Country-Wide September - Crop & Forage 2018 by NZ Farmlife Media

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September 2018

Country-Wide

2018

Crop & Forage

LIFTING HILL COUNTRY PROFITABILITY

September 2018

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September 2018

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September 2018

EDITOR’S NOTE

Money does grow on trees

NEXT ISSUE Country-Wide Sheep includes: • ANNUAL COUNTRY-WIDE SHEEP: Moving up to the next level. • USING TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS: Capitalise on higher lamb prices. • REARING THE THIRD LAMB: Expert advice on animal health and how to make it pay. • MARKET OUTLOOK: Will the high lamb prices last into next year or go into freefall as they have in the past? • DRENCH RESISTANCE: how farmers are reversing it on their farms.

ometimes it is hard to see the wood for the trees, especially in farming. With head down and working on the farm, opportunities can be missed. This issue of Country-Wide includes the annual Crop and Forage special. It is packed with stories highlighting the opportunities from using good practice and proven science. There is a focus on the hill country and the use of clover as a low-cost finishing option. Pukemiro Station manager Jed Murphy is getting longevity and good payback from his red and white clovers which he is lambing ewes on and finishing lambs with. In Country-Wide, Home Block columnist Paul Burt is seeing a lot of wood in the trees. About six hectares of rough gullies, which at best only supported 2-3su/ha, was planted in pines 24 years ago. It has given a gross return of $48,750/ha. The revenue more than makes up for the mud and clean-up costs. Trees seem to be a theme among Home Block columnists this issue. Andrew Steven has finally satisfied his middle-aged fantasy and bought a portable sawmill. Micha Johansen asked her partner Trent (TJ) to drop a few trees and she got a massacre. Justin and Mary Vennell are making

money out of forestry by selling logs and carbon credits. They have 77ha of their 513ha farm in trees which are worth $500/ ha in sequestered carbon. This is on top of the EBITDA of $654/ha they make from their sheep and cattle. A key feature of the Vennells’ system is that they select enterprises to match the soil-type and contour. Meat alternatives are seen as a threat to pastoral farming, but long-serving CountryWide columnist, vet and consultant, Trevor Cook sees trees as a greater one. He says the Government’s forestry plan based on the objective of NZ being carbon neutral by 2050 and loss of good farm land is a travesty. In Young Country we profile Emma Lewin who grew up in town but is this year’s Tararua Shepherd of the Year. She loves farming and is keen to share it through her Facebook page, ‘One curious Kiwi shepherd’. So, get your head up and enjoy the read.

Terry Brosnahan

Lamb survival is the secret Justin and Deanna McCarthy farm northwest of Taihape at Tiriraukawa. They run 2000 Wairere Romney ewes and 100 MA Angus cows. “Ten years ago we were topping out with 120% lambing and no lambs prime off mum. Today we expect 150 to 155% survival to sale, with a weaning weight in the early thirties and up to 800 POM. This is set up by a very low 12.5% wastage from scanning. We are also mating our hoggets and lambing at 90% from mating with weaning weights similar to the MA ewes. All our ewes and hoggets are completely unshepherded. The ability of our ewes to lose weight during lambing and lactation and then bounce back always surprises me, especially at weaning, when most are back at mating weight.”

“They are such good mothers I had to get pet lambs from the neighbour”.

www.wairererams.co.nz | 0800 924 7373 Country-Wide

September 2018

More: p26

BOUNDARIES Another M bovis body.

Carbon sink rewards.

HOME BLOCK Micha Johansen reports trouble with the tree fellers. Paul Burt has no regrets with his tree harvest.

10 11

Rachael Hoogenboom gets an introduction to agriculture. 12 13

Andrew Steven answers a call of the wild.

NOTEBOOK

What’s on when and who’s doing what

FACTS

Reece Brick notes looming trouble for red meat.

BUSINESS A farmer dealing with MPI and M bovis.

Few positives in M bovis ordeal.

Kerry Dwyer on navigating the M bovis risk.

M bovis: Calf-rearing advice. Business as usual for specialist calf-rearers.

LIVESTOCK In sync with the environment.

Genetalk: Leave now, brown cow?

Stock check: Nothing stays the same.

Contents

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

YOUNG COUNTRY

Emma Lewin - Tops at shifting stock. Pukemiro’s cadet scheme comes to life.

42 43

Bark off: Heading training stage two.

COMMUNITY Rugby in the heartlands.

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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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 2537-8759 (Print)

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Country-Wide

September 2018

Crop & Forage INDUSTRY Vision of success needed.

Merger not threatening.

Fake meat threatens beef.

ANALYSIS Finishing: Using the low-cost option.

More: p79

SOILS

Pastoral ag not under threat.

Optimal soil test levels.

FORAGE

Maize: Agronomy rethink needed?

Clean green beet gives best return.

Plantain a tonic for east coast farms.

Top winter feed crops tips.

Fodder beet: Beware of hidden costs.

HILL COUNTRY Clovers drive sheep operation.

Nutrient budgeting: Single account offers new benefits. 71 72

Chicory lifting hill country productivity. Future: Farmers need to be proactive.

ARABLE

Fungicide resistance: Heed the headaches overseas. 78

PESTS AND WEEDS Herbicide resistance expanding.

Weather perfect for weeds.

ENVIRONMENT Hill country - it’s not rocket science.

Farm forestry: Alternative species need more work. 83

PLANT AND MACHINERY Contracting: Investment pays off.

Mower tech measures pasture.

SOLUTIONS Parvovirus: Dogs can recover.

Forests for erosion-prone land.

94 95

ESTATE Land environment plans - planning for a 96

premium price.

Market view: Purple patch for sheep and beef farms. 97

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

More: p66 Country-Wide

September 2018

@CountryWideNZ

BOUNDARIES | DIVERSIFICATION

Carbon sink rewards

anawatu farmer Justin Vennell has 17% of the farm in trees which are giving an annual return of $500/ha from sequestered carbon. Massey’s Mike Hedley has calculated that since the Vennells started planting trees in 1992 and allowing for the harvesting of timber, the farm’s nett carbon emissions have declined from 2381 tonnes a year to 1652t/ yr – a 31% reduction). The farm’s 77ha of forestry has in the last five years annually sequested 23.8t/ha of carbon. At the price of carbon of $21 a tonne this equates to $500/ha/year if the forest is not harvested. This compares more than favourably with the return from livestock on this poorer country. With their strong focus on sustainable farming it was no surprise the Vennells were the 2014 supreme winners of the Ballance Farm Environmental Awards in the Horizons Regional Council area.

›› More on the Vennells and their farming operation p26 A MATTER OF TIMING At a recent sheep breed society meeting in Christchurch one breeder was caught out. Part way through a meeting the man walked in and upon seeing the same secretary he was used to and several familiar faces he nodded greetings and sat down. It took less than a minute for him to realise that he did not know all the faces on the committee and that he was in among a group representing a different breed to his own. It transpired that he was one week early for his meeting, which was scheduled to take place at the same venue. After the chair took the opportunity to ask him a question about the current agenda item, seeing as he had driven more than two hours to be there, the gentleman left. It is not known whether he arrived at the correct meeting the following week.

Another bovis body

new Science Advisory Group (SAG) on Mycoplasma bovis will work in parallel with the original 10-strong Technical Advisory Group (TAG), MPI says. The new group has a broader skillset, longer-term view, and will advise on science needed for eradication, MPI told Country-Wide. MPI’s new departmental science advisor, ex-Dairy NZ principal scientist John Roche, chairs the SAG which will meet at least quarterly but more often initially. Costs will be covered by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor’s June injection of $30 million for M bovis science. Besides Roche, nine of the SAG are New Zealand-based, two are in Australia, and one in the United Kingdom.

John Roche.

“The group has already identified some key priorities for immediate work, and will hold a workshop in September to get wider input into developing the broader science plan,” Roche says.

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September 2018

HUMOUR

BOUNDARIES | ALTERNATIVE PROTEINS

UK on same page

he United Kingdom’s umbrella levy-body, the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB), has just released a 16-page consumer insight report on the rise of plant-based food products and implications for dairy and meat. Having outlined similar consumer trends to those heard at ProteinTech (see P51), it urges meat and dairy supply chain co-operation to meet the challenge, concluding with implications and opportunities for farmers, as well as retailers and processors. It says farmers should develop consumer awareness of existing welfare standards and independent inspections; minimise instances of poor welfare and proactively raise standards ahead of legislation; demonstrate transparency with initiatives

such as Open Farm Sunday showcasing farm practices; use social media to present a positive and human face of farming; and know their end market – high-end or commodity, domestic or export – and focus on it. Quality and taste will become key as the complexities of meat texture and aromas are much harder for alternatives to replicate, and “there may be more opportunities in premiumisation in future.” It also notes Beef + Lamb NZ’s carbon neutral by 2050 goal, saying carbon footprint and demonstrable emissions reductions are important to retain consumer confidence. “Sustainability is everybody’s problem.” See www.ahdb.org.uk. Hover over “Markets and prices” then click on “ retail-and-consumer insight”.

Acting up

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September 2018

A husband went to the police to report that his wife was missing. Husband: My wife is missing. She went shopping yesterday and has not come home... Sergeant: What is her height? Husband: Shit, I’m not sure. A little over five feet tall. Sergeant: Weight? Husband: Don’t know. Not slim, not really fat. Sergeant: Colour of eyes? Husband: Never noticed. Sergeant: Colour of hair? Husband: Changes a couple times a year. Maybe dark brown. Sergeant: What was she wearing? Husband: Could have been a skirt or shorts. I don’t remember exactly.

Cantabrian Jack Russell cost her owners an unnecessary vet bill recently through excellent acting skills. Across a month she took the opportunity to join daily farm excursions, where she hitched a ride on farm bikes to far-flung corners of the farm then promptly jumped off and disappeared on numerous unsuccessful trails for many hours, before eventually limping home on three legs with the closest thing a dog can have to a sad face. Her thrifty owners eventually relented and headed for the vet, knowing it wouldn’t be a cheap exercise, with no obvious signs of injury, but spurred on by children who told them the favourite pet needed professional attention. The ‘injured’ pet was dropped with the vet during school hours and when one owner returned to pick her up at the end

MISSING…

Sergeant: What kind of car did she go in? Husband: She went in my truck. Sergeant: What kind of truck was it?

of the day the vet asked which leg was sore. The Jack Russell had waited until inspection time, with her owners having left the clinic, before racing around the premises growling, prancing and looking for a game with the vets. She showed no signs of any ailment and was discharged in disgrace.

Husband: Brand new Ford Ranger with eco-boost 5.0L V8 engine special ordered with manual transmission. It has a custom matching white cover for the bed. Custom leather seats and “Bubba” floor mats. Trailering package with gold hitch. DVD with navigation, 21-channel CB radio, six cup holders, and four power outlets. Added special alloy wheels and offroad Michelins. Wife put a small scratch on the driver’s door. At this point the husband started choking up. Sergeant: Don’t worry buddy. We’ll find your truck.

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

The tree fellers managed to take out slightly more than six trees.

Timberrrr!! Micha Johansen’s partner did a spot of tree felling, and she regrets not being there to supervise.

he first few calves have hit the ground, signalling the end of winter break, and the start of the crazy season. Of course, our crazy season is quickly put into perspective when people talk about springer mobs that are larger than our entire herd, but that’s how we like life. Smaller, slower, and hopefully less stressful. Our first rearer calf of the season is out of Miss Penelope Boo, our HerefordFriesian, and has been named Peanut Butter Jelly. PBJ. Penelope Boo Junior. Get it? No, TJ doesn’t like the name either. TJ also isn’t particularly fond of the stick he gets from the locals about his Hereford dairy cow, but he’s getting used to it. And it’s best that he does because Cleo may, or may not, be joining the herd this season, it all depends on whether the neighbour’s bull jumped the fence at the right time or not. Regardless, Peanut Butter Jelly is 3/4 Hereford 1/4 Friesian, and absolutely gorgeous. We have no idea what we’ll do with her in the future, but she’s likely to be the one the stock agent says “Ooh I could get $xx for her” and I reply “sorry she’s not for sale”, at which point TJ throws me a look of panic, and prays that I don’t launch into the ‘When Miss Penelope Boo was a calf’ story, again. Over the winter we finally got a chance to get some trees along the tanker track felled, which will please Fonterra, and their tanker drivers. So many times over the last two years, TJ and I have walked that track. So many

times I have pointed out the six trees to be felled. So many times. The day of the tree felling, I found myself sick with man flu, so I was inside on the couch feeling miserable. I’m a right sook when ill. Outside were four men with chainsaws, and a digger. I was nervous, but TJ knew the trees to be felled, so I thought all will be fine. Sometimes all is fine. Other times, I’m a right idiot. The next day I was feeling a wee bit better, so off I went for a walk and discovered 15 trees cut down. FIFTEEN! With four left standing. FOUR! Cue my ‘face of gobsmacked EKETAHUNA disappointment’ which received a “what” in response, from TJ. “Six! You were supposed to cut down six!” “Well you weren’t here” he replied. Sigh. Well it’s not like I could stand them back up again, and I suppose we have our firewood sorted, for the next 300 years. Men! Unsupervised! With machinery! Need I say more? Before we have everyone thinking we are environmental terrorists, we did plant 500 riparian plants this year. It turns out I was a little over-enthusiastic after planting 250 in 2017, so dutifully ordered 500 for 2018. Turns out two people planting 500 plants is way harder than two people planting 250 plants. Way harder. So our order for 2019 is back down to 250. I may be an idiot, but I’m no fool. We also have willow and poplar poles for slope stabilisation, and some tree lucerne for shelter to be planted out. So far they have been sitting down at the calf shed for over a month.

Apparently they won’t plant themselves, no matter how long you wait, or how much you hint to TJ that he probably should get on to it. We had thought that next year we might borrow some children and put them to work, but truth be told, that actually sounds harder than just doing it ourselves.

Men! Unsupervised! With machinery! Need I say more?

We’re talking kids, and slopes, and bogs, and spades, and no, I don’t think I want to go there. We have also planted a few more trees in our orchard, an improvement on the one plum I planted a year ago that the steers have done their best to destroy. I planted grapefruit, mandarin and lime on the lawn, much to TJ’s disgust. However the lawn gets by far the most sun, and I did leave plenty of room to be able to drive around them with the ute and trailer. Down in the actual orchard, we now have quince, fig, pears, blueberries and feijoas, with plans to plant a few more varieties, such as cherry, apricot, nectarine and peach. My long-term goal, of self-sustainability as much as possible, is slowly making progress. Certainly, not a lot beats having contributed, at least something, to a daily meal, even if it is endless silverbeet or parsley, and don’t let TJ tell you otherwise.

Country-Wide

September 2018

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Mud, glorious mud Harvesting trees can be a mucky business, but Paul Burt has no regrets.

I’ve learned a lot about mud lately, much of it reluctantly because, as you know, mud involves work and expense. In the last five months we’ve changed the landscape. Our biggest logging job to date has inadvertently stretched into winter, not by design of course, because I know enough about mud already to know it goes hand in hand with winter logging. Excellent log prices and the financial requirements of a succession plan spurred us on to harvest an extra six hectares of 24-yearold radiata. We planted the roughest 24ha within the first 2-3 years of buying the farm in 1990. I enjoy trees and welltended forested landscape has been a pleasing part of my work vista all these

Despite the mud, this year’s tree harvest has been a success.

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September 2018

years. It takes some getting used to the rough gullies without their green mantle, but seedlings will be planted in winter 2019 and the cycle will begin again. Coastal Bay of Plenty is a radiata forester’s dream location, with pulp mill and port and several sawmills all within an hour’s cartage. Growth rates are among the highest in the country and with little wind tree form is good. Despite seasonal dips log prices have been steadily increasing for five or six years, and we averaged a nett return of $75.00/ton, and volume of 650t/ha. This came from a class of land that would only support two or three stock units/ ha. The case for production forestry to form part of hill country agri-business is compelling. For better or worse we elected to do our own roading. At our age playing with diggers and bulldozers is far more appealing than picking up spades or hand pieces. We upgraded two kilometres of farm track with culverts, widening and metalling. A kilometre of new road went in but because we have no rock on the farm and a truck and trailer load is $700 we have been sparing in its use. In winter on fresh roads that’s asking for trouble. With farm wood lots you don’t have the luxury of road line harvesting and road building a year in advance as large-scale commercial forests do. If the road

foundation isn’t solid and the metal cap can’t cure as a crowned and waterproof surface sooner or later trucks will break through. Other odd things come to light that were never considered before, such as underground water appearing on top of hills, the complete lack of drying in the winter sun and the very low arc of that sun’s travel MATATA that leaves many places in shadow. It’s all a recipe for mud. I couldn’t even appreciate the extra warm rain that was boosting winter feed covers. There is other collateral damage from a big logging job that has no respect for gateways, water pipes, fences and good pasture. However, even considering the massive clean-up and the couple of thousand dollars per hectare to re-establish the forest, our forestry investments have been very successful – so much so that I fail to understand the general reticence surrounding sensible production forestry on farms. Environmentally and aesthetically it’s logical and satisfying, and financially it easily outstrips our best pasture land profit. Another refreshing aspect of the forestry business has been the marketing process, which is straightforward and transparent. We engaged a reputable firm who took care of contractors, resource consents, transport and sales. It’s quite a logistical exercise with a dozen grades of logs going in six or eight different directions. None of this was our worry and a monthly cheque arrived, less direct costs and a reasonable management fee. We were subject to the floating log price but the system sees everyone involved fairly rewarded with the cost of their services fixed before the job starts. I have a last word of admiration for the harvesting contractor and his crew. They remained cheerful and efficient despite some challenging conditions, not to mention the ever-present danger when a moment’s inattention can be fatal. The “coal face” of New Zealand primary industry really does produce some good people.

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

An introduction to agriculture Lincoln University agricultural science student Rachael Hoogenboom joins her vet student sister Amy as a columnist.

t’s unusual not to get through the week without one of my fellow Lincoln students holding a magazine or newspaper up in front of me commenting “oh look it’s your sister Amy. What’s she up to this month?” or “she’s a Hoogenboom. Is that your sister?” Now leading on from my older sister Amy I have this opportunity to show off myself and how we like to live in the south at Lincoln University. I am now into my second semester of my second year, it’s so exciting to already be almost half way through my four-year Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree. Wrapping my head around LINCOLN farm management budgets as UNIVERSITY well as crop rotation, main features of soil profiling and keeping up with more than 200 pages of notes in one semester is a juggling act, but one I seem to be mastering relatively well when I only have a limited farming background. My passion for agriculture grew as I got older and when it came to picking where my future would take me, Lincoln gave me the options to explore and experience until I knew which path within the industry I wanted to thrive in. My week is jam-packed with lectures covering my chosen four courses as well as laboratories and field trips which are held about every two or three weeks. We visit many different farming enterprises across Canterbury on our field trips, allowing us to meet and discuss operating systems with the farmers themselves. As I grew up in town, getting out and personally experiencing how

The weather didn’t always play ball during Lincoln Young Farmers Club members visit to the Invercargill final of the Young Farmer of the Year contest.

New Zealand farms are run is so inspiring and gives me motivation to be part of this expanding industry. Every day is now different on the campus as the Lincoln University Ag Research Joint Facility construction has broken ground at the puddle-filled empty space, which the boys spent most of their lab classes staring out the window at to suss the duck population for the upcoming season. This facility is going to be an innovative space with lecture and meeting rooms, laboratories, offices and research spaces where students can work alongside researchers and industry leaders. It will bring a major employment opportunity for Lincoln graduates involved in environmental and land-based sciences, which I feel grateful to be a part of. Social involvement is key for networking at Lincoln University and the club to join for this is the Lincoln Young Farmers Club. It is the hub of anything ag-related with a bit of cheeky banter and adventure-packed field trips around the country. The latest trip was

to the deep south of Invercargill for the 50th Young Farmer’s Grand Final of the year, where we were treated to some mixed weather – overall an 8/10 but it wasn’t too bad for Southland. Farm tours ranged from a sheep and beef farm in Blackmount to an intensive dairy farming system in Waimatua. We then managed to scrub up the classic Lincoln guys and gals into the black-tie theme attire, almost looking like we had come down from the big city. What a weekend it was and truly inspiring for us younger generation to see how strong and driven the industry is for us to lead into. I certainly look forward to the event heading to my home region, the beautiful Hawke’s Bay in 2019 where I’m sure the weather will be more a 10/10. I would have completed more than 100 hours in lecture rooms this semester by the time this is published and I can say I have enjoyed every minute at Lincoln because I share it with people who are passionate and dedicated to everything I am. Us students want to do well because we are shown what the agricultural industry can reward us with in our futures.

