlapping passes by 50%.

“You will spend a little bit more on the helicopter but you’ll get a better result.”

Nitrogen and phosphate fertiliser need applying for crops to flourish initially as with no cultivation there’s no flush of nitrogen mineralisation to promote early growth. A little more phosphate than would be applied on a cultivated site may also be warranted.

In the simulated heli-cropping trial, at five weeks seedling counts in plots without fertiliser were statistically no different to those sown with it (see table). However, ground cover was significantly lower, giving weeds a greater opportunity to establish and cut subsequent yield.

Lane said on low fertility sites heli-crops are a good opportunity to raise soil Olsen P levels in preparation for subsequent resowing with ryegrass and clover, or possibly other high quality feed mixes.

“You want an Olsen P in the low 20s so it will hold onto clover and ryegrass in future and not revert to brown-top.”

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The Waikato site was the third such trial and all had produced similar results, suggesting the practice could be more widely used, and not just on hill country.

“We’ve got quite a lot of confidence where we’re heading with this, with some farmers doing 100 to 200ha cropping programs entirely by helicopter, at 6-7 ha/ hour, even on flat land.”

Research on use of cover crops postgrazing of heli-cropped sites to prevent soil erosion and aid establishment of subsequent improved pastures, is the “next step”, and the subject of a Sustainable

Farming Fund project Lane’s involved with.

“There are lots of ways to lose soil but heli-cropping is not going to be one of those,” he said, reflecting on how heli-cropping has attracted a heap of negative press, but erosion from regularly cultivated land in Pukekohe and Waikato seemed to pass without comment.

Lane’s paper is published in the Agronomy Society of New Zealand’s 2018 Conference Proceedings.

See www.agronomysociety.org.nz

Sowing sub? Best hedge your bets Where the climate’s too dry for perennial clovers to persist and sub clover promises an alternative highquality feed, hedge your bets by sowing diverse cultivars, delegates at the New Zealand Grassland Association conference in Twizel heard.

“We’d recommend a mix of sub clovers because of the variability of the seasons,” Lincoln University’s Sonya Olycan said, presenting a paper relaying findings from trials on nearby Omarama Station.

“Early and later flowering ones as well as some soft and hard-seeded varieties would be a good idea.”

Establishing a seed-bank of such a diverse mix of types would maximise the chances of getting a good flush of clover germinating whether rain arrived in mid to late summer or later in autumn. About 20mm was needed to prompt germination, and when regular rain followed, as had happened in autumn 2018 at Omarama, early and mid-flowering types were the most productive.

About twice as many plants of low seed hardness types (scores 1-2) germinated than mid seed hardness types (3-5), but all types had sufficient plant population not to limit yield, it was suggested.

Cultivars’ cold sensitivity scores had no effect on survival through to spring and subsequent yield, despite marked differences in winter reddening of plants, Olycan et al observed, suggesting sub clovers could be more widely used in the drier areas of the Mackenzie Basin.

However, it would be essential to give them the opportunity to replenish seedbanks about once every five years by spelling pasture in spring when they flower.

“Monitor to make that call as to when it’s necessary to give them a [flowering] break,” said Olycan.

• More findings from trials on Omarama Station, including deep placement of lime to counter aluminium toxicity, in coming issues of Country-Wide.

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CROPS & FORAGE | SATELLITES

Satellite pilot project findings In November’s edition of Country-Wide, Andrew Swallow reported on and extra-terrestrial imaging service aimed at helping farmers be more precise with cropping. Here he tells how satellite imaging was used in a fertiliser trial.

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ast summer FAR ran a pilot project where three growers with variable-rate fertiliser spreaders provided paddocks for the satellite service and MRB’s Anton Nicholls monitored their use of it.

Nicholls concluded the 14kg to 20kg/ ha of nitrogen growers saved by tuning final urea applications to crop density differences identified by satellite more than paid for the service at $1/ha. He also suggested there would be a benefit in reduced nitrate leaching risk.

The satellite imagery wasn’t available early enough in the pilot season for growers to use it to variably apply early nitrogen applications, for example, by boosting rates on thin patches to promote tillering.

No control strips in the paddocks also meant it was impossible to tell if there was a yield effect, but growers in the pilot spoken to by Country-Wide felt yields were at least maintained.

“That’s a hard question to answer because we did what we did across the whole field,” Brent Austin says.

This year he’s booked satellite imagery for all the 400ha he farms at Maronan, Mid Canterbury, growing wheat, barley, grass seeds, peas, and maize for silage, with about 60ha/year of grass grazed with finishing cattle.

“What it shows up is quite interesting, even for the cattle pasture ground.”

He’s thinking he might variably apply nitrogen to pasture based on the canopy change images the service provides.

How he will vary nitrogen on crops will depend on time of application: early in the growing season thin areas will most likely get more to boost tillering and restore yield potential; later they’ll likely get less because underlying causes other than nitrogen are probably limiting yield 56

potential, such as moisture stress. Thicker areas of crop, with potential to yield more than his standard nitrogen rate is calculated to, might get an extra top up.

“We’ve not done variable rate nitrogen in the past but we have done variable rate base fertilisers – P, K and S, based on yield maps.”

Another grower involved in the pilot, Stuart Macauley, has also signed up the whole farm this year.

“We could easily save what it costs in [variably applying] one nitrogen application on one field. We might only use it on cereals and grass seed this year but it’ll be a benefit being able to visualise the whole farm.”

Besides tweaking nitrogen rates, in due course he believes it could be used to finetune plant growth regulator applications to grass seed.

He also has a drone capable of providing aerial imagery, but while it’s handy for a closer look if need be, for now it’s “more of a toy.”

“I don’t have the time to fly the drone every day at the appropriate time of year.”

Drone technology is, in future, likely to prove more suitable for tasks requiring higher resolution than nutrient issues, such as weed mapping and eradication, he suggests.

NEW REPORTS ADDED Besides the new satellite service, ProductionWise has been updated for this growing season with a herbicide report which shows products used by group and crop across the rotation, year-on-year, highlighting repeat use of the same groups and hence increased risk of resistant weed populations developing.

FAR’s Melanie Bates, who manages ProductionWise in New Zealand for FAR,

FROM SPACE Satellites help spot: • Poor irrigation uniformity.

• Wet/drowned-out areas.

• Poor establishment.

• Slow tillering.

• Too dense crop areas.

• Soil texture variability.

• Pest damage.

• Poor spreader calibration.

• Nutrient deficiency.

• Weeds.

• Forage crop remainders.

Source: Anton Nicholls, MRB, FAR Autumn Round Up meeting.

says other recent developments include a grain store app, contract position report, coloured paddock rotation planner, and grazing report to manage livestock units.

A chemical inventory that will help meet health and safety at work requirements will also be available soon.

As of this spring, 840 growers and advisors were registered with ProductionWise but Bates says there’s still some way to go to get them all entering the annual data that makes benchmarking performance against others in the sector possible.

“The more who get their data in the more powerful it becomes, and everything’s anonymous. The only farm you can identify is your own.”

Bates says growers should go to ProductionWise’s gross margin report to see if they have entered all the figures required to be part of the benchmarking service as that highlights any missing data.

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CROPS & FORAGE | MANAGEMENT

Preparing for an El Nino Farmers need to plan now for an El Nino before pastures dry out.

WORDS: TERRY BROSNAHAN

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armers need to have a plan in place for what is predicted to be a dry summer.

As this article went to press there was widespread rain over the country even snow in the South Island, and the prospect of a predicted El Nino seemed a long way off.

However, in past years wet springs have been followed quickly by hot, dry summers.

Otago and Southland farmers are struggling to get pasture and feed crops in the ground because of the wet. New pasture is needed to wean lambs on to and summer feed crops give insurance against the dry. Farmers planned to have feed crops to combat an El Nino but most of the summer crops and fodder beet for winter had yet to be sown. The wet was also delaying silage making. Elsewhere in the country crops should be in though.

Hawke’s Bay was already drying out and most at risk.

So what can farmers do to lessen the impact of an El Nino.

PGG Wrightson Seeds agronomist Wayne Nichol says if farmers can’t build a feed bank and it comes dry they are in trouble.

Nichol says farmers need to create a plan for an El Nino. It is standard practice for farmers to have a stock management plan and it is important to destock early.

Time is running out for the six-12 month options such as raphnobrassicas, rapes and leafy turnips, all sometimes mixed with grasses and clover. They should be in by mid-November.

Many farmers will also have longer-term options in the ground such as lucerne and red clover. There will be species diversity within pastures. Having endophyte grasses and other species will help combat pests.

In the North Island farmers have summer feed crops to help combat facial eczema as well as the dry.

Making silage or topping pastures is a way to maintain quality before it comes dry but expensive and not an option on steep or undulating ground.