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September 2018

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

The call of the wild Most farmers have a project or two to fill in their spare time. Andrew Steven has several to keep him occupied.

have quite a few projects on the go at the moment. None are finished and I am thinking about more. A big project is fencing off a damp gully to exclude the deer. We can’t get the tractor in so it is all hand work. The thumper is working well, especially when operated by a strong son and a tall nephew. I am boring/ crowbarring pilot holes. This is a fun project but we are lucky to get half a day a month to work on it. In a previous article, I mentioned the middle-aged male fantasy of owning a sawmill. Well, I did something about that and purchased a portable mill. I have been sawing rails from small dimension Douglas Fir logs from a small farm woodlot. I am expecting the heartwood to last well without any treatment. The first rails have been used to modify the lead-in to the deer yards. A small change in the layout has led to much better behaviour from the animals. Similarly, a small modification in the woolshed has made it much easier to fill the catching pens. I simply chainsawed a gap into a small adjacent pen and the sheep, thinking they’ve found a cunning escape route, enter the catching pen without any trouble. Wish I had done that years ago. Vicky and I attended the farm forestry conference in Nelson. As usual we saw some stunning examples of tree planting and came home feeling enthused about doing some more planting. There is also a sense that most parts of New Zealand grow much better trees than coastal South Canterbury. The first step is to look at various catalogues, choose what species you

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September 2018

want for each site and get the order in. I choose species that I like, that I expect to do OK, have amenity value, and provide some useful timber at some stage. Plantings this year include NZ beeches, cypress, California redwood [the mountain variety], walnut, acacia and various natives. Tree planting (and sawmilling) tends to be a weekend job, in case the reader is wondering when I actually do any farm work. Sometimes, when the mountain forecast is good, farm projects have to go

TIMARU

on hold. This picture was taken at the head of the Godley Valley and the lake is the meltwater from the Classen glacier. To reach the hut we have to cross the river coming from this lake, and I can assure you that is a painfully cold experience but the water levels in mid-July are low so the crossing is no problem. I have the company of two young adult children and while we have a rifle with us, we are mainly on a sight-seeing mission. We are within the Mount Cook National Park but there are no hordes of tourists in this corner. I can be in this location in a little over three hours from home. Don’t know why I don’t come here more often.

Sometimes the call of the mountains is stronger than the call of the farm.

NOTEBOOK COLLABORATING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

SPRING IN THE BAY Sustainability specialist Rebecca Hyde believes improved collaboration between sectors and industry can help achieve better environmental outcomes. Whangarei A&P Society is hosting Rebecca to a Rural Business network event on Thursday September 27 at Barge Showgrounds Events Centre.

The Spring Fling is a series of standout events that capture the essence of springtime in Central Hawke’s Bay. Every weekend of September and October you’ll find a range of events that showcase Central Hawke’s Bay, from homesteads and horse treks, to daffodils, culture, cycling and much more. More? www.eventfinda.co.nz/tour/2018/the-spring-fling

Oxford, Canterbury-based Rebecca works with Ballance Agri-Nutrients and is involved with the northern South Island Beef+Lamb NZ Farmer Council, FAR R&D advisory committee and Next Generation Influencer as part of Our land and Water for the National Science Challenge. More? Phone (09) 438 3109.

BEEF BREEDER FORUM B+LNZ Genetics is hosting a nationwide virtual conference over the evenings of August 29 and 30. During the sessions, from 7-9pm, you can ask questions using online chat and good oldfashioned text. Registration essential. More? www.whatsfordinner2028.co.nz

FUTURE OF WOOL

ENVIRONMENTAL CHAMPS It’s time for farmers to pit their operations against the rest for 2019 Ballance Farm Environment Awards. Entrants are judged on their sustainable profitability, environmental awareness, good business practices, social and community responsibility. More? www.nzfeatrust.org.nz/enter-awards

RESEARCH GRANT The National Animal Ethics Advisory Committee has launched the Aotearoa New Zealand Three Rs Awards, including a $50,000 research grant. The grant will provide funding for research specifically targeted at developing ways to replace, reduce, or refine the use of animals in research, testing, and teaching. Applications close October 5. 2018. More? https://bit.ly/2A7BB73

B+LNZ Tararua Farming for Profit Seminar will explore the future of the wool industry in New Zealand, and what farmers can do in an environment of low product returns and high shearing costs. Dannevirke Services and Citizens Club 1–5pm, Wednesday, September 5. More? Email Simon Marshall, Vet Services Dannevirke at simon@vsdvk.co.nz

NOTEBOOK 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.

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FACTS

Heads above water – but for how long? After a season of strong returns for beef and sheep meat, a trade war, a warm northern summer and stockpiling are taking their toll, AgriHQ analyst Reece Brick reports.

aking a quick glance at what cattle and sheep are making either store or directto-slaughter and you’d be forgiven for thinking everything was quite rosy for the red meat industry. However, behind the scenes it’s all getting a little messy. In past articles I’ve discussed the potential impacts of both heavy United

States beef supplies and the trade war between the US and China. Each of these issues is still present and the impacts of these are becoming more obvious as we move further into the year. Swathes of pork and chicken are being made available to US consumers, too, which when combined with the annual slow-down in beef consumption during these months has taken its toll on NZ

US imported 95CL bull meat

2.50

US$/lb

2.30 2.10 1.90 1.70

Oct

Dec 5-yr ave

Feb 2016-1 7

Apr

Jun 2017-1 8

Aug

Oct

Source: AgriHQ

French rack of lamb into the EU

EUR/kg

18 16 14 12 10

Oct

Dec 5-yr ave

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September 2018

Feb 2016-1 7

Apr

Jun 2017-1 8

Aug

Oct

Source: AgriHQ

Is it a short-term blip or a marker of a longer-term depreciation in the value of lambs and cattle.

export sales. The US imported lean beef market has sunk to an 18-month low, and it’s only really the exchange rate and midwinter procurement competition that is giving schedules a healthy look. Outside of the States, Asia continues to be swamped with South American, Australian and US beef, making it tough for NZ to sell prime beef. Reports indicate there’s a fair volume of stock in storage through these regions too. For lamb, two highlight markets of the season (continental Europe and China), are becoming tough work to sell into. In Europe a very warm summer is keeping consumption levels pinned down. NZ’s slim product levels at this stage of the year haven’t cancelled out the reduced demand, seeing decreased pricing through higher-value cuts as well as legs into the United Kingdom. What’s more of an issue, though, are reports of large and expensive inventories sitting with European buyers. If these aren’t at least partially cleared by mid-November we will likely see weakerthan-expected new season lamb slaughter pricing. China’s slowing down due to the nerves caused by China-US tensions, also sees reports suggesting inventories have lifted there also. The saving grace of it all is that NZ still has quite a few weeks left before the new farming season begins, arguably enough time for the issues overseas to be ironed out. The next two months will be vital in telling whether these are part of a shortterm blip or a marker of a longer-term depreciation in the value of lambs and cattle.

BUSINESS | ADVICE

Dealing with MPI and M bovis WORDS: KERRY DWYER

ou have had a phone call from AsureQuality, MPI are interested in testing some of your cattle for Mycoplasma bovis. You are about to get an education in dealing with a bumbling bureaucracy and a disease worse than the black death. Education costs but a lack of it costs more, so it is time to upskill. What do you need to learn ? MPI contracts the ground work in this disease response to AsureQuality, so find out who you are dealing with. Communication, consultation and choice is what you want, but those are not offered to you so you need to drive the process or be left in a backwater. Get names and phone numbers, and make a record of conversations if possible, emails are better than telephone for having a record. MPI operate under the Biosecurity Act which states you are responsible for

not letting this disease spread further. It states that you are required to follow MPI direction when placed under one of their notices – either a Notice of Direction or a Restricted Place notice. Failure to do so has some severe penalties, but note that MPI does rely on your honesty because they do not have a strong policing presence.

Communication, consultation and choice is what you want, but those are not offered to you so you need to drive the process or be left in a backwater. The Act also states you will be due compensation for direct effects of MPI’s actions and requirements but you will not

be paid compensation for any “diseased organisms”. The last bit has very strong implications for you if the disease is identified in your stock. MPI have just written a national management plan for this disease, 11 months after finding it. That is a plus for you but lack of a plan has made life difficult for those before you. You can ask for this plan because it will explain some of what is ahead for you. At worst case apply to MPI with an Official Information Act request for the plan; get used to pushing for answers. Most of your dealings will be with AsureQuality staff so be aware of the disconnect between the two organisations. Don’t shoot the indians when it is the chiefs calling the shots. If you and your farm is served a notice then you should have a practical biosecurity plan in place. It becomes hell if you have to disinfect every vehicle and pair of boots leaving your farm.

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September 2018

Your people and stock movements and management will be affected so have a good think about how to manage all these requirements. Note that this disease has not been identified to spread in NZ except direct animal-to-animal, so be practical about how you manage it. Your animals may be required to die, and your farm to have a period with no cattle. What will this do to your business and how do you get it back into gear again? You need to define time frames because others do not care about your business as much as you. What effect will this have on all your people – being family, friends, staff, neighbours? The fact is that dealing with MPI will cost you, and that cost can not be totally compensated. Once you get that first phone call the cost to your business will mount. “Taking one for the team” is bandied about. Yeah right. It is mostly said by those on salaries or not personally impacted. Talk with your advisers, bankers, team members etc, because you need to generate a plan that keeps you viable. Communication with your team is vital when you are under pressure and you are responsible for that. MPI have just written guidelines for compensation assessment, 10 months after the first animals were culled in this disease response. You can ask for these guidelines because they will explain what the rules are in claiming compensation for loss of animals and income. The cost of any claim preparation is not claimable, so the more homework you do yourselves is to your benefit. Get a handle

Blue skies are once again appearing over the Dwyers’ farming operation.

on what is required to get a fair deal, and prepare any claim in a professional manner because you might need it beyond an initial claim. If you have problems then you have the right to complain to MPI, they have a complaints address on their website. Their policies and procedures in dealing with complaints has just been written, so you can learn your rights better than those before you. Like all government departments they must act within the laws of the land and there are watchdogs such as the Ombudsman who can police that. MPI walked in our door on July 28, 2017, and we are not finished the trip yet, so we wish you all best if you do get that phone call.

›› Navigating the M bovis risk p20

Few positives in M bovis ordeal WORDS: TERRY BROSNAHAN

Kerry Dwyer is a farm management consultant and with his wife Rosie farms 120 hectares at Maheno near Oamaru. They have been rearing dairysourced calves for the past 20 years with the aim of selling them at 100kg liveweight. They also farm 500 sheep. Kerry is a past Young Farmer of the Year winner, winning the competition in 1990. Their first visit from MPI was on July 28, 2017, as a consequence of buying autumn-born calves from a Van Leeuwen dairy group farm where Mycoplasma bovis was first diagnosed. After the calves tested positive to M bovis the Dwyers decided to have all 400 cattle sent to slaughter, without that being directed by MPI. All cattle were gone by midSeptember. On November 21 the Restricted Place Notice on the farm was changed to a Notice of Direction, which was removed mid-April this year. In July 2018 the Dwyers received compensation for the cattle killed in September 2017.

Kerry Dwyer – MPI walked in the door on July 28, 2017, and the trip is not finished yet.

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September 2018

Kerry says only one of the 19 farms they sold calves to in 2017 had a positive test yet most of those stock have been destroyed under MPI direction.

BUSINESS | CALF REARING

Navigating the M bovis risk WORDS: KERRY DWYER

ou are thinking of rearing dairy-sourced calves this year, but the risk of Mycoplasma bovis and getting a phone call from MPI give you the jitters. First we must look at the fundamentals of business. Business is about relationships. Sustainable relationships require trust, respect and transparency. On all sides. Rearing calves without a marketing plan is simple when buyers are clambering over the rails to get to you. When the going gets tough the relationships you have fostered will become the keystone to your future. This realationship capital will be challenged at times. Risk is part of business. If you want to eliminate risk then get an office job, but think about that as you get into your car with seat belts, airbags and ABS. You are already in risk management mode â&#x20AC;&#x201C; not risk elimination. How do these relate to your calf rearing this year? To source calves that have no risk of M bovis is nigh impossible, because MPI will not give you a definitive answer on any

particular source farm; and maybe they have yet to define the extent of the disease. But note that of the thousands of farms with cattle in NZ, the disease has been found on maybe 70, which means the vast majority do not have it.

If there are fewer calves reared it will leave a large hole in cattle numbers and stock generally. Does that mean the price for 100kg calves will be good?

The risk of buying in M bovis is slim, but the consequence of getting it is huge. Sounds like Lotto. You do have a big risk of buying calves with problems you are used to managing such as rotovirus, salmonella, navel ill, BVD, coccidiosis, cryptospridia etc. But you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want the phone call from MPI. Your relationship with the farmers

selling calves is important. You need to define their risk to your business, so get close to them and ask the right questions. There are plenty of practical guidelines available, unfortunately none of these highlight trust, respect and transparency. There is no substitute for honest information. It appears there will be fewer dairysourced calves reared this year, which may drop the buying price below past levels. If you want quality calves; that have been well looked after; from farmers you need to trust and respect; then why kick them with a pitiful price? Is that how you want to be treated when it comes to selling time ? M bovis might have been in NZ for four years, or longer. It has shown symptoms on very few farms, where the common factor is stress on the animals. Transporting calves and changing their environment and feed is stressful so you need to be careful but if you do your job right your chances of seeing this disease are very low, even if it is present. Your relationship with the farmers you are selling calves to is also important. Do you have a buyer waiting? Saleyards do not present the same opportunity to

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September 2018

relate to the buyer as dealing direct, so of course the buyers will have differing levels of trust and will differentiate price accordingly. Rearing calves and being a price taker is great when buyers are clambering over the rails. At other times there are just no buyers. Where does that leave you? If there are fewer calves reared it will leave a large hole in cattle numbers and stock generally. Does that mean the price for 100kg calves will be good? Maybe there will be two markets – one for the lessrisky calves as against no market for those considered at risk. Your relationships will decide how your product is perceived in the market. You are balancing risk, opportunity and economics. What do you have to pay to get a quality calf from a low M bovis-risk dairy farm? Last year’s prices were well in excess of $100/calf in our part of NZ, even higher in other parts. While ruling prices may drop what do you want to be paying the dairy farmer you want a trusting relationship with? Calf milk powder prices have risen on last year and there appears to be a shortage looming as dairy farmers use more

to rear their replacement heifer calves. Using whole milk is still an option but you should quantify the risk of disease transfer and maybe the cost and ability of pasteurising it before feeding to calves. There is an array of other costs that need to be factored in also, which will vary between rearers. My figures get to a total of $369/calf total rearing cost.

›› Calf rearing costs p23

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BUSINESS | M BOVIS

Calf-rearing advice WORDS: STAFF WRITERS

he rearing of an average calf takes 20kg of milk powder and 1.5-2 bags of meal on a low milk input system. Based on the Poukawa work of Paul Muir (On-Farm Research), calf rearers are encouraged to read the notes on the website www.nzcalfrearing. com on calf rearing as there are some important must do’s like having good quality milk powder. The round numbers are: • Bag milk powder (20kg) $100 (up from last year as you’d expect) • 1.5 bags meal (20kg) $21 x 2 • Total feeding costs $142 per calf. There will no doubt be good deals for rearers buying large volumes of calf-rearing product. Other factors, over and above the cost of the calf and the calf rearing facilities, include animal health and calf losses.

Calf buyers are encouraged not to inflate the price of calves. A reasonable price would be $3 per kg liveweight for heifers and $4 per kg for bulls for dairy-beef calves that have had a least three to five days of colostrum. There is no justification for paying more for calves with certain colour markings. If there was to be a premium that should be based on the breeding values of the sire of the calf. Some outstanding beef bulls are available through AI at very reasonable prices and dairy farmers should be looking to use these sorts of bulls to generate high quality dairy-beef calves that are worth rearing. Mycoplasma bovis is another concern and calf purchasers are also encouraged to buy calves from herds that are closed to incoming cattle or herds that can demonstrate a high level of biosecurity.

Details to purchase a calf Value of 40kg Bull calf at 5 days Tagging EID Total

Cost

Comment

$160.00

Good quality beef sired calf

$5.00

NAIT requirement as from 2012

$165.00

Details for Cost to Rear Labour

$75.00

Calf pick up

$10.00

Milk Powder

$100.00

1 x Bag

Meal

$45.00

2 x bags

Straw

$5.00

To eat for rumen development

Animal Health

$10.00

Bedding/power etc

$10.00

Deaths

$9.85

Total Cost to buy and rear to weaning

Farm Labour $70 $80 per calf

Estimate

$264.85 $430

100kg calf

Calf Rearing Costs Calf Price

$100.00

Commission

$5.00

Cartage

$20.00

Calf Milk Replacer Meal

$100/bag

20kg

$100.00

$800/t

75kg

$60.00

Animal Health

$10.00

Dehorning

$9.00

Bedding

$5.00

Housing

$7.50

Straw

$7.50

Power & Fuel

$8.00

Interest – servicing $200/calf for 90 days

$5.00

Tags – NAIT tags and management tag

$4.00

Losses – 5%

$10.00

Grazing – based on 100kg pasture @ 18c/kg DM

$18.00

Total Rearing Cost per Calf

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›› From p21 On top of that the calf rearer should allow for labour and a profit margin. So if you want $100/calf to cover those, the selling price needs to be better than $469/calf to make the effort worthwhile. Do you have a buyer for 100kg calves at that price or better? Are you going to risk the phone call from MPI that you have animals suspect for M bovis, and maybe have them all culled? Are you going to rear them and sell on the spot market, which may value them as too risky? The flip side of this is that if you are looking to buy 100kg calves, what relationship do you have with your source farmers? Do you want the phone call from MPI? What alternative stock are available which can generate a living for you and yours?

Kerry Dwyer is a North Otago farm consultant and farmer.

$369.00

BUSINESS | M BOVIS

Business as usual for specialist calf-rearers WORDS: SANDRA TAYLOR

ssiduous attention to detail when setting up their purpose-built calf-rearing operation is paying off for two Methven-based specialist

be only be using milk powder and they have secured a contract to ensure there is enough available at a fixed price. The use of milk powder will be reviewed as the M bovis eradication or control programme unfolds. They say milk is the biggest cost in their business and it may be more cost effective in the longterm for them to invest in a milk purification system so they can go back to buying colostrum and whole milk.

calf rearers. Having seen first-hand the impact biosecurity breaches have on a farming industry - they were in the United Kingdom during the foot and mouth outbreak and in Australia when Mycoplasma bovis was found on a relative’s farm - the couple, who prefer not to be named, designed their sheds with biosecurity in Milk is the biggest cost in their mind. There is no nose-to-nose business and it may be more contact between calves and cost effective in the long-term the layout means they can for them to invest in a milk keep calves from different purification system so they can farms in separate areas. There is no transferring go back to buying colostrum and of feeding equipment whole milk. between different sections and where sharing of equipment is required, everything is sterilised. With spring approaching, they Calf-rearers may be From the outset they had clear feel there is a lot of uncertainty looking to minimise the biosecurity protocols for visitors and these amongst calf-rearers and dairy number of farms they source calves from. are being even more strictly enforced in farmers. light of the recent M bovis outbreak. They believe calf-rearers may be Most of their business is contract looking to minimise the number rearing, but this season they will limit of farms they source calves from, but there For them, a biosecurity breach of this the number of people they work with, is also uncertainty about the market for nature, was always a matter of when and getting larger numbers of calves from fewer weaned calves. not if. As a country, New Zealand has been sources. In their own business, they have focused relaxed about biosecurity but they are Most calves are delivered to them, on the factors they can control, and have predicting this will now change for good. which means they are not picking up invested a lot of time communicating with Despite the work load, the couple are calves from a number of farms, and they the people they contract rear for, their looking forward to spring. They have insist vehicles coming on to the property suppliers and other people vital to their autumn calves in the sheds now and have follow the correct biosecurity procedures. business. R1 and R2 heifers grazing which they grow It is in everyone’s best interests to follow They say there is extra time and costs out for clients - so they have been busy. them. involved in setting-up and maintaining Coupled with the extra planning The couple have used a mix of high biosecurity standards and these costs involved in making their farm as risk-free colostrum, whole milk and milk powder to will need to recovered through the supply from disease as possible, there isn’t much feed their calves, but this season they will chain. down time - but that’s farming.

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ARE YOUR NAIT RECORDS UP-TO-DATE?

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO DO 9 Ensure all your NAIT contact details including email are accurate and up-to-date 9 Make sure all of the locations you manage where NAIT animals are kept are registered with NAIT you are sending animals off-farm – create a sending movement within 48 hours, 9 Ifand complete an animal status declaration form (ASD)

If you are receiving animals on-farm – create or confirm a receiving movement within 48 hours

9 9

Make sure your NAIT account is consistent with your farm management application account

Tag and register your animals within 6 months of birth or before moving off-farm, whichever comes first

DO YOU NEED HELP? Go to ospri.co.nz or call 0800 482 463.

NAIT is an OSPRI programme

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LIVESTOCK | ONFARM PHOTOS BY: BRAD HANSON

In sync with the environment A combination of beef cattle, sheep and forestry provides a sustainable future for a northern Manawatu farm. Russell Priest reports.

PAKIHIKURA

KEY POINTS • Richcrest, 513ha (400ha effective) farm run sustainably • Part of the farm erosion-prone uncompacted sand • 17% of the farm in trees give annual return of $500/ha from sequestered carbon • Includes breeding cows, ewes, finishing bulls and lambs Justin Vennell on the 513ha (400ha effective) farm at Waituna West in the Manawatu.

• Enterprises selected to match soil-type and contour • GFI, $1478/ha, expenditure $824/ ha (including a managerial fee) with an EBITDA of $654/ha.

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September 2018

ustin and Mary Vennell’s strong environmental awareness is ensuring future generations can continue to farm Richcrest sustainably. Cradled among the Pakihikura hills 38km north of Feilding, the 513ha (400ha effective) sheep and cattle breeding, finishing and forestry business is based on sedimentary soils, some of which are prone to erosion. “We try and match enterprises with soil types and contour to minimise damage to soil structure and maximise profit,” Justin says Finishing 15-18 months bulls at 270-280kg carcaseweight (CW) is the best money spinner of their enterprises. To do this they require priority treatment – 130ha of the easiest contour and most fertile land coupled with intensive monitoring and animal health inputs. Buying weaner Friesian bulls in mid-October and killing them between late December and March generates a margin of about $1000 a head. So they ended up finishing bulls and lambs on the flats and easy hills. The ewes and cow herd are run on the medium hills with trees on the steep hills and gullies and along water courses. “Rather than go for heavier weights we prefer to get good numbers away early so we haven’t quite cracked the $1000 margin yet.” The first 80 are generally gone by January 10 and they’re all off the farm by mid-March At a stocking rate of 4.5/ha on the flats and 2.7/ha on the easy hills, this represents a gross return of close to $4500/ha and $2700/ha respectively. The trading margin from 200 bulls is $196,000. Justin emphasises that to achieve this level of performance the bulls can’t afford to dip below a growth rate of 0.8kg/day so every day must be a growing day. To this end bulls are weighed monthly and receive an oral triple-combo drench most months. “While we are very conscious of developing drench resistance we believe we are mitigating this by alternating the grazing species.” The freer-draining area of the flats has been subdivided into an intensively managed bull/lamb finishing unit featuring four lanes separated by nine-wire permanent electric fencing. Each lane is dissected by a single-wire electric fence with posts 10 metres

A soil profile showing sedimentary soils covered in ash.

apart, creating an eight-lane bull unit. Hogan Italian ryegrass covers the area. Finishing lambs graze the four lanes over the summer, autumn and winter as if they are individual paddocks. Bulls occupy the unit in the spring being shifted daily in mobs of about 25 along the eight lanes. “It could be described as a modified Techno system with the flexibility of being able to use it to intensively graze sheep.” Because the bull enterprise is significantly more profitable than the other enterprises Justin is always looking over the fence for opportunities to increase its scale.

Justin out and about on the Waituna West farm.

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Optimising sheep returns Conforming to tradition is not one of the Vennells’ philosophies, in spite of the farm having been in the family for 120 years. Opportunities to improve the profitability of their business are constantly explored and changes to their sheep enterprise graphically demonstrate this. From a self-replacing Romney flock struggling to do 100% the Vennells have developed a highly productive Coopworth flock lambing 150% in a difficult sheep environment. “At 150% lambing and eight ewes/ha we still can’t do much better than a gross return of $1200/ha. With wool no longer being a significant income earner, a ewe is only productive for 90-100 days of the year. “The rest of the year she’s a passenger.” Transitioning from a Romney to a Coopworth flock resulted in a significant improvement in performance, but Justin felt the sheep enterprise lacked scale so the decision was made to buy in ewes and mate them all to terminal sires. While this led to considerably higher lamb weights the difficulty of sourcing ewes that would The Vennells have consistently perform at a satisfactory level developed a highly on their farm under their management productive Coopworth flock lambing 150% eventually drove them back to breeding in a difficult sheep Coopworths. environment. “By breeding our own replacements we may be able to breed a type of sheep that can adapt to the things that are affecting our “We lamb the earlier-mated ewes on the more sunny side of the sheep performance.” farm to take advantage of the earlier pasture growth.” Justin is not sure why sheep struggle in their environment but In selecting their rams Justin places a lot of emphasis on theorises that it may be the high summer temperatures resulting conformation - a medium-framed, sound sheep with a good index. in high levels of fungal toxins in the pastures. “Simon and Pascale Carthew, our ram breeders, know what type They used to run A and B flocks and farm the B flock ewes on a we want so we get to select from a group of high indexing rams of lease block not far from here. The B flock ewes always performed this type.” better than their ewes at home. To explore the concept of no-wool farming, the Vennells last “Some years the ewes at home would perform exceptionally well year ran their 200 ewe hoggets with Wiltshire rams from May 10. and others they’d be disappointing but when buying in ewes we They were so impressed with the almost nil incidence of problems did notice the Coopworths were the most consistent performers.” they have elected to repeat the exercise this year with 400. Justin says they seemed to respond to increased levels of feeding “We had no hogget losses, no bearings, casts or lambing after a dry spell better than other breeds they’ve run. problems and weaned the lambs on February 9 at an average As part of his strategy to optimise sheep returns Justin is flexible weight of 33kg and haven’t had to dag a lamb.” with mating dates. All MA ewes are wintered in one mob on a three-day shift and if If the autumn rains arrive late they hold off mating the ewes a tail end appears the light ewes are drafted off and given a drench until pasture covers can improve stock condition. along with preferential treatment. Ewes due for shearing as part of “Obviously we don’t want to leave it too late and one year the the eight-month split-flock shearing regime are shorn at the end ram didn’t go out with the MA ewes until May 3. This proved to of May. be too late.” Scanning occurs at the end of June after which ewes are drafted For a number of years the ram-out date was April 20. This year into singles and multiples. The two groups continue for the rest of it was April 1 when 800 of the six-tooth and older ewes went to the winter in separate rotations before being set stocked a couple Carthew Lamb Supreme terminal sires. On April 20, 800 two and of weeks before lambing on different areas of the farm. The singlefour-tooth Coopworth ewes were run with Carthew Coopworth bearing ewes lamb in the less fertile or productive paddocks. rams.

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Cropping builds resilience The Vennells are making their steep hill country more productive to finish stock and not be subjected to the whims of the store-lamb market. Helicopters are now seen more frequently spraying out old pastures and seeding paddocks with brassicas and pasture species. Pasja and Spitfire rape are sown in mid-November and used to finish lambs through the summer with regrowth carrying hoggets through the winter. Being

able to finish their home-grown lambs has added a layer of vertical integration to their business and made them more independent of the store market. Summer lambs are processed by ANZCO supplying their Waitrose contract while winter lambs are a new venture for the Vennells. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I lack experience when it comes to buying lambs so I leave that to my agent. He can do the buying and

selling and make sure we get a margin.â&#x20AC;? With a new weighing system in place lamb growth rates can be monitored regularly and appropriate decisions made.

Breeding cows return

Historically, breeding cows were a part of the Vennellsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; enterprise mix but after a severe summer drought were replaced with 18-month steers. These were wintered and finished Country-Wide

September 2018

Brassicas are grown on the hills to improve productivity.

Home-grown weaner bulls.

the following spring/summer. “We used these over the winter to tidy up pastures but the store price relative to prime was such we couldn’t get a decent margin so the cows got a recall.” Ninety Friesian-Hereford cows mated to terminal sires produce high-performing male progeny for the bull unit while heifer calves are finished as two-year-olds with the aim of reducing this to 18 months. Terminal sire breeds used have been Charolais, Simmental, Limousin, Angus and now South Devons.

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“Our cows complement our sheep and bull enterprise by grooming pastures over the spring/summer and cleaning up roughage often in rotation with the ewes in the winter.” Good conditioned Friesian-Hereford heifers bought in October/November as yearlings are mated to terminal sires on December 10 for 30 days. Mixedage cows go to the bull on January 10 and calve among the ewes and lambs at one every three hectares. “We have very few losses or calving problems with the cows although this year our dry rate was a bit high. The vet thought we may have been a bit short on bull power exacerbated by low pasture covers in December/ January and very hot conditions making it more attractive for the bulls to stay in the shade.” With so much of their beef income derived from animals of dairy origin Justin has yet to develop a strategy to mitigate the challenge of Mycoplasma bovis but admits it may require some changes.

Top infrastructure

With two laneways and three sets of satellite yards, sheep work and particularly docking is made much easier. A state-ofthe-art set of Te Pari cattle yards gets plenty of work with bulls being weighed and drenched most months.

The farm is well subdivided into 68 paddocks enabling 60-day winter rotations generally involving three-day shifts. Justin believes hill-country farms can be oversubdivided restricting lambing ewes from being able to seek natural shelter and affecting lamb survival rate. Soils on one side of Richcrest are freedraining, uncompacted sands which tend to be unstable but are excellent for wintering stock. Heavier sedimentary soils covered with a mantle of ash make up the other part of the farm and these perform better in the summer. Olsen P levels on the hills range from 16 to 25 and on the flats in excess of 40, with 26 units of phosphate and 24 units of sulphur applied last year; pH levels are 5.6-6.0 with lime applied at two tonnes/ha every four to five years. Nitrogen is applied as either urea, SOA or DAP or a combination of the three in May and August at a rate of 27-32 units/ha on the breeding country and 40 units on the finishing country. Application on the hills is by helicopter enabling more accurate timing to achieve a planned response and placement to avoid water courses and unproductive areas. “Using nitrogen means we don’t get big surpluses or deficits in our pasture production so we seldom make our own hay or baleage – we have to buy it in.”

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Ewes in their winter rotation.

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Regrowth rape for wintering lambs.

Justin Vennell & dog Rosie among some eucalypts.

Forestry strengthens farm business Dissected by water courses, gorges, difficult-to-muster areas and covered in significant areas of uncompacted unstable sand, Richcrest lends itself to forestry and planting of natives. The Vennells realised this in their early years of tenure and, in partnership with local forestry consultant Jeremy Cumming, began planting pines, macrocarpas, lusitanicas and natives in 1992. From 1992 to 2009 about 77ha was planted in trees. Horizons Regional Council got in on the act in 2007 after a Whole Farm Plan was drawn up. Under its Sustainable Land Use Initiative (SLUI) programme, areas adjacent to water courses were fenced off and planted and poplar poles were used for soil stabilisation. The latter continues annually as part of a trial to test new species. Being an early adopter of the SLUI scheme (No. 23) the Vennells received favourable treatment and found Horizons excellent to deal with. A decision to retire a 44ha paddock (almost 10% of the farm) of steep erodible

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country at the back of the farm in 2009 was a big leap in faith for the Vennells although in hindsight they regard it as sensible. It was only carrying seven and-a-half single-rearing ewes a hectare and not particularly well. There were significant costs associated with maintaining the block like fertiliser and scrub cutting. “We spent $18,000 cutting the scrub but couldn’t afford to fence it,” Mary says, “and it was starting to get away on us.” When Jeremy Cumming was called in

to survey the block he discovered an aerial photo that showed clearly there was a direct correlation between the stable areas and the presence of uncut manuka. This gave the Vennells the confidence to give Jeremy the green light to develop a species planting plan. What he came up with was a multispecies plan involving fastigata and pilularis gums to primarily generate carbon credits (CCs), Cupressus Lusitanica for long-term quality timber production and one or two other species like alders. Justin says lusitanicas give them the

flexibility to harvest at any time after 40 years. “However, it would be financially irrational (if we elected to sell the CCs) to harvest until the value of the trees exceeds the carbon liability of the stand.” After being in forestry for nine years Justin believes they are no worse off financially having made the decision to retire the paddock. Pruning is carried out on nearly all the species except the natives, including the poplars planted for erosion control. This gives the Vennells the flexibility to harvest if a market develops.

An unproductive 44ha paddock planted in trees.

KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY Bought in 1898 by Justin’s great-great-grandmother, acting for her late husband George’s estate, Richmond (as the home farm is called) is now farmed by the fifth generation of Vennells with Justin and Mary’s children George (17), Emma (15) and Katie (12) being the sixth generation. Originally a much smaller block, it is now an amalgam of several farms. In an endeavour to achieve a better work/life balance Justin and Mary have recently taken on a full-time employee Charlotte Nimmo, who is proving to be a great success. Right: Farm employee Charlotte Nimmo.

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2018

Sheep

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LIVESTOCK | GENETALK

Leave now, brown cow? Geneticist Nicola Dennis pokes a stick at futurists and the prospects of a meat-free world.

t seems every self-proclaimed “futurist” in the country is predicting consumers are going to dramatically reduce meat intake in favour of plant-based diets of some kind. If true, I believe this presents a lot of opportunities for farmers (landowners will always have the last laugh). Before we get to that, I feel compelled to poke a stick at futurists and their claims. Ever since I started school in the 1990s, I have been subjected to an ever-adapting anti-chicken farming campaign. Wellrespected people touted that chicken farming is cruel, uncooked chicken meat is dangerous, chicken meat is unhealthy and full of hormones, chicken farms pollute the environment, etc. These claims were so accepted, that they were almost part of the school curriculum. Did all this “negative energy” decreased my poultry consumption? No, and it didn’t affect many other people either. The average kiwi has doubled their chicken consumption in that time. Chicken is cheap. Chicken is delicious. When it comes to opening our wallets those two points are almost all that we consumers care about.

Therefore, I don’t predict a sudden slump in meat consumption based on some media hype, but I am happy to be wrong. Why? Because livestock farming is hard on land and beast. There is always going to be a grain of truth to that. And livestock farming is also very hard on humans too. So, if (and it’s a big if) the money were equal, who wouldn’t switch to farming plants. Plants don’t run out open gates, they don’t kick, they don’t need moving, they don’t scream for food in the middle of a hailstorm and they don’t elicit expensive vet bills late at night on a public holiday. I think it is even possible to go on holiday without having to pen a memoir of instructions about paddock rotations, electric fences and water troughs. If there are people out there willing to pay over $40/kg for “meat-free meat”, why wouldn’t we want a piece of the action? And if pandering to vegans is not your thing, there are many more plants to consider than peas and soy beans. Hemp crops are returning good gains in Canterbury. Commercial cannabis crops are an emerging green rush overseas and look set to hit our shores sometime soon.

Poultry consumption per year Poultry consumption per year

How much we (guiltily) love chicken. Data sourced from OECD.org website.

Kilograms per person

40 35 30 25 20

New Zealand

15 10

OECD countries

5 0 1990 36

1995

2000

Year

2005

2010

2015

Judging by how antsy some of the locals get about small planes flying overhead, both crops should do very well in coastal Otago. Since little else would volunteer to grow here, that bodes well for the rest of the country. If you are looking to plant something a bit more conservative, bananas have been grown in Northland for premium prices for years and they are spreading further down the east coast of the North Island. The average kiwi eats 88kg of bananas a year. It seems we love bananas even more than we love chicken. It is going to take a lot of global warming before we can grow bananas in Dunedin and I don’t like the idea of watching hectares of hash roll into the sea on our landslide-prone land. So, I think my escape from the winter feed-out regime might have to come in the form of a tree crop. I have my hopes riding on pine nuts. Driving around, I notice all the fascinating places a wild pine tree will attempt to grow. My family would desperately like a reprieve from the pine spotting game and for me to stop cooking pine cones in our kitchen. If pine nuts don’t pan out for us, the boom of the manuka honey industry means specifically bred manuka plantations are now a thing. Which brings us nicely back to genetics. Plant breeding is a bit more complex than animal breeding and your local geneticist is going to have to get her head around self-incompatibility systems and all the extra chromosome copies plants have. Plants are also promiscuous, so it can be difficult to control matings. On the other hand, plant cloning is relatively easy. If you have a plant you quite like, well, you are free to hack a piece off and use it to grow more, identical plants (actual process is probably more complicated than this). While others see doom and gloom for NZ farmers, I am hoping for business as usual for food production and breeding work - perhaps with a little more opportunity for holidays.

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LIVESTOCK | STOCK CHECK

Nothing stays the same There are plenty of potential challenges ahead for sheep and beef farmers. Trevor Cook looks at what the future might hold.

recent survey of sheep and beef farmers reported they were not overly optimistic about the immediate future, in contrast to their dairy colleagues. But when the individual challenges ahead are realistically looked at it is easy to see why confidence in the future is far from positive. Forestry intrusion, shearing costs, mycoplasma bovis, fake meat and environmental constraints are the obvious factors, but there are others. Some of these, in my opinion, are not going to hinder us. M bovis will probably be eradicated. It ought to be, given that 99% or more of farms do not have it. Fake meat is a con and has not been subjected to real scrutiny. In a time when synthetics of any kind are being questioned, how could laboratory synthesised food ever take over? The bigger threat is peoples’ irrational view of how animals are farmed. The increase in shearing costs is a real issue without any signs of a significant lift in wool price to match. Maybe the same worldwide questioning of synthetics could be the trigger for wool to be seen as a fibre of choice? How come the United Kingdom has sheep that do not have to be shorn, are bred for outdoor living, are being selected for standard production traits and are high performers, whereas here such options

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have never got legs? I think it’s time to be looking at these options. It is not only the cost return on shearing, but the overall cost of maintaining sheep because they have wool, quite apart from the stresses of winter shearing.

Making changes on farms is not easy, and it is often easier to not change than to be sure that something different will be better. I think the biggest threat and travesty is the forestry plan built around an objective of us being carbon neutral by 2050. It seems like it’s just a way to give a few government disciples a low-paid job planting trees in the regions. While this is an honourable objective, has anyone thought of the long-term consequence of using trees to achieve this? It surely has to be analysed on a “whole country outcome” basis and until that is done it should at least be stalled to be subjected to wider scrutiny. It is probably more profitable now for many sheep and beef farms to be put into trees. More likely is

that the good country will be tree-bound because the trees will grow faster and will be easier to harvest and animals are left on the steeper areas. But unharvested trees on steeper hills could still be more profitable. As the carbon price lifts the impact on livestock farming becomes more and more uncertain. Has there been an economic analysis of the impact of lots of good country being planted? Export income will drop massively, rural communities will disappear, the supporting industries will shrink, a multitude of rural education facilities will close and the imagery that we are known for will need to change. Singlefocus objectives are typical of politicians. This whole forestry debacle is not unlike policy changes on farms. Let’s put in a bull system because it earns 10 cents/kg DM more is a typical change. While no one will dispute the 10 cents, the cost of set-up, ensuring that production is high enough to earn that 10 cents, and whether it’s a sustainable profit need to be considered. That change has to be seen in the wider context of the whole farming system. Taking out that best area for bulls means another stock class can’t enjoy that privileged grazing, so what is the impact of that? While bulls might still make the most profitable use of that pasture, the move should follow a whole farm assessment. What if M bovis decimated the bull beef industry and lamb levelled out at $7.50/kg for the season? Making changes on farms is not easy, and it is often easier to not change than to be sure that something different will be better. Modelling changes is a great game and it is easy to show gains or not on a whole farm basis. There are many factors that determine if a modelled change will bring more income. I say that, while acknowledging that making more profit is not necessarily the objective. But by far the most common reason for looking for change is to make more money. Other factors to consider are the pure practicality of a new policy, the cost of implementing it, whether it can integrate with the rest of the farm, whether it extends the management capabilities on hand and whether it sits comfortably. But modelling ideas is a great starting point – it does allow some dollars and cents to be put around the outcome and allows ideas to be tested. This process is not expensive, and I believe it should be part of any strategic planning or review – which would seem to be much more than the government does.

UNEXPECTED BREAK.

IT HAPPENS MORE OFTEN THAN YOU’D THINK. At FMG, we’ve been looking after rural people for over 100 years now. So we’ve become really good at recommending the kind of cover that looks after the most important piece of equipment on the farm – you. It’s the sort of advice that really makes a difference in the country. If you’d like to know more about it, go to fmg.co.nz. Or better still, call us directly on 0800 366 466.

We’re here for the good of the country. 38

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WORK HARD, PLAY HARDER

Top Shepherd Former townie takes Tararua title

Cadet scheme Delivering on a trust deed.

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TARARUA SHEPHERD OF THE YEAR

Tops at shifting stock Emma Lewin grew up in town, but she loves her chosen career in agriculture and is carving out a name for herself as a top young shepherd, taking out this year’s Tararua Shepherd of the Year. Rebecca Harper went to meet her.

eeing animals grow and knowing she has played a part in influencing that is one of Emma Lewin’s favourite things about shepherding. The 25-year-old from Bulls has been shepherding for six years and hopes soon to move up to stock management level. A finalist in the Tararua Shepherd of the Year competition last year, she was blown away to take the title this year. Emma has been in her job as shepherd general for Pohuetai Farms, owned by the Knight family, for 18 months. The farm, near Dannevirke, is 2000 hectares in total, but she works mainly on the Tara block, which is 655ha (effective). “The whole farm is a combination of stud cattle and commercial breeding ewes, with a small handful of breeding cows. We fatten our own lambs as well as buying in a lot of lambs and trade cattle each year.” Working under the block manager on Tara, she has responsibility for the two-tooths and hoggets that go to a terminal sire. “I grew up in a little town called Bulls, though it is quite a rural town and we had a farm over the back fence from us. I went to high school in Feilding and did ag as a subject right from Year 9,” she says. “When I was about 16 I started relief milking to earn some money in the weekends

and holidays. It was then I went on a taster course at Taratahi and started to think farming could be a job for me. Before that I thought I was going to be an army medic. “Also, my mum’s friend was a dairy farmer when I was growing up, as a kid she was an inspiration – and still is.” Emma left school and went to Taratahi, where she gained her Level 2 & 3 sheep & beef certificates and the Level 4 sheep certificate. Her first job was in the Rakaia Gorge, midCanterbury, on a sheep, beef and deer property. She worked there for two years and during that time did night school and completed a Diploma in Agriculture from Lincoln University. From there, she took a job working for Landcorp in Te Anau. “That was a sheep, beef and deer property, with a red hind stud. I was on the sheep and beef fattening unit and looked after different progeny trials, measured pasture cages and all sorts.” Travel beckoned and Emma then spent two years overseas, first in Australia and then Scotland. She did all sorts, from being a rousie to driving tractors, pressing wool, looking after stud cattle, being a lambing assistant and even salt gritting the roads in winter – done at night when the temperature was below zero. After saving up and travelling around Europe for three months solid, Emma ran out of money

and it was time to come home – she got the job at Pohuetai almost immediately. “I’m quite experienced now and the stock manager doesn’t dictate the stock shifts on Tara. I know where everything is and when it needs doing I will go ahead and shift them. If bulls or cattle need weighing we will quite often do it together, but I can do it by myself too. We also work together between the two blocks, if we are drenching 1000 lambs I will go down and help.” Emma says she was drawn to farming when she was younger because it was an adventure. “Being outdoors was a massive appeal. Being hands on and seeing things grow and knowing you have influenced them. “I still love the adventure, moving big mobs of ewes across paddocks and getting photos. I love working with cattle too, they are really smart creatures and have great personalities,” she says. “It’s a really cool life to live, and get paid to do it. It’s really rewarding, especially when you see something get born and then two years later it’s big enough to have its own babies. I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t enjoy it. It’s definitely a rewarding job when it reflects in the growth rates of stock or a premium at the works.” Emma plans to stay in the agriculture sector and would love to give stock management

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September 2018

Emma Lewin working at Pohuetai Farms during docking time Photos: Focus Genetics

‘When I was about 16 I started relief milking to earn some money in the weekends and holidays. It was then I went on a taster course at Taratahi and started to think farming could be a job for me.’ a crack. “I think I’m at the stage where I’m ready, I have a lot to offer and think I could influence production, in a good way. Stock rotations, breeding policies, stock recs – all that stuff fascinates me. I’m more focused on management than owning a farm, at this stage.” Her desire to succeed and continue learning are evidenced by the fact she is still studying, this time towards production management through Primary ITO. “This is important for my professional development, if I want to succeed.” She entered the Shepherd of the Year competition last year and was a finalist. “I like a good challenge and my boss encouraged me to give it a go. I didn’t know what to expect, but my resolution was, I can’t stay the same, I have to improve. This year the goal was to be better than I was before and to get my name out there as good employee. “All the finalists were diverse and everyone had their strengths. It was a massive personal achievement (to win), I was so elated.” The Shepherd of the Year winner was announced at the Farmer of the Year field day, held at Simon and Elle Joblin’s farm. ANZ’s Sally Terry said Emma impressed the competition judges with her technical knowledge around animal health, pasture covers, and target feeding levels. She was able to share a lot of detail about mob sizes, current live weights, rotation lengths and had a clear understanding of what these details would look like in six months. “Emma’s drive and curiosity to keep learning really impressed us, with the determination and dedication shown to achieve further education while working full time.