MONITOR PESTS AND WEEDS Nichol says keeping on top of pests and weeds before it comes dry is important. Using a growth regulator such as diflubenzuron is a low-cost way to control porina in the caterpillar stage, but needs to be put on at the right time. Otherwise farmers will have a bigger problem later and will have to use a costly organophosphate to control it which kills everything including earthworms.

Weeds allowed to grow unchecked will take up moisture and space when the grass dies.

Nichol says farmers will need to think about supplementary feed, buying it early before the cost goes up and having storage especially for the likes of grain or palm kernel.

Make sure there are no holes in the silage plastic.

Identify paddocks with poor stock water and plan their grazing. Check troughs and water systems are all working and there are no leaks.

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December 2018

Chemical topping on about 10-15% of the farm stops the brown tops and poorperforming annuals going to seed. It allows light into the sward so clovers can come away.

Chemical topping also slows pasture growth and makes it easier to manage the rest of the farm.

Nichol says farmers need to be careful as it doesn’t take much for things to go wrong. It is important good advice is sought and low rates of a low-active glyphosate are used.

Pastures with high soil fertility levels will recover quicker. Plant roots in compacted soils, especially after grazing stock, will not have a good root system to withstand the dry. There is not enough oxygen in the soil for the roots to go deep. So as soon as it dries off the plant falls over.

Farmers do rip after a feed crop to drain it. Nichol says the biggest thing farmers can do with tight soils is to aerate rather than deep ripping with subsoilers, legs with wings which go about 400mm deep.

A way to tell when the perfect time to aerate is take a sample of soil and roll it. If it is sticky it is too wet, crumbles it is too dry.

AgriSeeds agronomist Craig Cotching says grazing management is crucial.

Each tiller has two or three daughter (replacement) tillers. If plants are left too long after grazing there will not be enough light into the base for new tillers to grow.

Equally if the pasture is grazed too low, the new tillers may be damaged.

A good population of tillers is needed to withstand insect attack. If there is only 3000 tillers/square metre and 1000 are killed, the population is too low. If there are 6000/sq m and 1000 lost, 5000/sq m is adequate.

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PLANT & MACHINERY | DRUM MOWERS

Mower kicks grass A recent arrival to the UK, Kiwi-built Maxam mowers are claimed to be three machines in one, capable of mowing and spreading silage grass as well as topping paddocks. Nick Fone gave the 3.3-metre cut 3300IV Twin Wilter a run out to see if it lives up to the salesmen’s spin.

T

here aren’t many stock farms in New Zealand where the robust drum mowers haven’t left their mark, knocking down crops of hay and silage as well as being put to work as paddock toppers.

Built by Farmgear in Palmerston North, the Maxam 3300IV Twin Wilter has a very simple belt driveline that can stand up to some pretty rough work.

At this year’s Grassland UK event Suffolk Farm Machinery Maxam had two and fourdrum versions on its stand, the larger one knocking down grass on the demo plots.

The obvious thing that sets the machines apart from anything more mainstream is the fact that rather than being offset, they run in line behind the tractor. The company says running down the grass ahead of the mower often puts potential buyers off but once they’ve tried it they’re generally surprised by how clean a cut it leaves. (For anyone really concerned, the firm also builds an offset 2.5m twin drum).

We put a Maxam 3300 IV Twin Wilter to work in some late first-cut silage grass.

Ostensibly it’s a drum mower but there are some fairly significant differences over a conventional machine. The four 730mm diameter tri-blade drums are belt-driven with a stagger across the working width to ensure a decent overlap when centrifugal force spins the blades out.

When you flip the full-width plastic hood up, initially the driveline looks

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pretty complex with belts running in all directions. In reality it’s straightforward.

The PTO shaft runs a pair of pulleys and belts - one driving the right-hand drums, the other the left-hand pair. Tensioner pulleys on a 45-degree pitch mean the drive is rotated through 90deg. without the need for any form of bevel box.

It’s a similar story for the single belt that powers the pair of Twin Wilter spreader rotors.

Each equipped with four slot-in tines – much like the flat-steel arms on a tedder – these catch the crop off a slight step in the drums and fling it out to the full 3.3m working width. Because each spins in the same direction that spread of material is out to one side. This is fine so long as you’re working in the same direction each time rather than running up and back on each pass. The solution therefore is to cut out in lands as you would with an offset machine. That way the spread of grass is even across the field except for the inside headland round and the runs where each block has been opened up where inevitably grass ends up being flung back across the crop cut on the previous pass.

Swapping from spreading to dropping grass on the deck is a two-minute job that involves removing a pin from each of the eight spreader tines, withdrawing them from their slot and stowing them in the toolbox under the hood.

The width of the two swaths left behind

FARMGEAR MAXAM 3300IV TWIN WILTER • Cutting width: 3.30m • Transport width: 3.18m • Cutting height: 25mm-50mm-75mm (using cranked, half-cranked and straight blades - extra topping skids raise this by another 40mm) • Power requirement: 90hp • PTO speed: 1000rpm • PTO shaft: six-spline with over-run clutch • Weight: 650kg • Price: £9000 (NZ$17,460) the Maxam varies depending on how heavy the crop is. In lighter areas they narrow to around 750mm, leaving a big expanse of bare ground between them.

In heavier patches the grass flops off the drums in rows over 1m wide.

Running over crop So how about that issue of running down the crop before it’s cut?

Mowing for silage in stemmier ryegrass leys and topping freshly grazed ground, there was no issue. However, in late leafy first cut it wasn’t quite the same story.

Lifting the cut grass there were narrow 10-15mm wide strips left directly in line with the gaps between the inner and outer drums.

Rather than being run down in the

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December 2018

Above: With the hood off the Maxam, the driveline is exposed. It looks complex but in reality its just three belts running through a series of pulleys to drive the four drums and the two spreader rotors.

Left: Both with and without its Twin Wilter spreader rotors running, in our trial the Maxam mower knocked down grass alongside a pair of Lely Splendimo mowerconditioners.

direction the tractor has travelled these are laid over backwards suggesting that the blades have at least managed to get hold of these wispy bits and lift them but were unable to cut through them. We tweaked every possible adjustment to try and get those annoying strips to disappear but in the end it all came down to forward speed - you ultimately pay a penalty in output, dropping from over 10km/hour to about 7-8kmh to get a clean finish.

In reality the amount of adjustment possible is limited. That makes set-up simple. Drop the mower on the deck so the front and rear of the skids contact the ground and adjust the top-link so that it runs in the centre of the slot. Unlike a conventional mower, tightening the toplink does nothing to shorten the height of the stubble, the suspension coil spring ensuring the skids remain firmly planted on the deck heel and toe.

To alter the cut height you’re then left with two options. Swap between flat, halfand full cranked blades to go from 25mm to 50mm and 75mm stubbles. Then if you need to go higher for topping work a pair of slip-on skids on the outer two drums raises the height by a further 40mm.

Ticking the boxes It’s always good when we get our hands on something truly different to test and the Maxam certainly ticks that box.

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It scores highly for driveline simplicity and low noise levels as a result of the complete absence of gearboxes.

We were surprised by the effectiveness of the Twin-Wilter spreader rotors in accelerating moisture loss – if you want a rapid wilt then it has the potential to deliver. Our rough calculations suggest you could potentially reduce haymaking from five to four days in the right conditions.

But does the Maxam really deliver as three machines in one?

In truth it’s not an out and out mower and not an out and out topper. We struggled to get a decent clean finish in late, leafy first-cut with narrow wispy strips left behind the tractor wheels unless you slow right down. As a topper it works fine but obviously does nothing to mulch the cut material.

That said, in stemmier, stalkier crops, the blades seem better able to get a hold of the run-down grass and for mowing off grazed aftermaths and pre-mowing bolted pasture ahead of grazing animals – the job it was designed to do – it works really well.

If we were buying a Maxam for a mix of jobs, we’d save ourselves £1500($2910) and opt for the 2.5m twin drum offset machine. In a dream world we’d also add a front-mounted version to our shopping list to get a 4.5m to 5m cut – sadly Farmgear has stopped building these.

Wilter wonder Farmgear claims the Twin Wilter spreader, in certain situations will dry grass significantly faster than a mowerconditioner.

In a very unscientific manner we ran the Maxam 3300 both with and without its Twin Wilter tines alongside a Lely Splendimo mo-co in some late but leafy first-cut grass. We took samples for dry matter testing immediately after knocking the crop down and again after 24 hours.

The difference in dry matters was significant. We can only hypothesise that the action of lifting, fluffing and spreading the grass out has a greater effect than the crop passing over the rotor of the conventional conditioner.

The grass resembled a crop that had gone through a ‘wuffler’.

Fresh-cut samples = 20.7% DM Untreated Maxam drum-mower samples after 24 hours = 29.6% DM Mower-conditioner samples after 24 hours = 35.1% DM Maxam Twin Wilter samples after 24 hours = 44.5% DM

The Maxam 3300 suits Richard Colebrook and his staff.