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Dannevirke shepherd Emma Lewin won the 2018 Tararua Shepherd of the Year, pictured here with her working dogs

One Curious Kiwi Shepherd

Emma has her own Facebook page, One Curious Kiwi Shepherd, where she posts photos, videos and explanations of daily life on the farm. “It started off as a travel blog, One Curious Kiwi, for my family to see what I was doing. But I enjoyed writing and wanted to put something positive out there about farming, so I kept going.” If there’s something big happening on the farm, like shearing, docking or weaning, Emma will post photos or a short video, along with an explanation. “I try to explain it the best I can for non-farming people because most of my family are not farming.” She loves taking photos, so this is the perfect place to post them, and finds videos are the most popular. “I did a video about shearing and what I love – the atmosphere in the shed, the music – that video went all over Australia. “I think it’s a good way of promoting farming, because everyone is on social media these days.”

Find Emma on Facebook: facebook.com/1curiouskiwi

TRAINING

Cadet scheme comes to life Words by Rebecca Harper

hen the late Donald Williams left Pukemiro Station, near Dannevirke, in trust in 1983 he had a vision to help support young people in agricultural education. In 2018 his foresight took another step forward with the introduction of an on-farm cadet scheme. Pukemiro manager Jed Murphy says the original station was 566 hectares and Donald’s intention was that any surplus profits from the property go towards supporting agricultural education. In 1985 the first university students received scholarships from the trust. “Since then, the trust has provided a significant number of bursaries for local students, as well as supporting local community activities like the Shepherd of the Year competition and Riding for the Disabled.” When the adjoining farm, Awakeri, was bought in 2013 Jed and his wife Anna came on board as managers of Pukemiro. At this point, the trustees also looked at how they were delivering on the trust deed. “They felt it was a good time to increase the on-farm training and the idea of training young people was followed through. We worked with Taratahi for nearly four years, hosting Level 3 students.” In 2018 the cadet scheme was launched, based on the successful models run at Smedley and Waipaoa. “There was a desire there from the trustees and staff to focus on a smaller number (of students) and follow that through to the finished product.” The goal is to provide a high level of contact with the cadets and, in turn, a greater level of influence over them. Three new cadets will be selected each year and undertake a two-year cadetship. There are three cadets now and applications have just closed for next year’s intake, which will take numbers up to the planned six cadets on-farm (three first-year and three second-year cadets).

Above: The Pukemiro team L-R: Head shepherd Hamish Duff, manager Jed Murphy, cadets Fynn Redshaw, Emma Rolston-Galbraith and Jesse McIntyre

Jed says the first year is primarily focused on general work and in the second-year cadets will get dogs and hone their stockmanship skills. The goal is to turn out a well-rounded cadet who is both competent and confident. “The aim is to produce someone who can step straight away into a junior shepherd role and fully contribute. We want to ensure they have the relevant skills, but also that they’ve done plenty of it - volume. We’re also working on developing a good work ethic and good habits around being a good person and good employee.” As well as their practical farm skills, cadets work on a three-week roster where one week out of three is spent on hostel duties. The responsible cadet cooks all the meals for themselves and the other cadets for that week, cleans the house and maintains the grounds. “They plan the meals for the week, draw up a shopping list and go to the supermarket.” Anna, who is qualified teacher, helps supervise this, as well as tutoring the cadets in the theory side of their training in the classroom, once a week. When the Murphys took the job at Pukemiro, they knew there would be a strong element of teaching involved - it was one of the things that drew them to the position. “There were three things that really appealed to Anna and me. First, it was a beautiful farm and a really great opportunity to manage such a pristine property, secondly, we like the people and really clicked with the trustees. Finally, we liked the concept of being able to give something back to young people keen to get into the industry,” Jed says. “I went through Smedley a few moons ago and I really enjoyed it. Having the opportunity to share knowledge and skills with the cadets is great. There are days where it can be a bit frustrating, but it’s very rewarding when it all clicks.” More on Pukemiro Station p66

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September 2018

BARK OFF

Heading training Stage two Getting your dog to stop is just as important as getting it to move. Lloyd Smith has some advice on getting a good stop.

here are three distinct stages to training your heading dog. Stage one involves training your dog to “look” for sheep, getting it to run in the right direction casting around sheep, teaching it to “Stop” when its confidence level is good enough, approach sheep in a controlled but firm manner, and then to pull them back demonstrating good “balance”. This is the primary role of a heading dog so I like to spend time to get this right Once your dog is casting around sheep and pulling them with confidence and competence, showing good balance, the next command is the “stop”. After “wayleggo”, this is the most important command. It is non-negotiable and the success of the rest of your commands depends on how effective your stop is. If you have taught your dog a good stop you can enforce every other instruction, so take your time and get it right. There are two forms of stop–sit-down and stand-up. The type you teach depends on your dog. A full-on, aggressive dog requires an imposing stop, a sit-down, while a calm, lighttouching dog would do best on a standing stop. If you make those dogs sit down you can have problems getting them back on their feet. This type of dog also doesn’t need a stop as early in the training programme as the aggressive type because they don’t put the same pressure on stock. This step, when completed successfully, gives you control of your dog so it becomes easier to control your stock. The “stop” command is demanding and can lower a dog’s confidence, so make sure your dog has plenty of confidence before starting. To teach the “stop” I take the young dog from sheep and attach a length of light rope 12-15m Country-Wide

September 2018

long. I use a light stick, as an extension of the arm, to get the dog to hold its position, allowing me to back off using the stick to keep the dog on that spot. I don’t let the dog move while I shift my position to various points including KEY POINTS behind it, approaching the dog occasionally which puts 1. The more logical you can make your training programme, the easier it will be for the dog to more pressure on it but understand and learn. also re-enforces the “stop”. When it remains still on its 2. Split your training into stages to simplify it for the stop I reward it. The dog dog. soon realises if it stays still 3. Do not confuse your dog by teaching onit will be rewarded but if it balance and off-balance simultaneously. moves it will be corrected. 4. Cross-heading is acceptable at the early stages, At this stage a “stop” should because the priority is to head the sheep. be “Stop moving and stay 5. The success of the rest of your training depends there until I give you the on how effective your “stop” is. next instruction”, otherwise it becomes only a hesitation and the next step is no stop commands, but make sure it is in a controlled at all. environment on quiet sheep. The first few times Once the dog is holding its position I teach so make sure you gain compliance and put it the Approach or “Come-Up” command, yourself in a position where you can insist it is because after you stop a dog on sheep the next obeyed. Start by picking a time when the sheep move is to approach and pull the sheep, which have stopped, and prevent the sheep moving needs to be firm and controlled. To monitor yourself if necessary, because it’s easier to get this I stand in front of the dog on the rope, your dog to stop if the sheep are standing still. giving it the “Come-Up” command, and use Re-attach the rope if required to insist and get a stick to insist it moves towards me calmly the right result. As the dog gets more familiar and steadily. If it’s reluctant I use the rope to with the command you can increase the pull it towards me, teaching it to come up on distance and the degree of difficulty involved. instruction. The stop is very important but how When your dog is conforming well to the stop the dog comes off that stop and approaches you can work on its approach, ensuring this stock is also important. is firm but controlled. Obedience of these Once your dog has a good grasp of this commands will allow you to handle your stock you can take it back to sheep to apply the with an improved standard of control. 43

COMMUNITY | SPORT

Rugby in the heartlands Farm workers were once the mainstay of country rugby teams but many now have other commitments. John Cosgrove takes a look at Otago’s Strath Taieri team.

The final.

he carpark is full of dusty utes with packs of dogs growling menacingly from cages on the decks. Inside the changing rooms the players arrive in dribs and drabs. There isn’t a cell phone to be seen and the conversations aren’t about who posted what on Facebook. It is about drenches and balage, crutching and shearing - this is a farming rugby team. For the men of the Strath Taieri Rugby Football Club senior team it is the last practice session of the year. Hard-working farmers by day, passionate rugby players each Thursday night at practice and every winter weekend, these men work hard and play even harder. Hailing from the many sheep, cattle and dairy farms scattered around the middle reaches of the Taieri River, some are second-generation players at this morethan-100-year-old club.

A player from the 2000-2009 seniors, cocoach Paul Roy says it is always a struggle finding enough players each year for the team. Age, seasonal commitments on the farm and a transient working population make it difficult to know just who will show up. But this year Strath Taieri senior team have been lucky and have fielded a full team with reserves each game in the Otago Rugby Unions senior competition. “In the past we’ve often left Middlemarch with only 14 players aboard and rung ahead to see if anyone else can come along and play for us, it could be someone’s son at uni or a brother boarding at John McGlashan or Otago Boys. Somehow, we have always managed to play,” Paul says. “Rugby was almost a religion in small towns then but not so anymore as everyone has something else to do on the weekends.”

Family and farming commitments play a big part and compete for leisure time against rugby. The youngest player (16) isn’t training on Thursday night because he has to play for his school team on Saturday so will miss the club’s final game against Alhambra-Union. Many of the team work on nearby farms in the Middlemarch area, or up at the huge Rocklands station. A couple even travel the 78km from Mosgiel or Dunedin each Thursday night. Paul runs 8000 ewes on his family’s 1600-hectare farm at Moonlight Valley in nearby Macraes and started playing rugby at the club when he left school at 17, eventually playing until he was 33. Others like skipper Jim Stevenson run huge farms. He runs the Strathview station at nearby Hindon. A couple of his workers play alongside him as he helps guide the team forward in his first year as captain.

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“It is a great way to socialise on a Saturday afternoon,” added Paul. Jim agrees, and he’s been playing since he was five. “We have a great mix off all involved in the farming industry within the club, from owners to staff to rural suppliers.” After an hour training under lights at the Middlemarch domain the temperature dips below 1C and the team returns to the warm changing rooms where Paul and several other team supporters have the customary BBQ sizzling, churning out hot sausages and chops. “We always put on a feed for them as many have just finished on the farm and came here without dinner.” Bevan Dowling started playing back in 1976 and later ran out alongside his two sons who were also playing for the senior team at the time. “The club was a reason for the young blokes working on the farms to socialise, it was a reason to get out, somewhere to group together as mates as there wasn’t too many other sports to play in the small towns.” Bevan says. But he admits rugby is no longer the drawcard it was once. “A lot of young farmers with families have come into the region, they have family and farming commitments that impact on their time more,” Bevan says. Saturday rolls around and the team fronts up at Opoho in Dunedin for their final match of the season against Alhambra. They have lost more matches than they have won this year, so their low score means they will miss the play-offs for the senior trophy but that doesn’t seem to faze the team as they follow Jim out on the field in front of enthusiastic supporters. “We lost seven to eight of our senior players this year, they retired so we basically started with a whole new team this year. A Alhumbra-Union eventually triumph. It’s not the finish Strath Taieri hoped for but as they troop off the field there is talk about next season or is that someone looking for a hand moving a mob down the road?

Strath Taieri Rugby skipper Jim Stevenson leads the charge.

Harry Simpson and James Lindsay congratulate each other after the final whistle blows

Strath Taieri’s Semi Lacabuka touches down for the final try.

Solid as.

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HILL COUNTRY

Red and white clover give high octane lamb finishing

CUTTING-EDGE

Mower technology measures pasture Country-Wide

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2018

Crop & Forage

ANALYSIS

Finishing stock the low cost way

WEEDS

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INDUSTRY | FUTURISTIC

Vision of success needed The way farmers have always done things won’t necessarily work. Joanna Griggs reports on a discussion on the opportunities and challenges for hill-country farms.

ne could say the best option for farming hill country is to turn it 40 degrees to make it flat, pour water on it and grow

soya beans. This defeatist attitude wasn’t evident at the recent Farm Smart panel discussion on what hill country farming might look like in 2040. The Beef + Lamb NZ seminar featured a panel presentation from a farm systems scientist, an environmentalist and two hill country farmers. Chairman Richard Green, who had just been through the same process with arable farmers, laid down the challenge to picture what hillcountry farming would look like in 2040. “The arable guys were really excited by the end of the brainstorming because of the opportunities, but with bigger opportunities comes bigger risks,” he said. Green set the mood, saying the best way to predict your future was to create it yourself. Farmers shouldn’t fear the future but should set a crisp and clear vision of success, he said. There is close to 5.4 million hectares of land in New Zealand that is neither flat, high nor urban. This important bedrock of the economy typically earns $500 to $1000/hectare gross, he said. The panel didn’t touch on fencing, fertiliser, water or improved pastures and genetics as the road to financial success for hill country. This popular recipe has proved worthy in the previous 20 years. It would have been good to hear more about

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how better systems and technology in these areas can sharpen returns further. The panel took a wider view, however, honing in on how hill country farmers could present their products to consumers. For farming to be successful long-term, consumers need to be sold on the idea that the ‘pasture-style animal-rearing-onhills model’ is good for the environment, produces food consumers want and is good for NZ Inc.

“…with bigger opportunities comes bigger risks.” The panellists agreed that the future was ushering in tighter environmental limits, a demand for carbon-neutral systems and exponential change. Presenters talked about going beyond selling meat and wool; to sell the view, the carbon sink and totally different products yet to crystallise from science research. Ideas were floated such as the kauri/pine tree genetic mix for fast premium timber, and meat with certain attributes such as manuka-flavoured. Guy Salmon, environmentalist and executive director of Ecologic, began with what hill farmers should do to still be around in 2040. He said they should be more connected (farmers with urbanites), innovative (to farm within limits and make more money) and more accountable.

He suggested farmers take the initiative and offer to pay to offset emissions from the farm business. Methane would require short-term offsets, and carbon dioxide longer-term offsets, he said. As the transport sector became more efficient, agricultural emissions could account for more than 50% of the country’s emissions. Salmon said changing winter feeding practices was number one to make meat more environmentally appealing. “Issues are animals in mud that can’t happily lie down and urine deposited on wet soil.” The flip-side in being more accountable is that it creates a space to market products at a premium, if they are top standard. Be first, be premium, is the mantra. Robyn Dynes, AgResearch Science Impact Leader, Farm Systems and Environment, said scientists do provide science that farmers can then use. For example, UMF in honey was proven by science. Her picks are to see more diversity in forestry species for hills, the farming of indigenous hill plant species for speciality products, and income from wind farms. “Look at wool these last months. Who would have thought plastics were so outlawed? There is a future for wool around wool-based polymers that take the place of plastic.” The two big environmental issues to sort in her opinion were E coli and sediment in waterways. More on Farm Smart p75

About 90% of PGG Wrightson’s seed is in forage, including a range of brassica seed.

INDUSTRY | SEED

Merger not threatening WORDS: TIM FULTON

GG Wrightson and DLF Seeds are mirror images of each other in different hemispheres. Danish company DLF, one of the world’s 10 largest seed companies, wants to buy PGW Seeds for $421 million in a deal requiring approval from competition regulators and jointventure partners in New Zealand and overseas. PGW grain and seed general manager John McKenzie said the PGW seed business bred and sold forage and turf in similar climates at opposite ends of the globe. In the Southern Hemisphere PGG Wrightson had business interests and partnerships in a temperate band spanning South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. DLF had similar interests in temperate regions like southern France and the United Kingdom and was also a large breeder of cold-tolerant species and cultivars. More than 60% of DLF’s interests were probably in turf, from parks and reserves to small gardens, while PGG Wrightson was probably 90% forage, McKenzie said. The businesses were a match geographically and climatically, he said. “We’re a mirror image of each other in the worlds that we live in, without moving into each other’s worlds.” DLF Seeds chief executive Truels Damsgaard said it had long-viewed PGW Seeds as a strategic and complementary business. “We see PGW Seeds as the leading temperate forage seed player in the Southern Hemisphere, with DLF Seeds occupying a similar position in the Northern Hemisphere.”

The merger was a real opportunity for value-creation, he said. Barenbrug Agriseeds managing director, Michael Hales, said PGW was a strong competitor in the New Zealand ryegrass breeding and retail market. He did not envisage a lot of change under new ownership, nor did he believe a merger would reduce competitiveness in the local market. “The market is reasonably well spread in New Zealand. There is still competition.” Dutch-owned Barenbrug Agriseeds also produced clover, brassicas and fodderbeet and operated in similar Southern Hemisphere markets.

Industry people say the merger is not expected to make a noticeable immediate impact on the local market.

We’re a mirror image of each other in the worlds that we live in, without moving into each other’s worlds. Hales said regardless of the merger, his company had a continuing interest in being able to access a “broad base of technology”, including intellectual property for temperate grass-breeding. Under new ownership PGW and PGW Seeds would enter a long-term distribution agreement for seed and grain. PGW would grant a licence to PGW Seeds for the continued use of the PGG Wrightson Seeds brand. Federated Farmers arable chairwoman Karen Williams said farmers would hope for more from the merger companies than their commitment to maintaining “business as usual” after the deal. They

would want continued expansion and investment in plant breeding and technology so farmers had a variety of cropping options. Maintaining strong border security was also a focus as the seed trade became more globalised, she said. Grain and Seed Trade Association general manager Thomas Chin said both PGW and DLF had strong forage and ryegrass portfolios, particularly DLF in forage and PGW in grain. “DLF don’t have grain so that might work well with PGW.” Chin said while DLF was a large seed company, globally “everywhere we turn there’s changes afoot” in agri-food ownership with massive recent mergers like Monsanto with Bayer, Syngenta with Chinachem and Dupont with Dow Chemical. DLF buying PGW would probably be the biggest merger since PGG and Wrightson merged about 12 years ago, but it would not make a noticeable immediate impact on the local market, he said.

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INDUSTRY | ALTERNATIVE PROTEINS

Fake meat threatens beef WORDS: ANDREW SWALLOW

BRAND VALUES

ull beef and cull cow finishers beware: you could well be first to catch cold from alternative proteins. At the recent ProteinTech conference in Auckland, ASB rural economist Nathan Penny warned commodities that are easily replicated are the most vulnerable to such innovations, citing strong wool’s demise in the face of synthetic carpets as an example. “Manufacturing beef is one product that will be in the firing line fairly early in the development of alternative proteins,” he said, warning “history does repeat”. Market changes could happen “really quickly” when all the drivers line up, as they are for alternative proteins. Huge amounts of venture capital has poured into developing them, celebrities are endorsing and promoting them, they’re seen as good for the planet, and there’s no question of animal welfare issues.

‘All of New Zealand’s primary industries are at risk of disruption from these types of protein.’ Penny was one of 15 speakers at the conference which relayed a recurring theme: high-protein food alternatives to real meat and milk are a serious threat to our commodity markets and they’re falling in price and gaining market share all the time. Beef + Lamb NZ’s market innovation manager Lee-Ann Marsh said even since the levy body published its 140-page Future of Meat report in March there had been an “acceleration in the market” for alternative protein.

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Taste Pure Nature brand values: • In the natural foods business • Customer’s taste is king • It’s in our nature to innovate • We are genuine and open • Work with the rhythms of nature • Nurture happy, healthy animals • Work together for good.