USER VIEW North Canterbury dairy farm manager Richard Colebrook says it is not the ideal silage mower but for most of what they do on the farm it’s good.

Critically it’s simple to use.

He manages 925 milking cows on 218ha of irrigated grassland.

Pre-mowing ahead of the grazing herd means all the growth is cleared up by the cows before they move on to the next paddock even when the grass has bolted and gone to head.

Typically running his Maxam 3300 with topping skids fitted, he aims for a stubble height of 70mm, leaving about 1500kg/drymatter/ha for rapid recovery and regrowth.

The farm has run the four-drum Maxam for the last three years and the only real issues being the process of belt replacement and greasing the pto shaft.

“Occasionally when the drive belt has been allowed to get slack it’ll skip off and getting it back on is a real challenge.”

Once someone is shown the first few times, they know the right order to do it in.

“Getting grease into the back yoke on the mower end of the shaft is really tricky and inevitably you end up having to pull the shaft off.”

Colebrook says they have inexperienced staff who’ve never been near a tractor before so a mower that runs inline behind the tractor is a good thing.

“They’re much less likely to hit stuff.”

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ENVIRONMENT | ONFARM Brent Page intends to recycle the pressed solids.

Where there’s muck . . .

Squeezing the fluids from dairy effluent and mixing the resulting solids with sawdust offers a comfortable surface for cows to stand on for a farm in a high-rainfall area. Anne Hardie reports.

S

queezed solids from Brent and Kathy Page’s dairy effluent on their Golden Bay farm will form the base for the wintering barn next year, mixed with sawdust for the cows to stand on during heavy rain.

Until recently, the dairy effluent was stored very temporarily in a pond before being irrigated over the pakihi terraces on the farm that sits just across the river from the tiny Takaka township. Though compliant, Brent says things had to change and the result is the squeezed solids that will be recycled through the wintering barn.

The family runs a diverse and expanding business that centres on the farm Brent’s

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great, great grandfather began carving from the bush in 1852. In those early days, three acres of hops was grown for the country’s fledgling beer industry and over the decades the bush gave way to terraced pasture on poor, pakihi soils that have been developed to productive dairy country with a rainfall between three metres and 3.5m each year.

Today, that first farm (number one farm) covers 310 hectares that milks 800 cows, while the business has expanded to the neighbouring farm (number two farm) where 200ha milks 550 cows through its own 50-bail rotary. Their best production has been 320,000kg milksolids (MS) on the number one farm and 230,000kg MS on

the number two farm with inputs of rolled barley, maize silage made onfarm and a couple of tanks of molasses at calving.

On the other side of the Takaka Hill a daunting drive for tourists and notorious for slips, as ex-cyclone Gita proved earlier this year they run their drystock and dairy support block, covering 400 freehold hectares and another 250 leased hectares.

It’s a valuable asset that enables them to be self-contained, raise dairy beef and provide much of their supplement needs.

This July, the in-calf heifers and cows returned to Golden Bay with a new system in place to handle their effluent.

The number one farm has two herds milked in a 54-bail rotary and effluent now

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December 2018

FARM FACTS • Owners: Brent and Kathy Page • Location: Takaka, Golden Bay • Dairy farms: 310ha milking 800 cows, 200ha milking 550 cows • Drystock farm: 400ha freehold plus 250ha leased • Best total milk production: 550,000kg MS • Effluent infrastructure: Tasman tank, Yardmaster Solids Separator, green water

A usable product.

passes through a stone trap to a swirl pool with a submersible pump working a stirrer to keep the solution in suspension, then through a Yardmaster Separator Press that squeezes the liquid from the solids.

Liquid runs into the 1.8 million litre above-ground Tasman tank with sides 2.7m high. A cover is used to keep the rain out, as the high rainfall would quickly fill the tank, and any rainfall collected on top of the cover is pumped off to a drain.

Meanwhile, that green water collected in the tank is used to wash down the yard after every milking and instead of using 30,000 litres of fresh water per milking, drawn from a bore, totally recycled water is sprayed from the backing gates.

‘We cart all the calves over the hill and guys haven’t hesitated to buy them this year because they’re on our truck.’

The only hose down now is inside the dairy where fresh water still does the job.

Under the separator press, the squeezed solids are almost dry and resemble the grass that originally produced it, with only fine sediment going into the tank that can easily be irrigated through the K-Line irrigation on to 80ha of paddocks, or washing down the yard. The plan is to expand the irrigation area to spread effluent on to areas that dry out more through summer.

Brent is impressed with the quality of the separator press and the dry product.

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The idea of using it in the wintering barn followed a visit to a Southland farm where the solids from the press had been combined with sawdust and produced a quality potting mix at the end of winter.

So through the season, Brent intends carting the pressed solids to the wintering barn a Redpath shelter to keep it dry until the cows move in next winter. The plastic-covered dairy shelter has a feed area through the middle and sits on the leased block which was a smaller dairy farm in the past. During heavy rain at night, Brent says they put 200 cows in each side of the shelter which was quite tight, but it was an alternative to the laneways and gravel areas and the cows benefited.

Though Golden Bay has a high rainfall, it’s a temperate climate and Brent had never considered any form of wintering barn, but seeing the cows under shelter

this past winter has won him over.

“The cows loved it there over winter because they generate their own heat. And there was the peace of mind knowing the cows were under cover. So we’re toying with putting one on the number two farm now because of the pakihi soils.”

The new effluent system which allup cost about $300,000, isn’t the only addition around the dairy. The rotary was built in 2002 but has been ideal to modify over the years as technology became available. Today it has teat wands, automatic cup removers, Protrack and meal feeding using the silos, roller mill and molasses tank outside plus the latest addition to snap chill the milk going into the vat. The $40,000 Tru-Test ice bank can cool milk to 5C at peak milk flow which is 20,000l a day.

Brent’s son Nathan is the sixth

Green water spraying down the yard has replaced a person with a hose.

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generation on the farm and with partner Emma has taken on the role of contract milker on the number one farm this year, plus operations manager for both farms.

Brent helps where he is needed, including the Motueka farm which last year earned the business another dollar for every $1/kg MS from the dairy farms. In the past, when the milk payout plummeted to $3.90/kg MS, stock sales provided vital cashflow, he says.

A decade ago, the dairy herd was predominantly crossbred cows, but that has moved toward Friesian because they decided they could feed the larger Friesian cows and they provided another income stream through the sale of Friesian bull calves.

Each year, between 100 and 130 Friesian bull calves from artificial breeding (AB) are reared on contract and sold at 100kg to North Island buyers to finish.

Hereford bulls are run with the latercycling cows and Brent says those calves are always in demand. The heifers are bought by a local farmer at four days old and the Motueka farm rears about 120 Hereford-cross bull calves which are later sold between 16 and 18 months old as forward stores.

“I don’t take them through a second winter because it’s more important we do our dairy stock well. All our R1 and R2 dairy stock run over there and the R2 come back here on the drop and sometimes after they’ve dropped, though that’s not planned!”

They’ve got a lot of stock to cart over the Takaka Hill from the two farms at the end of the season and then back again for calving, plus calves heading to the Motueka farm, so these days they have two truck and trailer units to do the job themselves. The threat of Mycoplasma bovis has made those two trucks valuable assets for themselves and the farmers who buy their stock.

“We cart all the calves over the hill and guys haven’t hesitated to buy them this year because they’re on our truck.”

They don’t have a completely closed herd as they buy in Hereford bulls from a farmer they have dealt with for years. This year, due to M bovis, Brent will head down the West Coast in one of their own trucks for the long trip to pick up yearling bulls from the Fox Glacier breeder. The bulls are used as two-year-olds as well as yearlings which means they get two years use out of them and always have 30 Hereford bulls at any one time.

As well as yearling Hereford bulls, Brent

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A stirrer keeps the effluent solution in suspension before it heads to the press.

buys 60 weaned Jersey bull calves each year but not for their own use.

“We buy them from purebred Jersey farms at 100kg and the last couple of years we paid $420. We’ve been supplying the same local farmers for 10 to 12 years and they go to them as two-year-olds in October-November and we get about $1700.

“Bulls are always a hassle on a dairy farm and some of the farmers don’t even want them until they’ve finished AB and then they works them after using them.”

The trucks are also put to good use bringing balage and hay from the Motueka farm, with about 400 six-string bales of balage made each year and carted to the dairy farms when its needed.

“Some days I can do two trips a day over the hill a day with hay and it’s about an hour and three quarters one way in a truck. It’s a matter of getting windows in the weather to make the hay and we fill all the sheds here on the dairy farms and over in Motueka for feeding out in winter and early spring.”

Maize silage has also been made for the dairy herds and Brent says it’s useful for putting weight on the cows in winter, but wet ground has meant they also waste a lot of it. So this year they are trialling palm kernel at 2kg/cow which he says may also prove a better option than barley which had climbed from $350/tonne last year to $430/t. Dairy farmers weren’t using barley when the payout was down, so the barley growers didn’t produce as much and now the prospect of a $7/kg MS payout is driving price up, with barley being imported from Australia, he says.

Prices also climbed for palm kernel, which he bought at the end of July for

$267/t and two weeks later would have cost nearly $100 a tonne more.

Cartage adds a hefty cost to any boughtin supplements, with anything trucked from Canterbury adding another $80 to $100 a tonne to the actual supplement.

Their barley comes from Blenheim which they can cart to Golden Bay for $40 to $50/t.

An option they are considering for next year is their own maize grain which they can put in the silo and through the roller mill to feed in the shed. That way they will have a high-quality feed with no wastage.

Even though it’s a high-rainfall area, dryland farming is unpredictable and inputs add consistency.

Brent says they have grown both turnips and chicory in the past for summer feed, but both take paddocks out of the round for too long and they’re now concentrating on their ongoing pasture renovation. In a drier season they will drop cow numbers and go to three milkings in two days, but have never had to dry the cows off early.

Keeping good levels of fertility in the higher rainfall, especially on the areas of pakihi soils, requires regular dressings of fertiliser which they apply themselves.

“It’s been developed out of poor pakihi soil and you want to be able to get fertiliser on before a rain. If you were relying on contractors, everyone wants them at the same time and that can cost you production. So we have our own fertiliser bins and own sowers on all three farms.”

The family is looking at buying a neighbouring property that has been a dairy farm in the past, which would add more land to their milking platform as well as support area beside it.

Country-Wide

December 2018

ENVIRONMENT | IRRIGATION

In the land of the pivot Fertigation, or chemigation as it’s known the States, is just one of the uses for pivot irrigators in Nebraska, Keri Johnston reports.

Irrigation equipment on show at Grand Island.

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ne thing I must give the Nebraskans is that they are forward thinking when it comes to “ag tech”.

Valley Irrigation has its home in Nebraska and was the first to develop centre pivot irrigation. Our tour group was lucky enough to tour its McCook factory. A pivot can be ordered and onfarm in Nebraska ready for installation within 48 hours!

Pivot irrigation is everywhere in Nebraska, and most of them are the standard length of a quarter mile since this nicely fits within the standard field size of 130 acres. Corners are very rarely irrigated.

Any exceptions to this are a ‘special solution’ and New Zealand is probably the biggest customer for these.

But it’s their attitude to irrigation that really impressed me. Irrigators are often referred to as “applicators” because water is only one thing that can be applied to land that way. Nutrients, pesticides and insecticides can also be applied, either individually or in combination with water.

We know this as fertigation, but in the States the term chemigation is used more often.

There are many advantages to fertigation. First, you can deliver small amounts of nutrient on an ‘as and when’ basis. Trials by both the University of Nebraska and the Yuma Irrigation Research Centre in Colorado have shown fertigation reduces the total amount of nitrogen that needs to be applied but can also be used to obtain a more consistent yield within a paddock or field.

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December 2018

Husker Harvest Days, the world’s largest totally irrigated working farm show.

Environmentally, losses to the atmosphere (greenhouse gases) or through the soil (leaching) were also reduced.

Research is on-going to better understand the extent of this. New technologies now also allow for variable-rate fertiliser or chemical applications as well.

Fertigation is not that common here, and there seems to be a reluctance to really embrace this technology. There seems to be a view that fertigation doesn’t apply nutrients as evenly, which is nonsense. They will be applied at the same uniformity (evenly) as the irrigator putting it on, and all irrigators should have a distribution uniformity of above 80%.

Support will also be required to ensure farmers have the expertise to help them with trouble shooting and even things such as the timing of applications.

Installation also appears to be a barrier.

Standards will need to be developed to ensure environmental risks that could arise from fertigation are addressed. Backflow prevention will be a ‘must have’.

A consistent supply of soluble or liquid fertiliser will also be required. This is the biggest challenge for NZ given fertiliser

companies are more focused on ground spreading of solid fertilisers. It will take demand to drive a change in this regard, but with a real need to be innovative when it comes to nutrient management and reducing our environmental footprint, hopefully this will come sooner rather than later.

We were also lucky enough to attend the Husker Harvest Days in Grand Island, Nebraska. This is the world’s largest totally irrigated working farm show. For three days each year, the working farm is transformed with more than 600 exhibitors and live demonstrations. The exhibition site is so large you can hire a golf cart for the day to get around to save the legs.

This really showcased the Nebraskans’ love affair with ‘ag tech’, and how willing they were to use technology to do things better – not just from an environmental point of view, but using less of everything (water, nutrients and chemicals) to produce the same yields or more.

The other factor that forms part of this equation is GMO. They use it. Most farmers we spoke to were growing GM corn and were focused on species that were more naturally resistant to disease and pests and produced high yields. This aligned with their thinking of “less is more” and GMOs therefore were definitely part of the overall solution to the issues they faced (which are not a long way from the issues we face). Perhaps it is time we had a mature conversation about the use of GMOs. • Keri Johnston is a natural resources engineer with Irricon Resource Solutions.

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ENVIRONMENT | FORESTRY

A mix of messages A range of species offer alternatives for farm foresters. Denis Hocking looks at some of the options, including some colourful ones.

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weekend gathering of alternative species enthusiasts has become a regular spring fixture on the farm forestry calendar. This year it was hosted by the Waikato branch with a good attendance of 67.

We may question whether the Waikato is the best place to discuss alternative species with soils and climate that enable just about anything to grow and thrive and not least the cypresses, eucalypts, blackwoods, redwoods, etc., that enthrall we altspecies enthusiasts.

However, growing is not really the issue with the alternatives. We have had enough experience to have sorted out what we can grow and where, though some of this experience is slow in getting through to the national consciousness, including, I feel, some of the research community. No, the big problem for the alternative species is processing and marketing.

It is the classic chicken and egg situation – who would grow species in the absence of established processors/marketers and who would invest in processing and marketing without a guaranteed resource?

Some interesting discussion points emerged.

The first came as we viewed a harvest site for a mixed radiata and Euc. nitens stand.

The owner was doing extremely well from the radiata harvest and had largely ignored the E. nitens, despite advice from various quarters that it could, with a bit of effort, be sawn, dried and fed into the flooring market.

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In Canterbury a small processor, John Fairweather is doing this to good effect.

The logs we saw certainly had good diameters and only limited end splitting – far too good for firewood. However, the point was also made that there are other eucalypts that saw, dry and offer better wood properties than E. nitens.

The next stop, on a property owned by the same family, illustrated the issue. They are sawing various poplar clones, drying and CCA treating the timber before selling it for posts and rails.

Poplar is a much more resilient timber than pine, flexing and chewing rather than breaking and splintering, despite being very light. It has long been used for truck decks and a neighbour of mine swore by it for spud boxes. A Hawke’s Bay group emerged from the crowd to report very similar experiences and an inability to keep up with demand.

Popular uses include battens and children’s toys where it substitutes for plastic. Note: poplar has to be sawn to ensure good penetration of CCA, (Tanalith), preservative and does not treat well in the round.

Another example of a small processor successfully feeding a niche market wasn’t part of the official weekend but involves my weekend hosts, Graham and Tess Smith. They grow and saw paulownia on their small dairy farm east of Otorohanga.

Paulownia was briefly, but widely, publicised about 25 years ago with little effect because it is site-demanding and doesn’t like wind. There are several species,

all fast growing trees with spectacular blue to purple flowers in early spring, while the timber is very light but extraordinarily stable. It is a traditional furniture timber in East Asia.

The Smiths grow it along their fences as a spectacular backdrop, though I was too late for the flowers, while the cows hoover up the leaves. They then sell the timber around the country for a variety of uses, notably surfboards.

Poplar is a much more resilient timber than pine, flexing and chewing rather than breaking and splintering, despite being very light.

The other alternative on conspicuous display and subject to much discussion was redwood, Sequoia sempervirens. This illustrates another potential pathway to markets.

The current boom in redwood plantings has been fueled largely by western United States companies coming to New Zealand to grow redwood for the American market, which they see as undersupplied. They are magnificent trees and the moister/warmer parts of NZ can certainly grow them to perfection.

However, there are a lot of issues around the sourcing, siting and silviculture of sequoias, so learn about them before you plant them.

So congratulations to the Waikato branch for another interesting and informative weekend. They are well worth attending, even in the face of somewhat inclement weather.

Country-Wide

December 2018

TECHNOLOGY | SCAMS

How to lose money easily Online scammers relieve Kiwis of up to $500 million a year. Alan Royal outlines a range of websites offering help to deal with and alert people to scams.