“All of New Zealand’s primary industries are at risk of disruption from these types of protein,” she warned, rattling off a list of examples of companies with novel competitor products, including for byproducts such as leather and gelatine. But that didn’t mean NZ should “pack in animal farming”: there’s room for both plant and livestock systems and in the short to medium term demand for alternative protein “pales in significance to demand for red meat”. Working to ensure farm systems delivered on Taste Pure Nature’s seven brand values (see panel) with grass-fed and GMO, antibiotic, and hormone-free meat should be the sheep and beef sector’s response. “There are huge price premiums to be captured from them.” KPMG’s Julia Jones urged action, not words, in the face of the challenge, and to keep things simple. “We just need to act and get moving.” She also warned against relying too much on NZ’s “clean, green” reputation. “So what? So’s Canada, Switzerland, Sweden,” she said. Landcorp farming innovations manager, Paul McGill, put NZ’s beef production

in perspective: we produce about 1% of the world’s consumption. And while beef looks like the world’s worst food for area of land and water used and greenhouse gases Nathan Penny: Manufacturing beef in produced per tonne the firing line. of protein produced, switching to a plant-based diet was at the lower end of a list of personal choices affecting CO2 emissions. One flight from Auckland to San Francisco contributed double the CO2 that avoiding meat for a year could save. “We’ve got a really good story and I think it will shine through all of this.” Penny warned that even when research proves a competitor’s marketing pitch is flawed, as Lincoln’s Agricultural Economics Research Unit did with the UK’s food miles movement in the 2000s, market trends, in that case to buy local, could still win the day. “Science alone is not enough. You also need stories and to build brands around these stories and you need influencers.” Other speakers highlighted opportunities for NZ in the alternative protein market, such as Landcare Research’s Peter Buchanan, who suggested developing products from native fauna and flora could be a trump card. “Use that, and we’ve got a story to tell,” he enthused, suggesting fungi in particular held potential. Meanwhile, his colleague Graeme Anderson suggested huhu grubs could be farmed instead of collected, cutting time to harvest to under a year instead of two or three with the opportunity to manipulate flavour through feeding.

ANALYSIS | FINISHING

Using the low cost option WORDS: PETER ANDREW

pring is the money time for new season lambs as you have a mix of high metabolisable energy clover, new grass growth and ewes’ milk. Feed crops are powerful but why not go the high clover pasture way. Maybe post-wean feed crops are the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff for those breeding flocks who struggle to successfully grow out their lambs on mum. They could also have a district with a less-favourable pasture growth curve than we enjoy in the Gisborne and Wairoa regions. Most of my top farmers do very well at finishing lambs on hill country. The reality is we don’t really have too many flats and often there are lots of other high-priority classes lining up to use them. Getting lambs to achieve that higher lamb growth rate can, however, be quite challenging. It does not just happen and takes a lot of planning and high-level grazing management to get the correct mix of pasture quantity and quality. But that is what top farming is all about? Successful hill country lamb finishing starts just after conception and the important finishing decisions happen about three months before the lamb is even born. It all starts with ewe condition and feed levels in winter.

Cost of Taking a Lamb through Summer and Autumn Cost Store Lamb Value

December

Months to Sale

Dec - May

Losses

per annum

9.6% $

3.60

Interest

Rate

5.5% $

2.06

Rate 4 $ 0.50 $

2.00

2 $

0.80 $

1.60

9.26

Animal Health Drenches Dips Total Cost per head

Plus Labour and Feed crops The lamb losses are based on farmer comment of .8 of a lamb dieing dying out of 100 during this tough summer autumn period A fast-growing lamb is an efficient lamb, we don’t get paid much for maintenance. We still spend too much time in New Zealand feeding grass for maintenance in our young stock rather than grass for

growth. Ewes’ milk has ME of 12 plus, it doesn’t really get any better and are we making the most of the ewe’s milk? High lamb lambing percentages are not in conflict with lamb wean weight as the

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Successful hill country lamb finishing starts just after conception.

October to the end of weaning in January is the golden time for efficient lamb finishing, with the preference for most of the lambs to be sold fat off mother. same drivers for lamb survival also drive lactation. As the lambing percentages have increased, the lamb weaning weights have been holding or even going up. October to the end of weaning in January is the golden time for efficient lamb finishing, with the preference for most of the lambs to be sold fat off mother. There is also of course the poor lamb health potentially impacting on the growth rate, but as we all know a well-fed lamb is a healthy lamb. How do we get more clover on our pastures, the first step is getting healthy inputs of phosphate and sulphur. Good grazing promotes clovers, but not overgrazing.

POST-WEAN BLUES The dressing out percent drops as the lamb goes past weaning which is a step backwards for lamb carcase weights. This is where your forage crops kicks into action to save the day. In this district an appropriate comment from a farmer was that “over summer lambs are wandering around looking for a place to die”. There is also financial cost of taking a

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lamb through the summer and into the autumn. I calculate it costs a total of $9.26 per head, which covers costs such as stock losses, interest and animal health cost to take a lamb for the five months through to May. This excludes some of the highcost areas such as labour and feed crops so selling late must be at a premium. Clovers are really nature’s answer to providing a feed crop. Why not spend your money trying to encourage the clover rather than growing a feed crop? Farmers are spending thousands of dollars putting in a feed crop, whilst in spring there are significant parts of the farm that are deficient in nitrogen. Using a scenario with a typical farmer. a 10-hectare paddock costs $1000/ha to establish in a typical feed crop and sow back down in a pasture mix. This $10,000 could be transformed into spring boosted pastures through the use of nitrogen. Urea could have an applied cost of say $640/tonne. Therefore, the farmer can apply 15.6t of urea. At a rate of 100kg urea/ha and using a conservative response rate of 10 to 1 the farmer can lift covers by 460kg drymatter (DM) over the 156ha. This could have a huge impact on your lambing platform

of twins and triplets. Generally these are stocked in this district at 5.5/ha. This provides an extra .9kg of DM per ewe per day for the 90 days of lambing/ lactation. A huge impact and potentially negates the need for a feed crop post weaning. Spring nitrogen can be a critical tool to make the covers happen if the winter pasture growth does not go to plan and pasture quantity is at risk. Chemical topping can be a subtle tool to check grass growth from losing quality as it moves through to that reproductive phase. The result is a longer clover season for achieving lamb growth. At under $50 per hectare for the chopper and chemical it is a low-cost initiative that seldom disappoints. Its cost can often be recovered by the saving cow lives and production. Getting lambs to grow fast on mum in spring is a missed opportunity on many of our hill country properties as I see huge variation between best practice, the average farmer and especially the lower quartile. The great thing about finishing lambs off hills is often the lowest-cost option. Some of our highest surplus per hectare farmers in recent years have been low-cost operators. Successful lamb finishing doesn’t just happen it takes a lot of planning and preparation.

Peter Andrew is an AgFirst farm consultant based in Gisborne.

SOIL | ORGANIC MATTER

Pastoral ag not under threat

Studies on soil organic matter in New Zealand pastoral agriculture are conflicting but there is plenty to go around. Terry Brosnahan reports.

here is no need to panic over soil organic matter depletion in New Zealand and its impact on pastoral agriculture. That’s the view of top soil scientist Dr Doug Edmeades commenting on concerns about the loss of soil organic matter (humus). A study showed humus is decreasing at the rate of 1% a year. Possible causes have included intensification and improved pasture varieties which reduce litter quality. Edmeades says even if the 1% figure is correct, NZ soils contain large amounts of humus. “Pastoral agriculture in NZ is not on the verge of collapse.” Humus improves soil structure, water holding capacity, the storage of nutrients and give better heat absorption. It is also the home and food for the myriad of soil micro and macro organisms from earthworms and insects down to bacteria and fungi, to the tiniest protozoa. Edmeades says NZ has well-developed soils which have large amounts of organic matter. This is a consequence of the temperate climate, and clover-based, grazed pastoral system. Humus is the breakdown-products of plant and animal (dung) material returned to the soil. The fresh plant material and dung returned to the soil is food (energy) for soil bugs who get to work in a sort of chain gang and break this material into increasingly smaller and more stable units. They are then often joined together (polymerised) into stable large complex organic substances. Humus is dark coloured. As a general rule the darker the colour and the deeper it extends into the topsoil, the better the soil. It is this colour which enhances heat absorption. In a NZ grazed, clover-based pasture,

carbon, which is the major component of humus, comes into the system from the atmosphere, as carbon dioxide, via the plant (photosynthesis). Some of this goes into the soil as plant residues, from tops and roots, and some via the dung. Edmeades says the amount of carbon added from these sources is 1-3 tonnes/ha/ year. Losses occur from the animal because it breaths out carbon dioxide (respiration) and belches methane, and from the soil via the oxidation of organic matter. “If the sum of the inputs is greater than the sum of the outputs then carbon and hence organic matter is accumulating in the soil.”

‘If the sum of the inputs is greater than the sum of the outputs then carbon and hence organic matter is accumulating in the soil.’

Several studies in the 1950s and 60s showed humus accumulated (inputs are greater than outputs) following pasture improvement, i.e. clover, fertiliser and animal, he says. This accumulation continues for about 20-50 years and then reaches a steady state (inputs = outputs). The time required to reach this steady state and the amount of humus present, depended on the climate and the soil group. Generally, the wetter and warmer the environment the more humus. Edmeades says the management recipe is simple. Clover which adds N, fertiliser (especially PKS to maximise clover growth) and the animal, to do the recycling), plus time, equals more humus. He says cropping exploits humus

(outputs are greater than inputs) and this is especially so when the crop residues are removed. In terms of humus management, farmers should not crop if they can help it. If they need to, there should be a good rotation from clover-based grazed pasture to crop and then back again. Green manuring or heaps of compost are also helpful. “Civilisations have failed by not following this simple rule.” More recent studies suggest the understanding of humus accumulation needs to be modified slightly. Tate (1997) compared the humus contents of 43 topsoils sampled first in the 1960s and again in 1992. He concluded that there was no change over this period. This is consistent with the idea that the soils were at a steady state with respect to SOM accumulation. In contrast, Schipper (2007) reported an average decline of about 1% or 1 tonne OM/ha) in 37 sites over about 20 years. Other researchers’ results indicate humus can be reduced by land-use intensification and changes in litter quality returned to the soil. Improved pasture utilisation, a higher stocking rate and irrigation reduce the proportion of plant material (litter) being returned to the soil. This results in the steady state humus being reduced. Newer management practices along with new pasture cultivars and use of fertiliser N has affected litter quality. They have led to a change in the chemical composition of the litter returning to the soil allowing it to be more readily broken down and hence less is conserved in the humus pool. Edmeades says in the scientific sense, the possibility that modern management practices are depleting humus levels is somewhat speculative. It is an emerging issue and more science is required.

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SOIL | FERTILITY

Optimal soil test levels Agricultural scientists conduct thousands of field experiments at a wide variety of locations.

WORDS: ROBERT MCBRIDE

ith soil tests the lab will typically include an ‘optimal’ range, and the results will usually be plotted on charts with ‘low’, ‘medium,’ and ‘high’ categories. Often the optimal range will vary from lab to lab and even from year to year, with dairy farms typically being given higher optimal ranges for some nutrients than sheep and beef farms. These inconsistencies beg the question, ‘how exactly are the optimal ranges determined?’ As might be expected the background information comes from research data. Agricultural scientists in New Zealand conducted thousands of field experiments at a wide variety of locations over many years. The basic procedure involved the measurement of pasture yields at different soil levels of each nutrient. The data was then plotted with pasture yield on one axis, and soil nutrient level on the other, and a curve mathematically fitted to the data points. This ‘response curve’ could then be used to predict pasture yield based on soil nutrient levels. That is if a soil test result comes back low on the curve, yield is expected to be correspondingly low. Conversely high soil nutrient levels correlate to high yields. As a management tool the response curves are primarily used to determine at what level a given nutrient will not be limiting production, and to keep nutrients above this critical level so that there are no nutrient restrictions on pasture growth. Assuming everyone is using the same response curves, why then are different

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‘optimal’ levels seen on soil tests? There are several reasons:

Variability

Response curves are effectively an average of many data points, some of which were above the curve and some below the curve. The correlation between soil test levels and yield then is not perfect. Some soils will yield higher, and some lower for a given test level. The amount of variability depends on the nutrient being measured; potassium (K) for example has a great deal of variability in the data. There are situations where a soil with a quick test of 6 does not respond to K fertiliser, while other soils with a quick test of 6 do respond to K fertilisation. Some authorities conclude then that a quick test of 6, or possibly even 5, is adequate because at this level there might not be a yield response. Others will argue a quick test of 7 is the top of the curve because this is the level where it becomes extremely unlikely that there will be a yield response to K fertilisation.

Economics

The top of the response curve for phosphorus (P) is somewhere around an Olsen P of 80. Due to the high cost of P, the expense of raising P to this level will cost far more than will be realised from the small increase in production at the top of the curve. Therefore P recommendations are typically based on the economic optimal rather than the biological optimal, and this calculation can vary considerably. The objective is to raise and maintain soil P levels such that profitability is maximised rather than production. This is the reason dairy farms have higher optimal P recommendations than sheep farms; dairy farms typically

generate more income per ha, and because of this the economic optimal is further up the response curve.

Marketing

Sales people appear to ignore the response curves entirely and advise farmers to buy the products they want to sell. The most commonly encountered example would be ignoring very low soil K levels because “it doesn’t pay,” while pushing P and nitrogen products (primarily DAP and urea to make up for the lack of clover). Calcium products are often advised despite the fact that none is needed and a great deal is already going on with superphosphate and lime. The ‘alternative’ product sales people take great pride in rejecting science altogether, so one would not expect their recommendations to be based on response curves. It seems unlikely that all the laboratories, consultants and sales people who give fertiliser advice will ever agree on what is ‘optimal’ even though they are all working from the same response curves (or should be). What farmers can do is look at their soil test data themselves and see if the advice they are getting makes sense. If the quick test K levels have been averaging 4 and no K is being recommended there is obviously a problem. Better still, look at the pastures, and particularly the clover content of the pastures. Do they look green and vigorous? If there is a nutrient limitation, clover will be the first thing to go. The interpretation of response curves and fertiliser advice can be judged accordingly.

Dr Robert McBride is an independent soil scientist and consultant with agKnowledge.

FORAGE | AGRONOMY

Clean green beet gives best return WORDS:ANDREW SWALLOW

eep fodder beet clean and green to maximise margins, farmers and agronomists heard at a series of field days this winter, but that doesn’t mean using more nitrogen. Plant and Food Research ran workshops in Waikato, Wanganui, Canterbury and Southland in July, relaying findings from the first two years of a three-year MPI Sustainable Farming Fund project - Fodder Beet Agronomic Solutions. “That’s the key driver for getting the potential yield you are after,” Plant and Food’s Shane Maley told an audience in South Canterbury, showing contrasting

BEST BEET TIPS • Avoid marginal sites. • Use insecticide coated seed. • Prevent virus with insecticide in post-em herbicide(s). • Don’t delay herbicides: apply before weeds get true leaves. • No yield response to potash fertiliser - but consider crop offtake and following crop needs.

images of trial crops at Orari and Southbridge in Canterbury from 2016-17. The Orari crop held its canopy to yield 33 tonnes/hectare while the Southbridge one went yellow and lost its leaf between February and May, producing only 25t/ha. Disease, not nitrogen, made the difference. In the trials, nowhere was there a significant yield benefit to applying more than 100kg/ha of nitrogen, although higher rates did result in higher crop crude protein (ie nitrogen) percentages. That could be considered desirable, given beet’s low protein content, but FAR’s Ivan Lawrie said manipulating the diet in other ways would be a better approach to meeting livestock’s nutritional needs. “A high carbohydrate to nitrogen ratio is desirable from an environmental point of view,” he said It was also noted drymatter content declined with an increased nitrogen rate, from 19% drymatter in the no-nitrogen control, to about 15% at 300kg N/ha. Similar effects on drymatter content had been observed in kale for years, Maley said. Ravensdown agronomist Chris Lowe added applying late nitrogen would “just encourage more top”, which could be to the detriment of overall yield because energy went into producing new leaves

instead of storing it as carbohydrate in the bulb. “If you haven’t protected the leaves from disease coming in they’re just going to die anyway,” he later said. Having worked with sugar beet in the United Kingdom for years, he’s now applying his knowledge to New Zealand feed crops. Establishing an adequate plant count at the outset is the first key step, which means using insecticide-treated seed. “I generally recommend 90,000 to 100,000 seeds, depending on seed-bed conditions.” Seed treatment protection runs out after about four weeks so he recommends including an insecticide in second and/ or third herbicide applications to prevent early aphid infestation, and virus infection. Failure to do that is why many growers are seeing so much yellowing in their crops later in the season, he believes. “Try to use something that won’t kill the ladybirds. You might have to go off-label.” Globally, resistance to organophosphate and synthetic pyrethroid insecticides is a growing problem and another good reason for choosing a selective, predator-friendly product, he adds. Indeed, finding ladybirds in the crop

• No yield response to nitrogen >100kgN/ha.

Left: Keep fodder beet clean and green rather than using more nitrogen is the best way to maximise margins. Right: Spot the difference: a high nitrogen plot stands out in the South Canterbury trial, but yield responses weren’t significant above 100kg N/ha.

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September 2018

can often be the first sign of an aphid problem and there’s a need for an aphid monitoring programme in key growing areas in spring, not to mention an update on resistance status. “As an industry we need more information on when, where and what type of aphids are flying.” By the time the crop is 10-12 weeks old leaves are leathery enough that aphids won’t feed on them, so there’s less need for insecticide. “New leaves can still be infected as they emerge but often you will find the aphid pressure is less later in the growing season as natural predator numbers have built up and there are other crops nearby that are more attractive, such as brassicas.” In Canterbury, Lowe says sowing can start mid-September, provided soils are warm and the forecast is good. “The crucial bit is a soil temperature consistently at five degrees and rising.” Weed control should start with a robust pre-emergence and prompt followup post-emergence sprays before weeds get their true leaves, using a combination of residual and contact herbicides each time. “You’ve just got to get on with it. There’s no real excuse for weeds in the crop.” Similarly, nitrogen fertiliser should be applied earlier rather than later to speed canopy development and subsequent yield accumulation. “Nitrogen is for driving canopy expansion: fungicides are for maintaining canopy.”

Water if you can Irrigation early in the crop’s development is usually unnecessary, Lowe says. However, if water’s available, avoiding the leaf wilting that can occur in hot weather from December onwards is advisable as even if the canopy recovers that temporary loss of turgidity can aid disease ingress. Lowe advocates two applications of fungicide, the first at canopy closure and another three to four weeks later. Waiting to see if any disease develops risks disaster as activity is protective rather than curative. “You don’t want the leaves dying because the plants then put energy into growing new leaves as opposed to bulb.” The SFF work included demonstration plots treated with nil, one or two applications of a trifloxystrobin plus cyproconazole formulation, but because the plots weren’t replicated and were surrounded by fungicide-treated crops which would likely have reduced disease inoculum, no conclusions could be drawn, PFR’s John de Ruiter said. Replicated fungicide trials are planned for the coming season. At the South Canterbury meeting Maley said more than 70,000ha/year of beet is grown in NZ now but, in the South Island at least, Lowe believes the area has plateaued. Some growers have tried it and, for various reasons, gone back to alternatives. He said in more marginal sites lower cost options such as forage rape or kale are a better bet.

POTASH RATE RETHINK Potash fertiliser rates for fodder beet could be slashed without reducing yield, judging by results from three sites in the Sustainable Farming Fund trials (see main story). However, while there was no yield benefit from potash fertiliser, even on sites with low soil reserves, those involved in the trial stopped short of concluding it could be cut completely. “You probably need to apply some potash for the crop to achieve these drymatter levels,” Plant & Food Research’s Emmanuel Chakwizira told a results meeting near the South Canterbury trial site in July. He also noted there was no difference in crop uptake of the nutrient at different fertiliser rates, with an average 506kg/ha taken up. Crop uptake of potash did reflect different soil total bulk potassium (TBK) levels at other sites in the trials, close to a tonne of potash/ha being taken up by trials in Waikato, from a soil with a TBK of 4.3, down to about 250kgK/ha near Gore, Southland where the TBK was 0.9. But even at the Gore site, there was still no effect of potash fertiliser on yield. “The crop can access the soil potash pool despite low Quick Test values,” Chakwizira said. The high uptake figures shouldn’t be a problem if the crop is fed in situ as most would be returned to the paddock in dung and urine, but when lifted and used elsewhere nutrient off-take could cause problems for following crops due to depletion of soil reserves, he suggested. “We need a better handle on TBK [Total Bulk Potassium] than the Quick Test gives us.”

$400/HA IN FERT SAVINGS? In a preliminary economic analysis of the SFF work, Plant and Food Research’s project leader John de Ruiter suggested $400/ha could be saved in some situations by reining back nitrogen and potash fertiliser inputs in line with the project’s findings. As a general rule, beet should produce 20t DM/ha or more with input costs of 15c/kg DM or less. Further work on the project’s findings and potential for savings is needed so fertiliser management recommendations can be made with whole farm system factors and outcomes in mind.

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September 2018

FORAGE | PLANTAIN

Herb a tonic for east coast farms WORDS: JOANNA CUTTANCE

well-managed plantain crop can boost farm profits. This was the result of the Future Forage Systems project 20112017. The project collected onfarm data on plantain yield and animal performance across six farms on the east coast of the North Island. The data was then used to model these species within an East Coast farming system. Plantain is a high-performing forage crop which typically lasted two or three years. It was best sown with annual clovers, for example Persian clover and balansa clover at 3kg/ha each, along with white and red clover. Best practice was to spray out grasses and weeds post-establishment. Plantain was less drought-tolerant than some other crops. Correct grazing management and choosing the right cultivar was critical. Grazing early or overgrazing reduced persistence. Rotational grazing with a minimum of four paddocks, worked best. For the study the winter active Tonic plantain was used. A Farmax model was developed for a typical summer dry hill block. The hypothetical farm was 495ha, 50ha flat and used for silage and/or winter crop. Average drymatter (DM) produced from the flats was 9372kg DM/ha. The farm carried 2800 breeding ewes and 860 hoggets. No hoggets were mated. Only 8% of lambs were drafted at weaning and the remaining lambs finished through

Tip toe through the plantain: Plantain is expensive to establish and maintain so the highest returning class of stock need to graze it. Ewe weight gains during lactation on pasture and plantain

Pasture (kg)

Plantain (kg)

Advantage to Plantain

Ewes (4 trials)

67.6

76.0

+8.4

Hoggets (3 trials)

57.1

61.8

+4.7

Overall

64.5

71.7

+7.2 kg

Pasture (g/d)

Plantain (g/d)

Advantage to Plantain

Lambs on ewes (8 trials)

289

341

+18%

Lambs on hoggets (3 trials)

229

280

+22%

Overall

272

324

+19% (+52 g/d)

Lamb growth rates on pasture and plantain

summer at average carcass weights of 16.1kg. Cattle make up 40% of the stock units with 90 breeding cows and steers finished at 2.5-3 years, 108 weaner bulls were purchased in summer and autumn and sold at 2.5yrs. The base model showed a gross margin of $360,266 or $728/ha.