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marketing company noted, when trying to get information across to ‘oldies’, that you needed to ‘present the information seven different times in seven different ways’ before the message was received clearly. I must add, I don’t believe this only applies to the older generation!

One area where there needs to be repeated messages is that relating to scams. I make no apology for regularly emphasising and upgrading information in this area.

According to a New Zealand Herald article (bit.ly/2CpUVM7) ‘Kiwis are losing up to $500 million annually to international scammers and the number of reported incidents has risen sharply this year.

Experts say the money is putting a dent in the NZ economy with many scams driven by organised crime groups and overseas cartels. However, actual losses reported to authorities are believed to be just the tip of the iceberg because many victims are too ashamed to come forward to authorities or even tell family members they’ve been duped.

The Herald investigation has revealed new details about the level of scamming activity in this country, the growing cost to victims and the psychological harm inflicted by the criminals who perpetrate these scams from around the globe’.

How can we cope with these losses?

The Bankers Association of New Zealand have on their website (www.nzba.org. nz/) many useful and simple scam related

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December 2018

publications. One of these, ‘How to keep yourself safe from online scams’ is found at http://bit.ly/2BYAh5G. Another ‘must view’ publication is ‘How to protect your PIN and password’, found at http://bit. ly/2CQ5XeN. Do visit their sites.

You can also report online incidents for follow up.

CERT NZ, with the grand title of National Computer Emergency Response Team, is at http://bit.ly/2CSuz6T. Their task is to ‘improve cyber security in New Zealand, work alongside other government agencies and organisations -both locally and internationally - to help New Zealand better understand and stay resilient to cyber security threats’. They are, more simply, NZ’s cybersecurity watchdog.

Age Concern NZ runs a series of seminars on ‘Keeping you and your money safe’. See

Actual losses reported to authorities are believed to be just the tip of the iceberg because many victims are too ashamed to come forward to authorities or even tell family members they’ve been duped.

The Commission for Financial Capability have recently added to their site The Little Black Book of Scams. They state ‘New Zealanders have a new weapon in their defence against scammers - a booklet detailing different types of scams, how to avoid falling for them, and what to do if you’re caught. The booklet can be viewed and downloaded, for free, from http://bit. ly/2CmzcVz. Scamwatch, at http://bit.ly/2CoEP5x, is a NZ consumer protection site. It describes how to recognise, avoid, and act against scams, protect personal information, and prevent identity theft both online and offline.

Netsafe, at www.netsafe.org.nz, is NZ’s independent, online safety organisation.

They provide online safety help, support, expertise and education to people in NZ. It has valuable information on handling online bullying and grooming of teenagers.

http://bit.ly/2CRDhSN. The page provides locations for their seminars, but also has useful information. The page provides further resources.

SNAP (Serial Number Action Partnership), at www.snap.org.nz, is an initiative of the NZ Police. SNAP make it harder for criminals to sell stolen goods.

The initiative helps to protect property in several ways. In SNAP you can maintain details of important possessions or assets.

You can instantly retrieve your asset details for the police and your insurance company. You now have seven resource sites, to reinforce seven times, seven different ways to get information across to friends and family on personal and property loss and scams!

A hard copy of this article can be made available by emailing Alan Royal at alanroyalnz@gmail.com.

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TECHNOLOGY | STREAMING MUSIC

Listen to the music Music streaming services offer a wide choice of listening. Kirstin Mills offers a selection of some of the services available

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hen music streaming services first started I was not a fan, but they are beginning to grow on me.

I still like the idea of owning my music, but streaming services are a great way to find new music.

Spotify is the best known of the streaming services. You can opt for its free option, but you will have to put up with advertisements being played every few tracks. If you are used to commercial radio this may not bother you, but I find it annoying.

That’s where a premium subscription comes in. I get mine free with my phone account, but it normally costs $14.99 a month. In addition to avoiding advertisements, you can do unlimited song skips and download music to listen to offline if you do not want to (or cannot) use data for streaming. The quality is also better with the premium offering.

Remember that Spotify is a streaming service, so your payment does not mean you own the songs – you are merely buying the right to stream them with a side benefit of being able to download them for listening offline.

That means that if you stop your Premium subscription you will lose the downloaded songs. You can still stream

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them for free, but they will no longer play offline.

Spotify works with IOS, Android and Windows devices. With one account you can listen on a computer, tablet, smartphone and devices like iPods and certain televisions (either with an app on your television or via the likes of Apple’s AirPlay and Google’s Chromecast).

Just search for a musician you like or choose one of the curated playlists.

You can listen by mood (eg: morning motivation or songs to sing in the car) or genre (K-Pop anyone?) or by decade. There is also a good selection of podcasts if you prefer those and you can tap into radio stations by genre (note these are not radio stations in the traditional sense – they are custom stations based on a musician or genre etc).

Two relative newcomers to the New Zealand scene are YouTube Music Premium and Amazon Music. YouTube Music Premium is $12.99 a month, giving you access to ad-free music and downloads (or for an extra $3 you could get YouTube Premium and get the same options, but with movies added as well). It reportedly has a huge selection of music so is worth checking out.

Amazon Music is A$13.49 a month (it does not display the cost in NZ dollars, even if you have NZ selected). It also offers

offline play (although not through its desktop app).

Lastly, there are the services that have been around a while – Google Play, Unlimited Music and Apple Music, both with a large selection of music and offline play.

Just which service is best is a very individual thing so talk to people you know about what they like and do some research before deciding. Whichever option you go for, remember that they are streaming services so will use up data – remember to adjust your device settings (eg: blocking streaming on 3G/4G) if that will be a problem for you.

Country-Wide

December 2018

WORK HARD, PLAY HARDER

Bark off:

Heading in the right direction

GUN DOG

Nicola Johns on an adventure with her loyal companion

Extra help

makes money Young shepherd Charlotte Nimmo loves the variety and challenges

Country-Wide

December 2018

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Extra help

makes money Jill Galloway talks to a young shepherd who loves the variety and challenges of the job.

Photos: Brad Hanson

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harlotte Nimmo had no training to be a shepherd, but it is a job she loves.

“I have no trouble getting out of bed each day to start work.”

The 20-year-old is working on Mary and Justin Vennell’s 513-hectare farm at Rewa, north of Fielding.

They run sheep and beef cattle and have a 77ha forestry block. The Vennells featured in Country-Wide September, this year.

Justin says half Charlotte’s wages come from doing extra things on the farm, and the other half, through being able to farm more intensively.

They traded more than 1000 lambs earlier this year, which Justin had not done before.

“It is great to be able to look at the opportunities and know labour is not the restraint it has been in the past.”

While he had coped by himself for a few years, he likes having a farm worker and could do more as a result.

“I liked her for the job, because she wasn’t green (having worked on other farms) but she was mouldable enough to teach her my bad habits,” he laughs.

But Justin saw something he liked in Charlotte.

“She was young and keen, and I like to see young people doing well.”

He says he also knew the Nimmo family and knew they were hard workers.

The Vennells are previous supreme winners of the Ballance Farm Environment Awards for the Manawatu and Wanganui regions. Charlotte

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Justin and Mary Vennell on the farm.

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December 2018

likes the variety the job throws at her and learning opportunities the farm brings.

She says the farm has good infrastructure which helped attract her to the job, which started in March this year.

She gets on well with Justin and says he doesn’t just delegate but explains why things are being done.

It was her first fulltime job – before that she had worked part-time on farms and she enjoys helping to relieve pressure.

“It is nice to spend more time off farm and know the farm work is going on,” Justin says.

He and Mary have three children, with two older ones boarding at Charlotte’s old school, Feilding High School, while the younger child is still at Hunterville primary school.

Justin is chairman of the board of trustees for the Hunterville school.

‘…but she was mouldable enough to teach her my bad habits.’

He says that takes him off the farm, and he and Mary want to spend as much time as they can with the children.

Charlotte says her favourite job is mustering stock and with five dogs and central races, it can go well.

“It is great when it goes well, but sometimes it doesn’t.”

Justin Vennell with shepherd Charlotte Nimmo.

She has three dogs, with two pups coming on. There are two Huntaways and three heading dogs.

“Day-to-day I do stock work, shift breaks and then it is maintenance, mainly fencing.

When you have stock, you need good fences.”

Charlotte blames her parents for her farming career. They moved from Wanganui to Hunterville and that was when farming became an option.

While she says she didn’t know what she wanted to be as a young Feilding High School student.

“I had no idea I was going to become a shepherd, but I loved people and the agricultural classes as well as working on the school farm.”

By the time she was a senior, she knew she wanted to go sheep and beef farming.

She left school in part way through Year 13 to go and help on a farm. They owners had just found out about a pregnancy. “They also said I could have a dog.”

Her senior student education was the beginning of her love affair with sheep and beef farming.