The Farmax model was run with two 50ha flat block plantain models with either a two or three-year plantain system. In each case, plantain was followed by an annual ryegrass then a summer brassica crop prior to autumn sowing of plantain. The two-year system had 33.4ha in

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Assumptions Ewe liveweight (kg) Ewes mated Hoggets mated

Base model

2 yr plantain

2800

2600

440

123%

135%

37%

Number of lambs sold

2,585

3,017

Average lamb carcass weight (kg)

16.1

19.0

Lambing % Lambs drafted FOM at weaning

plantain and 16.7ha in annual ryegrass/summer brassica. The three-year system had 37.5ha in plantain and 12.5ha in annual ryegrass/brassica. Sowing early optimised the spring yield from high-octane plantain and annual clovers. Extra fertiliser, weed and pest control were fully costed. Plantain was only grazed by sheep. The higher DM production, better animal performance and better DO% combined to increase gross margins across the whole farm by $200/ha for both two and three-year-old plantain. This added $100,000 to the bottom line. One-year ewes with lambs were stocked on plantain between docking and weaning. Lambs grew 18% faster on plantain preweaning and had a 2.3% higher dressing out percentage. Lambs not drafted off the ewes were placed back on plantain after weaning and grew 21% faster than lambs in the base model. The extra feed available

from plantain meant the 50ha cultivatable block became a force multiplier for the rest of the farm. More feed was available to other ewes and their liveweights increased from 60kg to 68kg over time. Lambing percentage increased from 123% in the base model to 135% in the plantain model. The key strength of plantain was its superior animal performance and ability to grow in winter warms areas and in spring. Plantain was expensive to establish and maintain so needed to be grazed with the highest returning class of stock. Successful plantain management required a change in thinking and specialised management around establishment, weed and pest control and stock management. More detailed information on establishment, management and weed control is available as fact sheets which can be downloaded from www.nzforagesystems.co.nz

KEY QUESTIONS ASK YOURSELF • What do I want to achieve and how does it fit with my system? • Plantain will deliver better winter/spring growth and better animal performance, enabling more lambs to be drafted off early. • Does my soil type suit? Plantain would not last on heavy clay soils. If there were rushes growing, plantain would struggle. Plantain was suited to summer dry areas with winter growth potential but a winter-active cultivar must be chosen. • Am I prepared to change my management? • Plantain did not tolerate set stocking well. Best practice was rotational grazing and stands needed to be maintained at high grazing residuals otherwise stand life was shortened. Weeds and pests needed to be treated quickly. Vigilance in management was key to success.

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Everyone happy? Data on plantain yield and animal performance was collected for the study. Financial results (status quo)

Base model ($)

2 yr plantain ($)

Sheep (Sales - purchasers)

232,347

352,682

Wool

70,285

64,434

Beef (Sales - purchases)

212,860

Total revenue

515,492

629,977

Conservation

6,000

Forage crops

9,619

16,515

Establishment/spray etc

22,249

Extra fertiliser

1,040

Re-grassing

4,800

Nitrogen

12,281

13,634

Total crop, feed, N & extra fertiliser

32,700

53,438

Stock costs - animal health

24,419

22,925

33,043

27,941

Interest on capital (livestock & feed)

- shearing

77,414

77,539

Total variable expenses

167,576

181,843

Gross margin

347,916

448,134

703

905

Gross margin per ha

RESULTS: • Plantain produced +42%, +16% and -9% of resident pasture drymatter in Years 1, 2 and 3. • More stock drafted before summer, with 37% of lambs off the ewes. • Cull ewes slaughtered in November at heavier carcase weights (+$36/head). • Lactating ewes 8kg heavier at weaning • Ewe lambs heavier at weaning which allowed some hogget mating. • Combination of heavier ewes, higher lambing percentage and hogget mating meant more lambs for sale. • The plantain model was a status quo situation - not what can be achieved in Year 1. In any one year, the extra feed from plantain results in earlier slaughter and therefore more feed available for stock remaining on the farm. Rather than be used for a “lamb trade” the extra feed is used to feed the ewes better. 59

FORAGE | MANAGEMENT

Top winter feed crop tips

Always do a yield assessment and get a drymatter sample sent away for analysis before grazing the crop.

WORDS: CHEYENNE NICHOLSON

lan early – get crops planted in good time to ensure good yield and especially sustained soil stability on hill country. Identify risks – insect pressure, weed pressure, fertility and drainage. Look at legumes – rate your hill country sward and identify weaknesses and potential economic gains from simple pasture improvement. (annual clovers). Match your requirement to the correct forage – the objective of the winter crop will largely influence what crop you sow. For fodder beet, early application of nitrogen three weeks before row closer, to improve leaf size for early bulb development. Soil test selected paddocks a minimum of 6-8 weeks before sowing, ideally the previous autumn, so major nutrient deficiencies can be corrected before drilling. A poor-performing pasture will produce a poor brassica crop unless the underlying issues are corrected. If establishing with conventional drilling, ensure seed is drilled into the firm, fine and moist seed bed followed by rolling to promote a rapid establishment. If direct drilling, a double spray-out with glyphosate along with insecticide and slug bait at sowing is recommended. Select a cultivar with proven performance and match the crop to the stock class you intend on grazing the crop with. Doing so will maximise utilisation and animal performance. For example, if

selecting a kale for sheep choose a medium type such as Kestrel, which will have a shorter, more digestible stem and a higher leaf to stem ratio. For multi-graze summer brassicas (eg. rape, raphno or leafy turnip), ensure paddocks are shut up early enough in the autumn to capture heat units going into the winter. The same applies with planting dates for autumn-sown brassica – earlier is better to maximise yield.

and maximise utilisation and animal performance while minimising the risk of animal health issues. Apply nitrogen in autumn to support growth going into winter. Rates will depend on your environment and growing conditions but aim to apply enough to support growth but not so much as to increase the risk of nitrates. Ask your local fertiliser representative for advice on rates.

Winter crops such as kale and swedes are usually sown later in spring than summer crops, and with warmer temperatures comes more insect pressure. Winter crops such as kale and swedes are usually sown later in spring than summer crops, and with warmer temperatures comes more insect pressure. Use seed treatment such as Ultrastrike to protect the establishing crops for the first 4-6 weeks from pests such as springtails, aphids, Argentine stem weevil and Nysius. Ultrastrike-treated seed will also provide establishment protection from diseases such as Fusarium, Pythium and Rhizoctonia solani which cause issues such as damping off. It is a cost-effective way to ensure your crop gets a great start. Always do a yield assessment and get a dry matter sample sent away for analysis before grazing the crop. Knowing exactly how much crop you have grown will help you to feed budget accordingly

Graze paddocks strategically – on a sloping paddock, fence across the slope and start grazing at the top. That way, the standing crop acts as a filter. Back-fence to reduce pugging damage and reduce runoff risk Make breaks long and narrow. Research shows the crop will be utilised more efficiently by cattle. Plant a catch crop. Where soil conditions and farm management allow, consider planting a fast-growing crop in spring such as greenfeed oats. It can make a big difference to reducing nitrogen loss. Consider sediment and nutrient loss: strategic grazing management needed to reduce soil and nutrient loss and minimise impacts on waterways – research is ongoing in this area.

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September 2018

FORAGE | FODDER BEET

Beware of hidden costs

Jim Gibbs offers advice to farmers on designing better beet systems – before they plant anything.

est practice design reduces cost, reduces risk (both stock damage and of failing performance targets), reduces animal hassles, and reduces

labour. First, good agronomy always pays for itself – a big, leafy crop makes beet grazing easy. If you aren’t getting this, and you’re paying more than 15c/kg drymatter, or more than $2700/ha in total, make no more excuses – get a new agronomist today. Beet is a specialist crop, and there are specialist beet agronomists, in every climate, who can and do achieve this year after year. Your base target should be 25t DM/ha at less than 10c. There are new developments in row spacings, single active herbicides and fertiliser inputs and timing. Don’t settle for less than is out there right now. Poor, bare crops have less protein and phosphorous, are less palatable, and more expensive to grow and supplement. They raise cost, risk and stock incidents, and make life hard for staff forcing stock on to them. Just don’t go there again – act today before you buy or sow anything.

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Next, pick a cultivar that suits your stock class. Dairy cows can and will eat any cultivar well, but deeper, higher DM types will leave more in the ground, even if you don’t see it (go and assess your paddocks in the drill rows with a shovel to find out). So there are pros and cons. Beef weaners, R1 dairy replacements and sheep are far more sensitive to cultivar, by both taste (not DM%), and by depth in the ground. In my experience, Brigadier is the cultivar with highest liveweight and condition score gains, because it is palatable, leafy and easily knocked over, and it is by far the lowest risk choice (not achieving intakes or not taking to it). While some other cultivars can be half-pie used for these stock, there are numerous mid and high DM cultivars that are sometimes poorly palatable, have low leaf and have been demonstrated to reduce intake (= profit). Arguably, this is the most common mistake beef and sheep beet systems make today. Next, the lowest cost systems for maximum gain and profit use grazed supplements – all season is best, otherwise just in transition. Pasture or grazed oats

drives higher liveweight gains in beef and sheep, and increases both protein and mineral intakes. The best systems have pasture one side, beet the other. Operators simply move two lines a day - no tractors, bales or staff time. Wherever possible, change things and plan for this. While it requires another paddock, the feed cost is typically less than 10c/ kg DM, and silage/hay/straw is always more than 25c. In addition, strip grazing enables uniform access to supplements, which drives consistency and therefore performance - bale feeders, no matter what you have in them, never compete for this reason. For R1 beef, dairy and sheep, it is rare to achieve top-shelf results without this. Don’t put out bale feeders then whinge about getting 700g/day in your beef R1 – do whatever you need to change things. Dairy cows are less needy of this because less performance is expected of them, and the effect of bale feeders is simply to increase the supplement used (therefore your costs) because you can’t operate a 2.5kg DM/day supplement system with cows crowding a bale feeder – some get lots, some get none, and performance falls either way. But beware of the cost when increasing supplement inputs: for 1000 wintering cows, the result of moving from 2.5 to 4.5kg DM grass silage fed daily is lower ME intake and BCS gain with an extra $700/day cost – that’s more than $45,000 wasted, or a new Ranger ute each year. If grazing supplements is truly not possible - common enough in dairy wintering – try instead for feeding straw/ silage behind a wire rather than bales. Previous columns have discussed some innovative approaches to this to save money, utilisation and staff time. Finally, set the system up with space where it is needed – for stock, and for staff. This means one metre per animal on the beet face and the same for supplement, and always start grazing beet paddocks with a 6-10m headland. If you’re concerned at wasting space, plant the paddocks, then lift headlands with a beet bucket. Think about moving stock on and off during transition and choose paddocks in rotation to suit stock and staff, not the agronomist.

Jim Gibbs is a senior lecturer in livestock health and production at Lincoln University.

BRASSICA AND FODDER BEET GUIDE Cultivar

Agricom – Brassica Ceres Hunter forage brassica Ceres New York turnip

Sowing rate (kg/ha)

Days to grazing

Average yield – tonne (t) or metric tonne (MT) of DM/ha

42-56 (midspring sowing)

10-12t

Early maturing from spring sowing. Excellent quality, fast recovery from grazing with excellent subsequent yields. Strong plant survival from multiple grazings. Medium-maturity turnip. Excellent yield potential with improved leaf-to-bulb ratio. Fullleaved variety. Improved turnip mosaic virus tolerance.

56-70 (early autumn sowing)

Comments

1.5-3 (late October to early November sown)

112

8-12t

1-2 (January to February sown)

126-140

6-8t

1.5 - 3

84-98

8-12t

Early maturing diploid summer turnip. Excellent leaf production and leaf holding. Tankard bulb with high proportion above ground.

98-112 (late October sown)

14-15t

126-168 (Nov-Dec sown)

10-14t

Medium-tall kale with excellent yield potential. Late flowering variety that maintains leafy crops into early September. Relatively thin stemmed with good leaf to stem ratio.

98-126 (Jan-Feb sown)

8-10t

0.5 in 60cm ridges, 1.0 in 20cm rows, 1.5 broadcast

168-210

10-14t

3-4 alone, 3 with herbs and clover, 1-2 with short-term ryegrass (mid-October, early November sown

91-98

First grazing 6-9t, total 1113t (depending on number of grazings)

3-4 alone, 2 with short-term ryegrass (mid-October, early November sown)

6-9t

Triumph swede

0.5 in 60cm ridges, 1.0 in 20cm rows, 1.5 broadcast

168-210

12-14t

Very high yielding, yellow fleshed, first crop swede. High dry rot tolerance and suitable for all stock.

SovGold Kale

98-112 (late October sown)

14-15t

126-168 (Nov- Dec sown)

10-14t

Modern New Zealand bred intermediate height kale with very high total leaf yield, and high total yield for an intermediate kale. Late flowering variety that maintains left into September.

98-126 (Jan Feb sown)

8-10t

70-84

10-12t

Ceres Rival turnip Ceres Sovereign kale

Domain swede Spitfire forage rape

Mainstar forage rape

3-4 alone, 2.5-3 with herbs and clovers (mid-October - early November sown) 3-4 alone, 1-2 with short-term ryegrass (February to March sown)

5-8t

Early maturity, yellow-fleshed, first crop. Dry rot tolerant. Palatable for stock. Very good table swede. Multi-purpose, high yielding, intermediateheight rape with low stem drymatter percentage. Suitable for summer, autumn and early winter feeding. Excellent aphid tolerance.

Versatile, early maturity with excellent regrowth, frost tolerant, good aphid tolerance. Ideal for mixing with short-term ryegrass, herbs and clovers. Fast recovery from grazing with excellent subsequent yields.

Barenbrug Agriseeds – Brassica Caledonian kale

4-5

150-220

15-20t

Medium-tall, high-yielding kale with softer stems. Better animal performance over older tall cultivars.

Dynamo

2-3

60-90

10-16t

High yielding, high ME and protein summer crop. Large volumes, low-cost.

90-110

9-10t

Tall, fast-establishing rape, suitable for summer, autumn, winter feed. High yielding, high nutritive value for all stock.

0.5-0.8 ridged, 0.8-1.5 drilled

170-250

12-18t

Late maturing, yellow fleshed with high bulb and leaf yields. Holds quality well into spring.

Interval rape Invitation swede

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September 2018

Cultivar

Sowing rate (kg/ha)

Cropmark – Brassica Coleor kale 4-5 Marco turnip

Days to grazing

Average yield – tonne (t) or metric tonne (MT) of DM/ha

Comments

150-180

12-16t

Medium height, very leafy kale (>50% leaf).

55-65

10-16t

Very early maturing tetraploid summer turnip with large bulb.

Pillar rape

4-5

90-110

8-12t

An new fast establishing, high yielding, multigraze giant-type forage rape.

Proteor kale

4-5

150-180

12-16t

High yielding, intermediate-height kale with palatable stems.

PGG Wrightson Seeds – Brassica Gruner kale 4

150-220

15-17t

Giant type. Very high yielding. Excellent tolerance to frost.

50+

12-18t

High yielding multi-graze brassica crop with excellent drought, aphid and club root tolerance. Pallaton Raphno is a new brassica hybrid between kale and radish.

Kestrel kale

3-4

150-220

12-14t

Medium height. Bred for low SMCO levels. Good regrowth if lightly grazed during the summer.

Cleancrop Firefly kale

150-220

14-16t

High yielding intermediate height kale with a high leaf percentage. Excellent crop utilisation due to selection for soft stems.

Regal kale

150-220

14-16t

Very high yield. Intermediate height. High leaf-to-stem ratio.

Corsa kale

150-220

15-17t

Very high yielding giant type with excellent leaf percentage. Good aphid tolerance.

Goliath rape

90-110

11-14t

New generation rape x kale interspecies cross.

Cleancrop rape

90-110

11-14t

New generation rape x kale interspecies cross. Multigraze. Multipurpose forage rape with excellent summer/autumn/ early-winter feed.

Titan rape

70-90

9-12t

New generation rape x kale interspecies cross. High yielding multigraze rape with medium-height stem. Excellent aphid and virus tolerance.

Clutha Gold swede

0.8-1.5

170-250

14-18t

Very high yielding, yellow-fleshed bulb with medium maturity. Excellent winter keeping qualities. Clubroot and dry rot tolerant.

Cleancrop Hawkestone swede

0.7-1

170-250

14-18t

High yielding yellow-fleshed swede. Dry rot and clubroot tolerance similar to Aparima Gold swede.

0.8-1.5

150-220

13-16t

Yellow fleshed bulb. Early maturing variety with soft bulbs. Light purple skinned.

1-3

60-90

11-15t

High leaf-to-bulb ratio, high protein. Tankard shaped bulb to increase utilisation and reduce choke risk.

0.8-2

90-120

11.5-12t

Multipurpose – can be grazed in summer, autumn and winter. Winter hardy bulb turnip.

Cleancrop bulb turnip

80-110

10.5-14t

High yielding bulb turnip. Suitable for sowing from late spring through to late summer.

Cleancrop Leafy Turnip

42-70

10-11t

Multi-graze with reduced bolting. Excellent plant persistence after multiple grazings.

Pasja II leafy turnip

42-70

8-10t

Minimal ripening. Fast establishing, high-quality. Excellent persistence after multiple grazings.

60-90

8-12MT

Fast-establishing crop providing early ground cover to reduce weed invasion. Energy crop.

Pallaton Raphno

Major Plus swede Barkant turnip Green Globe turnip

Seed Force – Brassica SF Envy 2-3 turnip SF Fuel kale

4-5

150-180

12-14MT

High yielding with good tolerance to diseases.

SF Greenland forage rape

3-4

70-84

5-12MT

Very late flowering, leafy type. Medium plant height. Good palatability with multigraze flexibility.

SF G2 turnip

0.8-1.5

110+

8-12MT

Diploid, green-skinned, white-fleshed turnip. Replacement for Green Globe. Perfect for rotations breaking in new country.

SF Pacer leafy turnip

3-5

42-56

6-10MT

Fast seedling. Minimal ripening period, allowing early access. Quick grazing recovery.

SF White Star turnip

1-3

90-110

8-12MT

Flexible sowing and grazing. Mid-maturing. Erect, productive tops. Frost tolerance.

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September 2018

BRASSICA AND FODDER BEET GUIDE Cultivar

Sowing rate (kg/ha)

Days to grazing

Drymatter content of bulb

Comments

Agricom – Fodder Beet Jamon Grazing

80,000

Medium to high (16-18%)

Very uniform, true mono-germ cultivar with orange bulb. Half of bulb above ground. Excellent grazing beet, high yield potential.

Monro

Grazing

80,000

Low (13-15%)

True mono-germ. Oval shaped bulb with 60% of bulb above ground. Most suited to grazing.

Rivage

Mainly grazing, but can be lifted

80,000 (100,000 if lifting)

Medium - High (1821%)

Very uniform, true mono-germ, ideal for grazing but can be lifted. Half of bulb above ground. High yield potential.

Grazing, but can be lifted

80,000 (100,000 if lifting)

Medium - High (18-21%)

Grazing

80,000

Medium (16-21%)

Brunium

Lifting or grazing

80,000 (100,000 if lifting)

Medium - high (17 21%)

Robbos

Grazing

80,000-90,000

Medium 15-17%

Genetic mono-germ with excellent DM yield, palatability and leaf keeping ability.

Ribondo

Lifting or grazing

80,000-90,000 (grazing) 100,000110,000 (lifting)

Medium to high 18-19%

Multi-purpose fodder beet that can be used for both lifting and grazing. Yellow flesh type, providing high yield with very even bulb size and shape. True genetic mono-germ.

Blizzard

Lifting

100,000110,000

High 20-22%

Barenbrug Agriseeds – Fodder Beet Cerise Ribambelle

True mono-germ cultivar. Uniform tankard shaped bulb, 40 to 50% above ground. High yield potential Uniform, true mono-germ, red-bulbed variety. Approximately 50% of the bulb above ground. Excellent grazing beet, with high yield potential. Uniform, true monogerm cultivar resistant to Rhizoctonia brun. About half bulb above ground. Suitable for lifting, option of grazing in good growing conditions.

High yielding, sugar beet type. Specialist lifting fodder beet. Excellent leaf holding ability and disease resistance.

Cropmark – Fodder Beet Lactimo

Mainly grazing but can be 80,000-100,000 lifted.

Medium (15-17%)

High yielding mono-germ cultivar with bulb that sits 45% above ground. High disease and bolting tolerance.

Geronimo

Mainly grazing but can be 80,000-100,000 lifted.