Despite having no qualifications, Charlotte is well known in some farming circles, she has a good reputation as a hard worker, and not having qualifications has not held her back.

Charlotte says she started some AgITO study, but found it hard going with work commitments and gave up study to cope.

The career is not a 9 to 5 lifestyle.

“You have to give to get.”

But if she wants a day off during the week, she is happy to work the weekend.

The farm’s Coopworth flock is lambing 150%.

Country-Wide

December 2018

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GUNDOGS

Nicola Johns and Ice on a gun dog adventure.

Words by Annabelle Latz

Worth a shot

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hat started as fun family holidays has turned into a passion, sport and lifestyle for Nicola Johns.

Gun dog trialling runs in the family, her dad Graeme Johns has a few decades under his belt.

So it was love at first sight when eight-weekold black Labrador Ice arrived at Christchurch Airport for Nicola, seven years ago, so she could start her own gun dog journey.

“Ice means the world to me with her beautiful nature and temperament. She is loyal and a great hunting and fishing companion also. We have just as much fun through the duck shooting season, trekking up the hills for a deer or chamois or even sneaking our way up the river fishing, Ice is always there.”

Nicola, an animal health representative for North Canterbury Vets, says training began from day dot with Ice (Black Ice of Tenara); sitting and waiting for her dinner, learning to wait until called, and introducing loud noises such as gun shots in positive surroundings, so this just becomes natural to them.

“I use a pee whistle which is a great way to give her commands when she is at long distances. A short, sharp whistle to stop/stay, three short, sharp whistles to come. And hand signals with the command over pointing which direction which comes in handy if your dog is downwind and can’t find the bird.”

Shepherding has meant solid dog trialling seasons have not always been possible, but the current project of breeding is a great opportunity to keep involved in the sport, and which Nicola says is a ‘massive part of the sport.’

“Ice will be surgically artificially inseminated. I am excited about that as this

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means we can travel together again and enjoy watching our dogs grow into great champions.”

Her dad’s recent dog King, Peacehaven Candyman was the youngest dog in New Zealand at the time to become a Grand Field Trial Champion, with 20 field trial championships to his name.

Nicola says a good balanced diet, a run or a walk every morning and evening down to the river, and continual use of obedience and manners to ensure good behaviour is key.

“Kennelling is also so important for the health of your dog; warm and dry with no draughts. The kennelling environment should also be a positive environment and your dog should enjoy spending time there.”

Nicola likes to mix her training areas up, to mirror field trails of different smells, courses and terrain.

In gun dog trialling, land courses involve two birds being released from a ‘thrower’, while the handler fires a blank shot from the shotgun, the dog at heel and should not break.

“I use the command ‘Fetch’ where then the dog will have marked the bird and deliver the bird gently to hand. It is very important for your dog to have a nice soft mouth as points easily come off if the dog is showing any signs of mouthing the bird.”

The bird is checked, and any marks can cause instant disqualification.

A ‘blind bird’ means the dog has not seen the bird but the handler has fired a blank shot and sent into the direction the bird was placed.

This is where the dog needs to mark where you have sent them, and they must trust their nose.

To complete a trial or championship, a water course is featured, where the dog is required to swim in the straightest line possible to peg where the bird is.

Nicola is passionate about anything involving hunting and fishing and can’t wait to continue the breeding line of her best mate.

“It is great to have such a loyal companion to be able to share this with, especially when I am away on the hill on my own.”

Country-Wide

December 2018

BARK OFF

Heading in the right direction There are many similarities between driving a good car and controlling a good dog especially if you have trained it yourself, Lloyd Smith says, concluding his series on heading training.

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e ended last month’s article emphasising the need for a definite change of direction when teaching run-out side, and you will usually find your young dog will over-steer initially, but will adjust once they learn how these commands apply to the work situation.

With over-steering you can be confident they know their sides and recognise the need to change direction on instruction.

Once your dog is familiar with and compliant to these commands you should be able to steer your dog out on to stock at any distance and make your dog cross-head at will, heading stock from either side and giving them plenty of space when doing so.

This completes training with the focus now being to allow the dog to put all three stages of training into practice. This should give you a very good level of control both on your dog and over stock you are working.

I am sometimes asked: “Do you not think you are taking away the natural ability of a dog by teaching it all the commands” and my answer is a definite “No”. It is not the teaching of these commands that will take away the natural ability, in fact I believe it allows you to harness it better, because you need to be able to override the dog’s intentions sometimes to complete the task at hand, otherwise you and your dog can be at odds as to what you are trying to achieve.

A word of caution: do not abuse the privilege you now have and use all your newly taught commands just because you can. If you try to control every move your dog makes you will turn it into a robot and some people do.

I believe you now need to back off whenever possible and give your dog the opportunity to use its initiative.

Country-Wide

December 2018

IN COMMAND 1. Be sure your dog is familiar with the commands being given before insisting on obedience.

If the dog is confused a severe drop in confidence will occur.

2. A good stop is most important.

This is the command that gives you control of your dog and allows you to enforce every other instruction.

3. Allow your trained dog the opportunity to make some decisions for itself and use its initiative. This keeps it keen and focused. Encourage natural ability whenever possible.

4. Choose your commands carefully. If you want a sharp response give a sharp command but if you want a calm response give a calm command.

• Stuck for Christmas ideas for friends and family the Pup Pen to Paddock DVD and Book is available at: www.puppentopaddock.co.nz

You will keep it keen and focused, maintaining an enthusiastic desire to work stock.

If you are not satisfied with the way the situation is developing you now have the commands in place to regain control.

The point I am trying to make is best

illustrated by comparing your newly trained dog to the modern vehicles we now drive.

They are equipped with all the latest technology that help you cope with and control any eventuality. But we don’t drive down the road using them all just because we can. We use what we need to control the situation that confronts us and it’s the same with our dogs.

We now have the gear to govern and control any situation during stockwork but we only use what we need to get the job done.

There are many similarities between driving a good car and controlling a good dog especially if you have trained it yourself.

They are both very satisfying experiences.

Now that training is complete, when problems occur go back to the relevant stage in your training system and revise the appropriate steps making sure there is no confusion.

If there is no confusion then in most instances it is a disobedience issue.

By the time you read this we will be into December with Christmas looming. I hope you all have an enjoyable festive season with family and friends but also take care to ensure the welfare of your loyal work colleagues, your dogs. In the past I have heard of some horror stories of shameful neglect over this period.

Our summers are getting hotter and the associated problems are becoming more common, such as heat exhaustion so take measures where possible to alleviate these such as starting earlier and carry water if the situation requires it.

I hope you fit in some dog training over this period and we will catch up in 2019 when we will move on to Huntaway training.

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COMMUNITY | TRAVEL

Asia will knock your socks off With summer and the new year almost upon us, people look to planning an overseas holiday. Country-Wide writers have some tips for travellers.

WORDS: TERRY BROSNAHAN

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hen heading to Asia there are a number of things to take and do to make the trip easier.

Before you leave, google the top 10 scams in the country you are going to.

Most counties have money machines so eftpos and credit cards are enough.

If travelling with family take several eftpos and credit cards for different bank accounts as cards can be swallowed by machines or lost.

Tell your bank when and where you are going and returning.

Even though it is the age of Google, borrow or buy a guide book especially if it is more than a week in one country. Great for last minute cramming on the plane as you head to a country you were in charge of doing the research on.

Don’t take too many clothes as they are cheap to buy.

Take a cake of Sunlight soap and travel clothesline, but in many places a kilogram of washing will be done within 24 hours for about $2-and it will be nicely folded.

Take a cellphone and buy a sim card as soon as you can after arriving. They are cheap and very handy especially in cities which have Uber or when internet is needed. Some countries like Sri Lanka require a copy of your passport for security reasons before selling a sim card.

A computer is handy along with a power adapter and a multiboard for charging more than one device. Hotels and many guests have plugs to fit New Zealand plugs but often not many.

Be careful going on boat trips. Check that they are reputable and have enough lifejackets. On a boat trip in Vietnam the engines cut out in a choppy seas and we discovered there were only about 12 lifejackets between 40 people. A Japanese chap selfishly grabbed a lifejacket for

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Take socks when visiting temples as the paving stones can be piping hot and have monkey poo on them.

himself and left his girlfriend without one. Maybe she was the better swimmer or knew the engines would start again.

Asia isn’t big on lighting even in some of the better hotels, so pack a light bulb or at least a head torch.

Pack a torch for each person for temples and at night. Even the best hotels’ grounds tend to be poorly lit.

Take the obvious: a good medical kit, sunblock, shampoo and conditioner, mosquito repellent, hand sanitiser, wipes and lip balm. A chiller bag with a thin slicker pad is handy and carry loo paper when travelling as toilets can be hard to come by.

Tampons can be difficult to buy especially in countries like Sri Lanka.