Medium (15-17%)

New high yielding mono-germ cultivar with bulb 45% above ground. Strong foliar growth, with improved bolting resistance, good resistance to mildew, ramularia and rhizomania.

EFFECTIVE SOWING GIVES YOUR CROP A HEAD START

U-DRILL FOR CONVENTIONAL AND MULCH SEEDING The U-drill gives a one pass uniform seedbed over the entire working width, providing perfect preparation, levelling, and reconsolidation of the seedbed. It is extremely operator-friendly with all important settings able to be changed from a central point with the push of a button, coulter depth can be adjusted conveniently from the cab, calibration is started by pushing a button directly at the metering device and the hopper can easily be filled using bags, a front loader, telehandler or auger.

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September 2018

Cultivar

Recommended for

Sowing rate (seeds/ha)

Summo

Lifting or grazing

80,000-100,000

Drymatter content of bulb

Comments

Medium to high High yielding mono-germ cultivar with conical bulb (18-20%) 40% above ground. Good bulb storage quality. Good seedling vigour, strong foliar growth with good disease and bolting resistance.

DLF Seeds – Fodder Beet Bangor

Grazing or lifting

90,000

Medium (1718%)

A new high-yield cultivar suited to all animal types. Mono-germ.

Bergman

Lifting

110,000

Enermax

Grazing or lifting

100,000

Very high (23%) Very high drymatter sugar beet. Mono-germ, hybrid.

Feldherr

Grazing

90,000

Low (13%)

Good yields and reliable performance, suits all animal types

Kyros

Grazing or lifting

90,000

Medium (1618%)

High-yielding and proven cultivar with good utilisation.

Troya

Grazing or lifting

90,000

Medium (1718%)

A new high-yield cultivar suited to all animal types. Mono-germ. High yielding with high proportion of bulb above ground.

High (19-21%) High-yield cultivar designed for lifting, storing and feeding.

Seed Force – Fodder Beet SF Blaze

Grazing/selfharvesting

Grazing 80,000-100,000

Low-medium

SF Brigadier

Grazing/selfharvesting

Grazing 90,000-100,000

Low

SF LIFTA

Grazing/selfharvesting or lifting

Grazing/self-harvesting 80,000-100,000 Lifting 100,000-120,000

Medium-high

Versatile variety with very high yields.

SF Solidar

Grazing/selfharvesting

Grazing 80,000100,000

Low-medium

Versatile variety for grazing or self-harvesting. High yield potential with low – medium dry matter.

SF 1505Bv

Grazing/selfharvesting

Highest proportional of bulb above ground, versatile variety suitable for all animal types, especially young stock.

Grazing 90,000-100,000 Medium-high

High potential yields from medium – high DM%. Suits both grazing in-situ or self-harvesting, ensuring feeding system versatility.

Grazing/self-harvesting 80,000-100,000 Lifting 100,000-120,000

Medium-high

High DM% helps ensure impressive yields, while consistent/even ensure suitability for a range of grazing and harvesting systems.

Lifting

100,000-120,000

Very high

Uniform bulbs and even crown height, bred for mechanical harvesting. Very high dry matter with high harvestable yields.

Agricom – Sugar Beet Tadorne Lifting

100,000-120,000

Very high

Recently bred, with upright leaf habit, uniform low soil tare, suitable for harvesting only. Rhizomania tolerant.

SF Gitty

Grazing/selfharvesting or lifting

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September 2018

HILL COUNTRY | ONFARM

Clovers drive sheep operation A North Island sheep and beef station is proving successful at growing clover crops and young minds. Rebecca Harper reports. Photos: Brad Hanson

large block of red and white clover is proving a winner for lambing ewes on and lamb finishing on Pukemiro Station near

Dannevirke. Pukemiro manager Jed Murphy says staggered lambing and calving dates help to spread the workload, as well as the climatic risk. “We are never hectic, but we are always busy.” Sheep performance is a big driver and they aim to finish everything. “We want a robust sheep that can rear two lambs to weaning, every year, and those lambs grow on to be killed at either a light weight or a heavier weight. They are getting good results in scanning and lambing percentages and also lamb growth rates. Last year they docked 156% (ewes to the ram). Owned by the ADB Williams Trust, the commercial breeding and finishing farm has a strong focus on educating the next generation of farmers, and recently introduced a two-year cadet scheme (see page 42) Jed says the station probably runs a higher staff ratio than normal for a commercial farming operation and it’s important to find staff with the right skill set, considering the teaching component required. A month after weaning, ewe lambs are shorn and replacements are sent to Coonoor by the middle of January.

The focus at Coonoor is FARM FACTS growing the • breeding and finishing ewe lambs out. with a trading Everything is component mated there as a hogget, • 930ha (effective) at with 40kg the Pukemiro, summer dry minimum cut-off • 385ha (effective) at to go to the ram. Coonoor, summer safe They normally • Runs a two-year cadet mate about 1700 scheme hoggets there. They target lambs off mum and, with Pukemiro tending to be summer dry, Jed feels it is important to unload if possible. “The cheapest lamb you can produce is the one that goes on the truck at weaning, and with the staggered lambing dates it gives us a steady flow coming into the finishing platform.” They also run Angus-cross breeding cows at Coonoor, with the progeny sent back to Pukemiro to be finished. About 100 Hereford/Friesian breeding cows are run at Pukemiro. “It’s kinder country here - it’s colder and wetter at Coonoor.” The Hereford/Friesians are good milkers and produce a cracking calf, bulls are killed before their second winter. They take them to 350kg carcaseweight (CW).

Jed with the fodder beet crop. Beet is a relatively new cattle crop for Pukemiro. This is the second year they have grown it and it will be used for two-year-old bulls

DANNEVIRKE

›› Clover longevity the key p68 Country-Wide

September 2018

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September 2018

Clover longevity the key Pukemiro’s easier country for cultivation provides a variety of crop options. Last spring 8ha of Spitfire rape, 8ha of kale, 5.5ha of fodder beet and 2ha of oats were planted. The oats have been planted strategically around the beet to provide transition feed for cattle. The entire cropping policy is underpinned by 82ha of established red and white clover. “Our rotation has typically been old grass into rape, then into red and white clover. On some of the stonier country after three years we have under-sowed tall fescue into the red and white clover mix, ultimately for cattle finishing.”

“They do produce more bearings, but we have a very good success rate putting them back in - we’ve hardly lost a ewe.”

Pukemiro manager Jed Murphy with his children Liam, Jennifer and Caitlin (wife Anna was away).

The oldest clover on the station will be four years old this spring and Jed is targeting five to six years from it. He says it takes three years to get payback on the investment, so six years should be very economic. “The thing I like about it is it’s easy to maintain. From establishment, we feed rape to lambs over summer, then the cattle graze it over winter. In spring we cultivate it using discs and a deep ripper to aerate the soil and open it up to ensure the clover root can get down deep and find the water table. Then it’s power-harrowed a couple of times and roller drilled, with an aim to have it sown by Labour weekend.” So far, they haven’t had any problems with the clover running out and Jed says the key to longevity is nursing it along in the first year. “We do get a lot of weed pressure early on. In December we will spray with six litres of Pulsar and we’ll get a good graze in late January. Depending on the season, we might not

STOCK NUMBERS • 5500 Romney breeding ewes (Forbes Cameron genetics) • 100 Hereford/Friesian cross cows (go to a Simmental/Charolais bull) • 350 Finishing cattle • Coonoor • 1700 hoggets (mated) • 700 ewes (terminal sire - Carthew genetics) • 85 Angus cross cows (go to a Simmental/Charolais bull)

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Hoggets, which have been run with the ram.

The early mob (B ewes) start lambing about August 20 and the cull ewes (low mouths) and their lambs are weaned about November 15. The mean lamb age is about 75 days. Jed tries to time it for before the ewe schedule starts coming back. The rest of the B ewes weaned about December 1. The A ewes start lambing September 1 and are usually weaned about December 10. The two-tooths start lambing September 10 and are weaned about December 15.

get on for a second graze until after the autumn rains have come. We normally have a follow-up spray in early winter too.” The clover is primarily used as a dedicated lamb finishing platform and paddocks are 3-4ha in size. Once established, all it needs is an annual spray in June. “Grass is the biggest competitor, so we give it one litre of Sequence, four litres of Tropotox to take care of any flat weeds and a bit of Dimlin for porina. It all goes on in one application. “We give it a hard graze, spray it in June and then shut it up for two months over winter.” Older ewes and lighter twin and triplet ewes are set stocked on the clover on August 15 at 6-8/ha.

TIMELINE

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›› Counting the beet p70

1983:

1985:

2002:

Pukemiro Station (566ha) left in trust, the ADB Williams Trust, by Donald Williams

First scholarships awarded to university students to assist their agricultural education

Trust buys additional 418ha block at Coonoor to provide summer safe country

2013:

2014:

2018:

Trust buys Awakeri (457ha), the farm adjoining Pukemiro

Four-year partnership with Taratahi begins to help educate young people

Cadet scheme launches and first three begin their training

September 2018

Jed in oats which are grown around the outside of the beet crop and used as a transition feed for the bulls

“The clover doesn’t really start pumping until about September 10 and we don’t find we have any metabolic issues.” Ewes on the clover are checked twice a day for casts and bearings. “They do produce more bearings, but we have a very good success rate putting them back in - we’ve hardly lost a ewe.” They early wean at 70 days before the schedule starts coming back and kill the ewes straight off the clover at an average of 30kg CW, about 5kg ahead of what they do on grass. Early lambs are docked in late September and they top up the clover to 11-12 ewes/ ha, plus lambs, to match the increased feed supply. This also frees up space on the hill country to lamb hoggets. From docking onwards, the clover is rotationally grazed on a three-to-four-week rotation by ewes and lambs, until weaning. They also wean all terminal lambs and male Romney lambs straight on to the clover. “We grow the lambs on the hills until 32kg and then they go on the clover to finish off. We generally average 19kg CW off the clover.” Jed says growth rates generally pick up in December and January, when the clover is flowering, and they consistently achieve 300 grams-plus/day over that period. The rest of the year over autumn and early winter it’s 200250g/day. “The plan at the end, once we feel the clover is starting to run out, is to direct drill and under-sow short-rotation ryegrass into it, before putting it back into rape and then tipping it over again and re-starting the system. The beauty is there will be a lot of free nitrogen sitting there we’ll be able to utilise.”

COUNTING THE BEET Fodder beet is a relatively new crop for cattle at Pukemiro and is proving a good way to utilise some of the stonier country with a high volume, low area crop. But Jed is still on the fence about its success. “This is our second year. Last year we had yearlings on it and didn’t quite get the growth rates we were after. We’ve grown a 24-tonne crop both years. It’s more expensive to establish but if you grow a good crop it works out cost competitive on a cents/kg dry matter basis.” This year he is trying two-year-old bulls on the beet and is keen to see how they go. R1 and R2 heifers are wintering on rape, normally going on in late June to early July. He hopes to kill about half the R1s before next winter, while the R2s will be killed before Christmas. More? www.pukemiro.co.nz

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HILL COUNTRY | NUTRIENT BUDGETING

Single account offers new benefits The new version of Overseer offers more control for farmers. James Hoban takes a look at the improvements in Overseer FM.

Rebecca Hyde, a Science Extension Sustainability Specialist at Ballance Agri-Nutrients, says the latest development in Overseer will give farmers better control of their information.

he latest overhaul of Overseer nutrient budgeting software is expected to make the model more accessible and intuitive. OverseerFM (Farm Modelling) is a significant development and users are looking forward to the improved software. Since Overseer has become a compliance tool, identified by regional councils as a convenient way to generate nutrient loss numbers used for regulation, the model’s benefits have been overlooked by some farmers reluctantly paying for a nutrient budget only because they have to. The model was designed to be a useful tool in farm nutrient management and can generate information that leads to improved efficiencies and profitable decision-making, but too often farmers have used it solely to produce nutrient loss estimates for regional nutrient limits. The owners of OverseerFM say the new software makes the model easier to use and helps users to maximise the value they get from the science. Overseer Limited chief executive Dr Caroline Read says the new software has been created following consultation with users, farm sector groups and regional councils. “Overseer’s purpose has always been to provide science information to support good farming decisions. We hope farmers and growers will find it much easier to engage with their Overseer results, to use the model themselves if they want to, and

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to have better conversations with their consultants.” In the past, experts have discouraged farmers from using the model themselves without the level of training professionals have had. This was because without an in-depth understanding of the model’s assumptions and workings, poor quality information can be generated.

Farmers have control of the information for their financial accounts, now they will have control of their nutrient accounts.

Rebecca Hyde, a Science Extension Sustainability Specialist at Ballance AgriNutrients, is expecting the new software to be a major improvement. She explains that because the farmer has the subscription and gives other people access – similar to CashManager – it ensures there is one version of the truth. The software tracks changes that people make to the nutrient budget. The single farm account should reduce the duplication of effort when multiple users model the same farm. This increases the consistency of farm modelling with everyone working off the same information.

OverseerFM will be free to use for the first six months and will then be available under subscription, from January 2019. Exactly what it will cost users is not yet known. This is a significant change from the past when Overseer has been freely available. Rebecca explains that because the science driving Overseer has not been changed from Overseer version 6.3.0 to OverseerFM, outputs will not be different. However, when version 6.2.3 was superseded by version 6.3.0, nitrogen loss figures increased. This has presented challenges for users and councils and it is expected that future updates will see numbers change, as the model continually improves. One major change Rebecca notes is how stock are entered. In OverseerFM stock are entered as events rather than monthly stock numbers that often have to be averaged out. Users will now enter the specific date that stock arrive on farm – for example weaned calves on March 14 or dairy grazers arriving on June 6. “OverseerFM will take some adjustment, like anything that changes does, but it will be much better as there will be one version of a farm’s nutrient budget and the farm owner will have control of their information. Farmers have control of the information for their financial accounts, now they will have control of their nutrient accounts.” Rebecca is optimistic about the changes but also quick to remind people of Overseer’s limitations. “As the new names suggests this is a farm modelling tool, not an exact calculation of a biological system.”

Mendip Hills manager Simon Lee, Andrew Johnston from Luisetti Seeds and owner David Black have created forage hubs in their hill country.

HILL COUNTRY | FEED

Chicory lifting hill country productivity Grazing is about more than grass these days, as new forage crops are introduced. Sandra Taylor reports on the results for one North Canterbury farm.

decision to use areas of cultivable hill country to grow specialised forages is having a profound effect on Mendip Hill’s farm business. By growing areas of chicory and clover and lucerne through their hill country, the management team have been able to lift both weaning weights and percentage of lambs finished at weaning, free up areas for other stock classes and grow their ewe lambs out to mating weights. This year 2600 hoggets went to the Southdown ram. This represents a big shift as it is the first time all the hoggets have been put to the ram – in previous years only a proportion were mated. Simon Lee, who manages the 6100-hectare, 34,000 stock unit North Canterbury farm for the Christchurchbased Black family, says after successfully growing specialist forage crops on their flats, they turned their attention to their

CHICORY’S ATTRIBUTES • High digestibility • High liveweight gain because of high ME (12 MJ ME/kg DM) • Rapid growth from October through until April • Tolerant of varying soil conditions • Very few pests and diseases • Contains high concentrations of minerals • Reliable summer growth, because of a deep tap root system hill country, identifying areas of deep, loamy fertile soils that could be used to create forage hubs. Drawing on the knowledge of their hill country forage specialist Andrew

Johnston from Luisetti Seeds and owner David Black, they chose to grow chicory on some of these hill country areas, having successfully grown the herb under irrigation on Mendip Hill’s finishing farm near Cheviot. Andrew says chicory has an metabolisable energy (ME) equal to lucerne, is highly digestible, and has a long tap root which can access soil moisture at depth and draw trace elements such as copper from within the soil profile and makes them available to livestock. This feature, along with the plants’ condensed tannins – which are known to help control internal parasites – means the crop has significant animal health benefits which Simon has noted in reduced animal health treatments in stock grazing the crop. Simon says the lambs do extremely well on the hill country chicory. “They just stack the weight on and they

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THE WIDER BUSINESS They just stack the weight on and they are growing at 280-300 grams/day easily, compared to the lambs on grass which are gaining 170-190g/day.

are growing at 280-300 grams/day easily, compared to the lambs on grass which are gaining 170-190g/day. “I’m pretty sold on it, it’s not a big cost and we can target-feed young animals on it. “It’s about seeing the bigger picture and the many benefits it generates.” A 68ha block sown in Chicory last year had been in pasture for 10 years. It was put through two kale crops before the ground was top-worked and the area direct-drilled last November with 7kg/ ha Charger chicory, 5kg/ha of Rustler red clover and 3kg/ha of Kakariki white clover. Seed costs were $256/ha plus GST. The block was sprayed with Preside herbicide at 65g/ha plus Uptake oil at 1 litre/ha to control fathen at establishment. Product cost $33.80 and the cost of aerial application was $45/ha. Andrew says the chemical would only be applied if weeds were impacting negatively on crop establishment. “Chicory is not affected by any insect pests such as aphids and diamondbacked moths and there are no animal health issues associated with it. “It’s pretty much bullet-proof.” After sowing, the weather was extremely hot and dry, but the seeds did strike in three waves and Simon was able to get the first grazing off the block in January with six subsequent grazings through autumn by lambs and cattle.

“We had the finishing steers on it and had no bloat issues.” Because of its palatability, stock graze chicory very evenly and there are no dead-matter or quality issues, which means there is no need to breakfeed it. It was given a final hard grazing in early June and will be left over winter. In early spring it will be used for in-lamb hoggets before being shut-up and used for ewes and lambs in late spring. Simon says they can comfortably budget on growing eight tonnes drymatter (DM)/ha/year from their hill country chicory crops and can graze it earlier than traditional summer crops such as rape. They have also found it will last longer into autumn. Andrew says while the Charger chicory won’t bolt – unlike older varieties – it still needs to be grazed aggressively in spring, which is exactly when Simon wants feed to meet increased demand from lactating ewes and growing lambs. Simon says they can expect to get at least two years out of their chicory stands and will then stitch in either cocksfoot or a short-term ryegrass to extend the life of the pasture to between five and 10 years, depending on the rotation. “I do really like the mix, it has its place if you select the right paddocks and know what you will be using it for.”

Mendip Hills has 2400ha of cultivatable land so lucerne, clovers, chicory, cocksfoot and other specialist forages are playing an increasingly important part of the business. The farm runs 12,000 Romney cross ewes in five mobs; replacements are bred from the best of the four-tooth and two-tooth ewes, the balance split into three lines and put to a terminal sire. Kale has been used as a mating feed to drive conception rates (lifting the scanning in the two-tooths from 162% to 182%) but this did increase the number of triplets which can be a problem in bad weather. Plentiful grass this year meant they were able to mate the ewes on pasture. Last year the lambing percentage – ewes mated to lambs sold – was 142%. At this percentage, Simon finds he can get one-third of the terminal sire lambs sold prime at weaning. All lambs (except replacements) are gone by early January to the finishing farm. Simon says they do need to invest in forages and fertiliser to be able to drive stock performance, but fertiliser has always been a high priority on Mendip Hills, costing $12/su annually. Olsen.P levels vary across the farm, from 2 in some areas and up to 22 in others so production does fall away when they back-off on fertiliser. Nitrogen is applied strategically to help build pasture covers in early spring, but Simon says it is a tool, not a get-out-of-jail card. Simon used nitrogen at 60kg/ha during the drought and it proved to be a valuable tool in lifting pasture covers. Subterranean clovers are included in all the permanent pasture mixes and they are increasingly using new varieties of cocksfoot (Savvy and Safin) as a pasture plant as it tolerates the heat and dry more than ryegrass.

The management identified pockets of deep soils that could be used for growing specialist forages such as chicory. Country-Wide

September 2018

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September 2018

HILL COUNTRY | FUTURE FARMING

Farmers need to be proactive

WORDS: JOANNA GRIGG

ould a GPS locator on each animal, virtual fences, and precise fertiliser spreaders all be part of the hill country farmer’s tool kit in 2040? Those were some of the practical visions of future farming from North Canterbury farm manager John Fitzgerald who was speaking at the recent Farm Smart panel discussion, He also suggested farming families could pool their farms together, perhaps in a lease situation. This concept could improve scale and efficiencies and help produce a steady supply of premium products in a more organised way. The farmers could share profits through a dividend from the mega-farm. A question from the floor queried the skills required to farm in 2040. An ability to keep up with technology, build positive relationships and manage people were the top three. The mega-farm model would give farmers with particular skills a chance to use them over the wider group of farms. For example, those good at production could take on operations, while health and safety and human resources could be taken on by another farmer with the skills, or contracted out. Buying up land and development was another skill valued as time ticked towards 2040. Banks Peninsula farmer Chris Chamberlain loves sheep and cattle production and the challenge of making

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September 2018

it all work within climate and land restrictions. His vision was still to be focused on producing meat and wool from sheep and cattle. Speaking to Country-Wide after the event, he said he farmed an allpasture system with minimal fertiliser and chemical use, with a focus on improved biodiversity and better linkages with other farm businesses. This is how he thinks his products will appeal to consumers and his business will make money. Speaking to the panel, he said farmers should look at tourists and trees. “As landowners we may have a proportion of land that is marginal for stock and potential for a joint venture on carbon sequestration. “But we have to address the low carbon sink returns from native forest compared to pines and the exclusions placed on farm scrub and riparian areas.” He would like to see farmers’ being rewarded for enhancing landscape, not just paying out money to government land administrators. “Turn it around so farmers get rewarded for their landscape improvement.” He suggested a change in marketing strategy to get spring lamb to be a soughtafter seasonal speciality “like whitebait or Bluff oysters”. “For this to happen, twelve-month-old product shouldn’t be in this market space.” Finding your ‘golden hectare’ on a hill farm was also touted as a way to be profitable in 2040. This area (perhaps a micro-climate or flatter area) could be used to grow higher value produce. It can

An ability to keep up with technology, build positive relationships and manage people were seen as the top skills required to farm in 2040 during the future farming discussion.

work as a small-scale testing ground before expansion. Question time saw some considered inquiries about the future of gene technologies. Guy Salmon said he had seen change in Europe (the previous home of anti-GE sentiment) as they were now importing genetically modified soyabean. “The hysteria is dying down. There is a growing acknowledgment that gene editing is not the same.” Genetically engineered forage could be an option, especially if shown to reduce sprays and fertiliser. Richard Green closed the session saying hill country farmers seemed to have lost their mojo. “We need to be proactive, not sit back waiting to be told.” The arable group set their 2040 vision and had very exciting ideas, he said, but the lack of belief in their skills to achieve it was holding them back. “So, let’s work on building your personal belief.” Chamberlain has fielded several calls following the panel discussion. “We are in the process of forming a RMPP, looking at the synergies between hill-country breeding properties and irrigated specialist finishing farms.” A group of Banks Peninsula hill farmers and Canterbury plains farmers are aiming to build resilience and profitability into both business and to market and brand to a specific and targeted customer, he said. His particular vision is for his hill country to be a top-notch supplier of store stock to specialised finishers on the plains. He sees value in a group of hill-country farmers banding together (usually defined by a catchment) to use their varying topography and climate to supply larger number of store animals. “Contracts would help finishers reduce their worries about supply and trading margins. “Store producers would have the confidence that they have a guaranteed finisher to send their stock to regardless of seasonal variables.” This farm systems approach is not novel but does require a dose of Richard Green’s self-belief and a fair bit of drive from farmers.