Take extra as they can be another form of currency. Alcohol can also be hard to get in some countries especially in Muslim areas. Bangkok even has alcohol-free hotels which is a form of purgatory for jaded tourists stopping off on their way home.

Guide books will warn of having sarongs or appropriate clothes to cover bare legs and shoulders. Before entering a temple

you need to take off your shoes so a pair of socks with a thick sole would be handy especially when you have to walk along hot paving stones with monkey poo. If there are a lot of temples in one spot slipon shoes save time.

Take several hotel cards or get the guesthouse owners to write down in their address and a landmark to show taxi drivers. Write your phone number or hotel’s on young children’s arms.

If going intrepid allow for China’s national holiday week from October 1-7.

The Chinese move around China and Asia making travel and finding accommodation a little more difficult.

If flying through Singapore there and back consider staying in a resort on Indonesia’s Bintan island. The ferry which takes about 50 minutes leaves from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. The terminal is close to Changi airport, a taxi is the easiest and quickest way. If time is not an issue take the metro then a bus or wait for the shuttle bus.

Next issue: Travelling Sri Lanka

Country-Wide

December 2018

COMMUNITY | TRAVEL

Packing your bags WORDS: JAMES HOBAN

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trip to Sydney and a planned trip to England have led to the following lessons. These may seem obvious to some people but for those who have not travelled for some time they might be useful.

Children E passports make the process of entering a country or returning to New Zealand simpler and faster. Be prepared though that children under 12 cannot use the scanning machines and have to be approved in person. Allow for this delay if travelling with children.

Upgrades Some aircraft do not have in-flight entertainment as an option so when upgrading a ticket to include entertainment and food do not assume that both will be provided. Check this with the airline before forking out for what might be less than is expected.

Air NZ check in and bag drop Travelling Air New Zealand made life extremely simple and quick when checking in to come home from Sydney.

The line was easily the shortest in the terminal and it was almost as simple and fast as a domestic check in and bag-drop.

Seat select Consider selecting a seat with more leg room if that is important to you. This costs about $80 on a long-haul fight and $5 domestically.

Handy items Best laid plans will not prevent some sort of health issue while travelling especially if children are involved. Having

painkillers and something for nausea and diarrhoea is good insurance rather than having to find these things once you need them. Hand sanitiser or wipes might be appreciated too - again, especially if travelling with children.

Paperwork Keeping passports, accommodation confirmations and other travel documents in one single folder or packet may seem like a symptom of OCD but it is convenient and reduces stress. Take a pen on to the plane for completing paperwork handed out during the flight.

ESTA application If flying through Los Angeles, a permit is needed. This is a simplified version of a visa to enter the United States but is a surprise to those who assume if they are only passing through and remaining in transit then they will not need a permit. Air New Zealand provides a good summary of what needs to be done to gain the appropriate authorisation on their website.

The permit exercise can be done online in less than half an hour - have passport details on hand and a credit card to pay US$14. A printed copy of the approval should be taken instead of relying on finding a copy on email at the border.

Google it before you go A number of arguments can be saved and stress reduced by knowing how to negotiate pubic transport on arrival. Time spent googling this before departure is time well invested. This does not have to mean over-planning a holiday but as a minimum having transport sorted in advance is a good start.

E passports make the process of entering a country or returning to New Zealand simpler and faster.

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Long-haul lessons from an old lag WORDS: ANDREW SWALLOW Going on a long flight? Don’t just turn up, board, and get bored: plan what you’re going to do in those 12 or 24 hours, including getting up and walking round the cabin at regular intervals - it could just save your life.

Despite many cases of people suffering medical complications, and even dying due to blood clots which can form in the legs on long-haul flights (Google DVT if you don’t believe me), airline staff still make little or no reference to the risk - probably because they prefer passengers to stay in their seats and the medical complications usually occur long after they’ve left the plane.

Typically, the first meal is served an hour or so into a long-haul flight, so save watching a movie until after your food if you don’t like being interrupted.

Plan when to sleep with one eye on the time in your destination country, not just on how you feel and the time at home. Try to avoid dozing intermittently for the whole flight.

Drink plenty of water, especially if you have a beer or wine with your meal. You can use the alcohol to help with your flight sleep plan, but compensate with water intake to avoid a dehydrationinduced hangover on arrival.

When you have planned to sleep, go through a bedtime routine: a walk, toilet stop, toothbrush, change into looser clothing. Have a blanket handy in case the cabin temperature drops, and prop your head to stop it lolling about. If you do use the blanket, buckle your seat-belt outside it so the stewards won’t wake you if the seat-belt light goes on.

After your sleep (hopefully), have another walk, stretch, and work out how long’s left until your second meal and how to use that time. Don’t be afraid to ask the stewards for a drink or snack or help with the in-flight entertainment system. It’s what they’re there for, even when the cabin lights are out.

Bon voyage!

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SOLUTIONS | FLY STRIKE

Battling the blowflies

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t’s too early to predict the intensity and duration of the fly strike challenge this season, but already there’s a buzz in the air following the success of a treatment option used for the first time last season.

StrikeForce-S from Jurox was introduced to the New Zealand market in 2017 and is available only through veterinarians.

It is a spray-on sheep blowfly treatment and offers up to 18 weeks protection against blowfly strike but has just a 14-day meat withholding period, allowing for quick decisions to be made on slaughter of lambs if feed supplies are tight.

Jurox NZ sales manager Trevor Rudman says the feedback from its first year of use in NZ was excellent.

StrikeForce-S features a unique formulation to other treatments available with the same or similar active ingredient.

The ‘S’ stands for solution which means the molecules of the active ingredient, dicyclanil, are dissolved in the formulation instead of being held in suspension like its competing products. This solution formulation means the active ingredient can travel down the wool fibres to the skin

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More? Jurox customer service, phone 0800 587 696, or talk with your local veterinarian.

Vaccine help for sheep and cattle farmers

t’s been 40 years since the first 5in1 clostridial vaccines were developed in New Zealand and a lot has changed in time, especially stock management. Now an 8in1 vaccine is available for farmers wanting more protection against unexpected stock losses from clostridial disease.

Launched last year in selected regions, the fast uptake and demand from farmers has seen this vaccine being made available nationwide since June.

As the widespread use of intensive grazing and forage crops attests, improved animal growth and performance remain a priority in farm production systems.

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level of a sheep where they adhere to the lanolin, ready to stop further development of the first-stage fly larvae. Once exposed, these first-stage larvae are incapable of progressing to second or later stages, stopping flystrike in its tracks.

“These first stage larvae don’t do the damage but if we can stop the development of the second and third stage of the larvae, we can nail flystrike in its tracks,” Trevor says.

StrikeForce-S can be applied to sheep with any wool length, from straight off shears to full wool, with no change in protection based on wool length. The product gained a good foothold in the docking market this year too.

Trevor says farmers must use a sprayer, not a jetter, to apply it so they ensure the correct amount of product is applied to gain the full length of protection.

“It’s really important to apply any animal health product to the correct level to achieve maximum protection. It’s easy to let the ball drop with jetting machines which is why we have recommended only sprayers for this product.”

StrikeForce-S comes in 15-litre containers with a hand sprayer applicator or it can be applied through a power sprayer, powered by compressed air or natural gas.

It is cost-competitive with other similar flystrike products, at about $1.75/ewe and $1.20/lamb.

These developments have improved weight gains and productivity, which makes it more frustrating when some of the best or biggest animals seem to be the ones that die suddenly while others are fine.

Similar deaths may also be seen sporadically when animals go back on to feed after being yarded for a time, or when farmers move stock from low to high feed availability.

These deaths are often attributed to clostridial disease, often sporadic, and more often only one or two at a time rather than large groups. Due to being spread out it can sometimes be accepted,

however, over a few months these deaths can put a significant dent in your profits, especially at a time of record prices.

Coglavax8 is the new 8in1 clostridial vaccine from Ceva Animal Health, the protection of eight while still competitively priced with 5in1. Coglavax8 is only available from veterinary clinics.

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SOLUTIONS | DOG KENNELS

Benefits of shepherds’ experience The people at JEL Kennels say they understand the importance of keeping dogs healthy and looked after, being shepherds themselves.

“Running a decent team of dogs we know how much input it takes to keep your dogs in prime condition,” JEL’s Emma Lambie says. “Keeping dogs warm in winter and cool in summer is the easiest way to extend your dog’s working life.

“We insulate our kennels with high-grade thermally rated polystyrene which is far more effective than just a simple air gap. It stops the kennel boxes from heating up like an oven on those hot summer days yet keeps them toasty warm during those frosty nights.”

Dogs can fully relax in their spacious kennel box and shaded run after a hard day’s work, helping reduce “kennel stiffness” the following morning.

Fresh water is also vital to the health of your dogs, with a drinker system in many of JEL’s kennels. This eliminates spilled water or the need to repeatedly fill water buckets.

Easy-access back doors let you effortlessly clean out the dogs’ beds or replace matting without having to clamber in on all fours.

Washout gaps in the runs prevent waste from building up against the mesh, making hosing out a breeze and prolonging the life of the kennel. Having the kennel raised off the ground helps keep parasites out and let’s air circulate keeping the kennel dry.

“We feel we have designed the warmest, most affordable and user-friendly dog kennel on the market today. Our kennels are custom-made, tailored to fit your individual needs and dogs. From large to small, farming to hunting and even lifestyle or pet dogs, we’ve got you covered,” Lambie says.

More? Visit www.jelkennels.com or call 07 895 9272.

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Rosie Dowling with the Thermokennel.

Kelvin the thermo kennel WORDS: ANNABELLE LATZ

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arm kennels for working dogs are on the minds and lips of many Kiwi farmers at the moment.

Marlborough sheep and beef farmer Rosie Dowling is aiming for a launch of ‘Kelvin the Thermokennel’ in early January 2019.

While the recent Kickstarter campaign didn’t achieve the funding goal, it caught the eye of a clever Kiwi (and dog owner) who has approached the team with an interest in direct investment. Now in the thick of the investment process, the goal is to be delivering first orders early in January 2019.

Rosie is also working closely with her commercialisation and design partners at Lotus Research in Tauranga to refine the production design for the kennel itself.

“We have played around with the design to try and get the most robust and cost-effective kennel. The kennel will now come in two pieces which pack down for shipping, and we’ve tuned the manufacturing process to give us faster production time and less cost,” Rosie says.

Exposure form the Kickstarter campaign has opened up some other exciting opportunities as well.

“We are working with another New Zealand company who has some really cool technology that we’d love to build in to the kennel as well, but it’s too early to talk about it!”

It was Rosie’s late grandfather, Canterbury sheep farmer Tony Prentice, who came up with the idea of an insulated dog kennel. Rosie says the dog kennel will be like a chilly bin, capturing the dog’s heat in the winter, and keeping them out of the heat in the summer.

“My grandad was a real inventor who invented heaps of cool things to make his day-to-day life easier. Aside from him being a real critic, I think he’d be pretty pleased to see his backyard invention taken further for all New Zealand farmers to use.”

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December 2018

ESTATE | OVERVIEW

Wairoa’s hidden secrets Northerne Hawke’s Bay’s sheep and beef hill country is attracting buyers where there’s still bargains to be made. Anne Hardie reports.

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airoa in northern Hawkes Bay has been a bit of a secret for generations, but good hill country farming at lower values has been attracting buyers and now the price is starting to climb. It’s half the price of other areas and buyers are a bit more prepared to bite the bullet and go somewhere a bit more remote like Wairoa.

Compared with other regions, it’s still a bargain and Simon Bousfield from Bayleys says a good hill country farm in the region can still be bought for between $5500/ha and $6000/ha.

Historically, buyers haven’t been keen to

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December 2018

move to the remote farming region, but its close rural communities, affordability and recognition of its hill country for a viable farming operation is gaining momentum.

“That rural community is really close and good at getting behind all the events and I think we’re going to see Wairoa values continue to grow.”

Forestry is also paying more for hill country properties around Wairoa and Gisborne and whereas companies used to pay $3500/ha to $4000/ha two years ago, Bousfield says they are now going as high as $8000/ha, encouraged by subsidies and carbon credits. While that’s good for property values, he says it also puts pressure on farmers who want to see

farming continue on their property.

Around Gisborne, sheep and beef farms continue to climb in value and Bousefield says there’s plenty of confidence in the market and ample buyers.

“Last spring we thought we were at the peak of where we thought it was going and the values were a lot higher than they had been before and averaged $1000 per stock unit and around $10,000/ha. But this year they’ve gone up beyond that. We may see it tip over that figure and we did last year.

“Sheep and beef are riding on the back of a good couple of years and interest rate is low and farmers are in a good space to expand and scale is the motive for most farmers.”

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The downside to that is the days of first farm buyers are almost gone, he says, with price levels dictated by established farmers expanding their business.

The strong sheep and beef market is enticing investors to Hawke’s Bay property where Mike Heard from Colliers International has dealt with a number of syndicates in the past few years. The 1,134ha Trelinnoe Station northwest of Napier recently sold for $8.5 million to a syndicate - not including its 13ha garden park.

Heard says investors also like the idea of owning part of a farm and often a syndicate will be driven by a farmer looking for investors to buy a property.

He describes the property market in Hawke’s Bay as positive and stable, with rolling finishing country selling between $10,000/

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ha and $14,000/ha which has been pretty consistent for some years. Many of the buyers are established farmers increasing their portfolio with enquiry also from other parts of the country, attracted by the region’s climate and lifestyle.

Down south in Canterbury, Ben Turner from Bayleys says the new marketing season got off to a slow start but the fundamentals such as low interest rates and good returns bode well for a good season.

South Canterbury has been shining through, attracting good interest especially in the 3500 to 5000 stock unit range and prices about $1000 per stock unit.

Like the north, forestry has increased interest in sheep and beef farming country in Canterbury and in some cases forestry is providing opportunity for farmers to get into bigger properties, Turner says. That has led to some farmers teaming up with forestry companies to plant land as well.

Meanwhile, he says higher-value sheep and beef properties on the market haven’t suffered from the lack of overseas buyers following the Government’s tightening of the rules, because New Zealand buyers are paying for tier one farms, especially if they can add water or alter the land use.

“We do have some good strong local buyers within New Zealand looking at quality farms and that’s more the timing or it is right for them or their families. There is money out there locally.”

Enquiry from the dairy sector has been subdued which he attributes to the lack of enthusiasm in the industry right now and dairy farmers are just beginning to look for blocks that enable them to run a self-contained operation. Many have been talking about it following mycoplasma bovis and are now looking at properties.

That subdued dairy sector is one of the reasons the Central

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Otago property market is in a “state of flux”, Mike Direen from PGG Wrightson Real Estate says.

For the past couple of years or so, the market has been driven by the dairy industry as it expanded in Southland and pushed sheep and beef farmers to seek property in Central Otago, plus dairy farmers looking for support land and a few dairy conversions in the region.

“And now that has gone, we’re going to be back to what sheep and beef farmers are going to pay and we don’t really know what that is yet.”

At the same time the change of Government clamping down on foreign buyers has removed some of the money for the larger Central Otago properties.

Plus some areas such as Manuherikia and Ida Valley have water issues that have not been settled yet. As he says: “there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge”.

“We’re in a state of flux at the moment.

We’re fortunate that we’ve got good meat and fine wool prices so there could be some interest come out of that.

He expects the interest will be from sheep and beef farmers buying neighbouring properties to expand their operation.

Plus there’s a little bit of interest from

the dairy sector looking for properties to control their own destiny following M10ycoplasma bovis’s spread.

In Southland, Dallas Lucas from Southern Wide Real Estate says the late autumn and winter period was much more active than usual with a mix or properties as opposed to the previous dominance of dairying.

‘Sheep and beef are riding on the back of a good couple of years and interest rate is low and farmers are in a good space to expand and scale is the motive for most farmers.’

A good interest in larger sheep, cattle breeding and finishing units that carry 8000 to 10,000 stock units sold between $1000 and $1200 per stock unit. Versatile properties on flat to easy-contoured land typically sold between $20,000 and $25,000/ha whether they were fully-established units or bare land that was being added to existing operations.

While values for sheep and cattle units has been steady, the best mixed cropping and finishing land has remained firm or slightly increased.

“We think that trend will remain in the coming season. At present in the Southland province there is a shortage of properties over 4000 stock units in the sheep, cattle and deer world with most other areas offering a good selection. We predict a steady year as farmers come to terms with changing environmental requirements and ever-increasing costs which are often not related to productivity and variable returns.”

Support land for dairying continues to sell, but he says the publicity about selfcontainment following Mycoplasma bovis is outstripped the number of sales. Reduced income in the dairy industry means farmers are exercising caution.

All factors considered, Lucas says land is a strong long-term investment and there’s a good supply of keen, young farmers coming through.

The emphasis is on providing opportunities for younger farmers to manage and own either in total or in part, many of the farming operations to make the most of innovations and opportunities.

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FARMING IN FOCUS

More photos from this month’s Country-Wide.

Deer country: NZGA delegates hear from Julia and Hamish Mackenzie, Braemar Station.

Gundy Anderson and Grant Ludemann talk high country pasture on an NZGA conference field trip.

Amy Jones, a shepherd, gets some tips from Tom Small during the Merino training day.

The underside of the Maxam mower.

Tulips growing on land leased from columnist Blair Drysdale.

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Whakatiwai farm

Shemozzle 2018

Now where did I bury that bone?

Remedial drainage work done by Owen Maher.

New yards

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