ARABLE | MAIZE

Agronomy rethink needed?

WORDS: ANDREW SWALLOW e-engineering maize establishment and rotations could boost profit and environmental protection alike judging by findings of a Foundation for Arable Research-funded trial run by AgResearch. The winter cover crop to reduce herbicide inputs in maize cropping trial at FAR’s Northern Crop Research Site in Waikato is into its third year, with two seasons’ replicated results in the bag. All cover crops have reduced weed competition in the following maize crop compared to fallow over winter, reducing the need for herbicide in subsequent maize sowings. Ryegrass or oats have had the greatest weed suppression effects, reflecting higher biomass production before spray-off, but clover or faba bean covers significantly increased subsequent maize grain yields, although there was no statistical difference in yield when the maize was taken as silage, just a trend. AgResearch’s Mike Trolove says the big difference in the trial compared to what some farms are already doing with autumn sown catch-crops, is that the cover crop is sprayed off with glyphosate (plus paraquat on beans) then left to act as a mulch. “Most farmers would harvest it as silage, then spray off and plough it in.” Test cuts before spray-off provide a record of the silage yield or grazing opportunity foregone (see table) by using the cover crop as a mulch. While he’s yet to crunch the numbers, FAR’s Allister Holmes believes the forage value could be

outweighed by herbicide and cultivation savings, plus yield benefits, in the following maize. “You can do a lot of damage to the soil trying to harvest the cover as silage in spring, as can stock if you try to graze it off,” he points out. Where farmers are grazing catch crops such as oats or ryegrass before sowing maize again, few can tell him how much money they make from the grazing, he adds. “I ask them how much they make per hectare from the lambs and none of them know. If it’s only a few $100/ha, why bother? It’s just not worth the extra work or risk.” Valuing cover crop forage at 20c/kg drymatter sold in the paddock for silage, the conclusion’s similar: a tonne-and-half more grain should add $500-$600/ha to the bottom line, more or less matching the

COVER CROP KEY POINTS • Autumn: sow immediately after main crop harvested. • Spring: spray off and direct-drill into mulch. • Cover crops: • mop up nitrate that would likely leach. • reduce risk of sediment run-off. • suppress spring weed germination. • Clover, beans: boost following crop yield. • Oats, ryegrass: best weed suppression but may limit maize yield. • Benefits may be lost if cover taken as silage or grazed.

FAR modified this Aitcheson drill to sow two rows of a broadleaf cover crop mix into knee-high maize.

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September 2018

LEFT: FAR’s Allister Holmes and Steve Payne and Mike Trolove of AgResearch check an annual ryegrass cover crop’s establishment in July. RIGHT: Under-sowing a broadleaf mix into knee-high maize shows promise as a way to establish covers before growth slows in winter.

EUROPEAN PAPER AgResearch’s Trevor James presented a paper on the maize cover crop work to the 18th European Weed Research Symposium which was held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in June this year, detailing the 2016-17 and 2017-18 results. See www.ewrs.org/publications.asp to download the abstract.

value of the forage foregone without the risk of delaying maize establishment and/or damaging the soil which in turn would force a reversion to tillage and/or depress maize yield. This winter’s cover crops in the trial were sown on May 29, a fortnight earlier than last year but still later than ideal due to the heading date of the preceding maize crops which were taken for grain. “If you could get them in by April 15 you’d get much more growth,” Holmes says. That should be feasible after most maize silage crops, but for grain growers an alternative approach to establishing cover crops is being explored elsewhere on the NCR Site: sowing the cover crop into knee-high maize in late spring so it is there, ready to grow away in autumn when the maize is taken off. A mix of daikon or “tillage” radish, plantain, chicory, and clovers was used last spring. Cereals such as oats and ryecorn have been tried previously and were found not to persist in the shade of a growing maize crop. “The broadleaf species survive better in the low light, ready to grow away when the maize is removed.” When Country-Wide visited the plots in July the paired rows looked like perfect lamb-finishing feed. Holmes acknowledges farmers will find it hard to resist reaping that reward, but reiterates his concerns about soil structure damage from stock undoing the benefit of the cover and forcing a reversion to tillage. Undisturbed soils carry spreading, spraying and sowing machinery better and avoiding cultivation means timely

establishment is more likely. No cultivation also slashes the risk of sediment loss. When contractors cultivate before sowing maize, their haste rarely leaves sufficient time between one pass and the next for weeds to germinate and be destroyed mechanically, one of the original reasons for the plough, cultivate, sow approach, Holmes says. Plough then power-harrow is still a widely used approach, he adds, probably because it copes in most soil types and conditions meaning contractors can keep working somewhere in a region almost regardless of the weather. Yet for many soils, including the Horotiu silt loam of FAR’s Waikato trial site, a power-harrow is overkill. “You can just kick this soil and get a seed-bed. People plough because they’ve always done it.” For the trials FAR used a John Deere 750A drill to sow covers into mulched maize residues, though stubbles could probably be left unmulched if headers have good spreaders, he suggests. The covers were drilled across the maize rows and the drill has given good results with larger seeds, but less so with clover. In spring FAR’s own John Deere MaxEmerge 2 no-till planter has been used to plant maize again into the sprayed-off cover crop residues. Next autumn the trial, which has so far been conducted in replicates 6m long and eight maize rows wide, will be scaled up to large blocks and a plough and power-harrow establishment comparison included. “The aim is to bring all the treatments together.”

Cover crop and maize yields (t/ha DM) Season

Cover sow date

Clover

Faba bean

Fallow

Oats

Annual ryegrass

2016

June 2

1.2

4.0

N/A

6.7

4.6

2017

June 11

0.3

3.3

N/A

4.9

2.3

Yield of following maize crops 2016/17

Silage

24.7

23.2

21.5

19.2

17.6

2016/17

Grain

12.5

12.8

11.2

9.4

8.3

2017/18

Silage

20.6

21.2

19.9

19.16

2017/18

Grain

14.3

15.4

13.5

13.3

12.4

Maize yields shown are the mean of all herbicide treatments: Untreated; preem only; pre-em + post-em; post-em only; 2x post-em. In 2017-18 the lowest untreated maize yields were following fallow or ryegrass, at 17.3t/ha (silage) and 11.2t/ha (grain) in the case of fallow, or 16.3t/ha (silage) and 11.5t/ha (grain) following ryegrass.

Country-Wide

September 2018

Faba bean cover crops have boosted following maize grain yields.

ARABLE | FUNGICIDE RESISTANCE

Heed the headaches overseas WORDS: ANDREW SWALLOW

ew Zealand has a great opportunity to learn from fungicide resistance problems overseas to prevent or at least postpone such problems here, a leading authority on the topic says. Adama’s Andy Bailey has spent 30 years working with agrochemicals for most of the major manufacturers, including four years in a global role before joining Adama. “That’s when I really started to get exposure to the resistance management issues,” he told Country-Wide on a recent visit to New Zealand. A member of the United Kingdom’s Fungicide Resistance Action Group, Bailey says triazole efficacy against the main wheat disease, septoria tritici, is waning across Europe, strobilurins failed more than a decade ago, and now septoria resistance to SDHI chemistry has developed too. As a result, growers are having to take a much more proactive and preventative approach to crop protection. “We used to rely on a lot of kick-back activity from the triazoles… those days are long gone.” Curative activity of even the best triazoles against septoria now is down to

30-35% of their activity, whereas once it was 80%. Besides applying sprays at key timings before disease develops, tank-mixing a multi-site ingredient such as chlorothalonil or folpet with one of the single-site mode of action fungicides – a triazole or an SDHI, or both – is a key strategy. Independent modelling shows it doubles the time to resistance developing. When it comes to rate of product, it’s a trade-off between economic optimum rate and resistance risk. “It’s widely accepted that higher rates Andy Bailey increase selection pressure for resistance… but we still have to achieve efficacy (disease control) in the field to protect from disease and safeguard yields.” Increased frequency of use also increases selection pressure for resistance, hence guidelines in most countries that no more than two SDHIs should be used in any one growing season. In France, the limit is one SDHI but that has increased reliance on triazoles, accelerating resistance to that chemistry, he notes. Resistance mechanisms are complex.

KEY POINTS • Fungicide fundamentals • Resistance risks real and rising. • Use cultural controls to reduce pressure. • Don’t apply more often than recommended. • Use mixtures with multi-site partner products. • Industry-wide responsibility needed due to spore spread.

Some, such as those found in septoria resistant to strobilurins, are all-or-nothing ‘target site’ actions where a strain that has developed resistance to a particular fungicide mode of action will not be killed regardless of rate used. Others are more gradual or partial, such as with triazoles and septoria, where a higher rate is beneficial because it can overwhelm the resistance mechanism and still achieve control. The nature of the season also plays a role. Warm, wet seasons where disease is circulating and going through many generations in the season increase likelihood of a population of resistant strains coming to dominate. Similarly, drilling earlier increases the number of generations a disease will get through, and hence pressure on crop and

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September 2018

fungicide. Many UK growers are now delaying sowing of winter wheats until mid-October, in part for weed control reasons, but there’s been a disease control benefit too. “We are noticing a big difference in how much septoria builds up before spring in these later sown crops,” Bailey says. Septoria’s resistance mechanisms to SDHI and triazole fungicides are similar in that SDHI resistance is also a sensitivity shift rather than all or nothing. In some cases, a fitness penalty where resistant strains do not survive the winter as well as SDHI-susceptible ones has been observed, but more recently a number of moderately resistant strains without that fitness penalty have also emerged. “It’s reached tipping point in Ireland and the UK isn’t far behind.” Disease-resistant cultivars are also increasingly popular as growers seek to reduce their reliance on fungicides for disease control. Until recently, fungicide resistance in barley diseases was less of a problem, but a sensitivity shift in net blotch to SDHIs is now widespread and azole and SDHI chemistry is “creaking” against ramularia. “It’s gone incredibly quickly.” Again, besides cultural controls, tankmixes including a fungicide with multisite activity is a key strategy to prolong efficacy.

Fungicide resistance like ‘superbugs’ Leading researchers internationally recently likened the threat of fungicide and

other agricultural agrichemical resistance issues to antimicrobial resistance in medicine, calling for experts in the two fields to collaborate. “Most people now have heard of bacterial superbugs, but resistance is a problem in all kinds of infectious diseases and agricultural pests,” Rothamsted Research’s Nichola Hawkins warns. She is one of a team from Rothamsted Research, Imperial College London, and the universities of Lausanne (Switzerland) and Exeter behind a review paper in a May issue of Science. The paper says fungi regularly cut global crop yields 20%, spoil 10% of what is harvested, and fungal effects on human health are spiralling. The most obvious solution, a continuous stream of new agchem compounds, is not sustainable unless resistance management, and better nonchemical controls, are developed and deployed too, Hawkins says. “By aiming for as broad a toolkit as possible, we reduce the pressure on any one component, and improve our chances of a longer-term solution.”

The bottom line FAR’s Rob Craigie says the bottom line with fungicide resistance management is protecting yields long-term. “If we lose these fungicide tools, the yields without them or with less effective fungicides, are substantially less.” For example, in the high septoria season of 2016/17, yield loss in untreated wheat plots at Chertsey, Methven and Temuka averaged 1.8t/ha less

Resistance record in NZ Grant Hagerty, who leads New Zealand’s Fungicide Resistance Group, says FAR studies and/or tests by agrichemical registrants have identified resistance in the following disease, crop and fungicide group combinations. However, monitoring and reporting is not fully co-ordinated so a definitive list isn’t available. • Powdery mildew (wheat and barley): resistance to strobilurin (QoI) fungicides widespread rendering them ineffective. A sensitivity shift with older triazoles also widespread but triazoles not preferred control option. Disease generally

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September 2018

adequately controlled with SDHI plus azole mixes targeting speckled leaf blotch (Mycosphaerella graminicola – formerly Septoria tritici) and other diseases. • Speckled leaf blotch (SLB, wheat only): resistance to strobilurins widespread, generally making them ineffective, but differences between actives and disease populations exist. Reduced sensitivity to many triazoles, but varies between actives and populations. No resistance to SDHIs found in 2016/17 surveys. 2017/18 survey results pending.

Use protectant multi-site fungicides to prevent resistance developing in diseases like septoria, Adama’s Andy Bailey says.

than fungicide-treated in disease resistant cultivar Reflection, to 5.1 t/ha less than fungicide-treated in moderately susceptible cultivar Conqueror.

• Ramularia (barley only): strobilurins ineffective. Three isolates with reduced sensitivity to SDHIs reported by FAR but not yet widespread. No shift in sensitivity to triazoles observed. EU experience shows resistance to all these modes of action spreads rapidly once it occurs. One to watch. • Net blotch (Pyrenphora teres, barley): definite risk of overcoming fungicide treatments but no NZ evidence to date. • Scald (Rhyncosporium secalis, barley): No NZ evidence of resistance and considered low risk. • Eyespot (Oculimacula spp. wheat and barley): Benomyl/carbendazim resistance since 1980s but rarely a problem disease thanks to rotations and triazole use.

PEST AND WEEDS | MANAGMENT

Herbicide resistance expanding WORDS: ANDREW SWALLOW

or more actions: switching to alternative, usually more expensive s the tally of herbicides, if available; switching herbicide-resistant to an alternative, probably lessweed cases in New profitable crop; changing cultural Zealand mounts practices, usually at increased cost. all farmers should He says greater use of cultural watch for problems and do what practices such as rotation of crops AgResearch’s Trevor James. they can to prevent importing and herbicides, stale seedbeds, and them, says NZ’s leading mechanical weed controls, is one of researcher on the topic. the keys to delaying the onset of herbicide “The number of cases is expanding resistance. Some herbicide groups, such as exponentially and it’s the same in every the sulfonylureas* used in the Cleancrop country,” AgResearch’s Trevor James told brassica system, are particularly vulnerable Country-Wide. to resistance developing with the first signs He’s keen to see growers and contractors appearing after as few as five or six years of change their ways to preserve the efficacy repeated use. of herbicides as long as possible. However, if alternative products and/ “We don’t have as many cases as the or practices which will kill the occasional US or Australia, but we’re not a very large weed that survives the sulfonylurea spray country and we’re definitely following are used between applications of that the pattern seen elsewhere in the world in herbicide group, they will extend the life that we’re not being very effective at all in of the cropping system. managing it,” he warns. So far, he hasn’t had any resistant weed If, or rather when, a resistance problem problems in such crops reported to him, arises on your farm it will force one but that doesn’t mean to say the risk isn’t

SURVEY UNDERWAY A survey to get a more reliable estimate of the incidence of herbicide resistant weeds is underway in Canterbury. The AgResearch and FAR-funded study will be a mixture of following leads and random inspections on arable land initially, though AgResearch’s Trevor James says in due course it could be expanded to other regions and pastoral situations too. “We only find out if there’s a problem if farmers report there’s a problem, and sometimes even then, the people they report the problem to don’t pass it on to the people they should. They just change the crop, change the herbicide and move on, so nobody’s any the wiser. Consequently, we do not have a clear picture how much herbicide resistance there is out there.” An experienced researcher has been taken on full-time by AgResearch to complete the study.

there and it is one growers should be aware of, he believes. “We do have one sulfonylurea-resistant weed, chickweed, which became resistant to chlorsulfuron following repeated use in cereals on a farm in Canterbury, so it shows what can happen. “You may need to go back to growing a conventional crop with other herbicides occasionally. If they’d used conventional herbicides sometimes in the Round-Up Ready crops overseas they’d not have had such a problem with glyphosateresistance.” Besides rotating crops and herbicides on your farm to minimise the risk of herbicide resistance problems arising, James says on-farm biosecurity is also vital to avoid importing new and potentially herbicide resistant weeds on to a farm. Machinery should be free of dirt and debris on arrival or, if that’s impossible, a designated clean-down area provided. Recording and monitoring where contractors start work on the farm is prudent because that is where novel weed imports are most likely to emerge. Imported feeds also pose a risk. If possible check crops for contamination before committing to purchase, and at the very least ask the supplier about weeds that may be present in the feed. Once on-farm, record feed sites and monitor for novel weeds in subsequent seasons. *Sulfonylureas are ALS-inhibitor herbicides with a similar mode of action to all Group B herbicides. When rotating herbicides avoid products containing other Group B actives, such as metsulfuron, imazethapyr and flumetsulam (Cleancrop uses chlorsulfuron). See https://nzpps.org or www.far.org.nz for more on herbicide groups and resistance.

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September 2018

LEFT: To prevent weeds spreading machinery should be free of dirt and debris on arrival or, a designated clean-down area provided.

PEST AND WEEDS | OUTBREAK

Weather perfect for weeds

WEED CONTROL RISK REMINDERS • Be alert to herbicide resistance risks. • Rotate crops and herbicide modes of action. • Ask contractors to clean machines before arrival. • Check weed risks when importing feeds. • Record and monitor feed and start-work sites.

CLEANCROP COMMENT PGG Wrightson Seeds’ brassica breeder Andrew Dumbleton, the man who put the chlorsulfuron-tolerant trait of the Cleancrop system into swedes, forage rape, bulb turnip and leafy turnip, and more recently kale, says there haven’t been any weed control failures because resistance developing in those crops, but there was a case in Southland where the Cleancrop system highlighted an existing population of sulfonylurearesistant chickweed within a cereal rotation. “It is something we’re very aware of and if growers do repeat crop more than the recommended two years, it’s a real risk.” PGG Wrightson Seeds’ advice, for a range of reasons, not just herbicide resistance, is to avoid cropping a paddock with brassicas for more than two years running, with at least a fiveyear break thereafter. “The Telar label also recommends making no more than three applications in three years,” he points out. Some poor control of fat-hen from a pre-emergence application was recorded last spring/summer but it was believed to be because of very dry soil conditions, as the weeds responded to a post-emergence application as expected, he adds. “Even though Telar needs very little moisture to activate it, it still needs some.”

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September 2018

very wet winter in 2017 followed by an unusually dry summer in the King Country created the perfect conditions for the rampant spread of the water pepper and willow weeds. Marcus Paterson, who owns 2630 hectares at Marokopa, says it was the worst he had seen and he was at a loss for the best way to control the weeds. Marcus noticed how bad the problem was in mid to late spring. In October he used a helicopter to spray with herbicide because the paddock was too wet to use a truck. Initially he thought he had killed it, but it later came back, affecting an estimated 200ha. Massey University School of Agriculture and Environment senior lecturer in weed science Dr Kerry Harrington says in wet parts of pastures water pepper was often found growing. Occasionally you also got willow weed, but generally it was water pepper. Livestock tended to avoid water pepper more than willow weed, presumably because of the peppery taste in the leaves. Both species are summer annuals, Harrington says. They germinate in spring, flower and set seed during summer and autumn, and die off naturally in mid to

late autumn. They need bare soil in pasture to germinate in spring, and usually get this in areas where the pasture has suffered pugging damage because it was so wet. Both species tolerate wet soils better than many other weeds. Harrington recommends if damage to the pasture can be avoided, it will reduce establishment of the weeds. Water pepper and willow weed are not that susceptible to selective herbicides, he says. Spraying with 2,4-D would cause less damage to clovers than some other herbicides, but 2,4-D would only work if applied while plants were quite young. Usually water pepper grows in the same parts of paddocks every year, so these areas should be watched for seedlings in early to mid-spring and sprayed before they got too big to be killed. Once they got a little larger, thifensulfuron might give better control, Harrington says. But thifensulfuron suppresses clover more than 2,4-D and once these weeds got older, they are not controlled adequately by this herbicide either. Once well established, the weed can only be controlled by herbicides that cause significant harm to clovers such as a triclopyr/aminopyralid mix, sold as Tordon Pasture Boss.

OUR PLACE IN A GLOBAL PROBLEM According to the International Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds, a collaboration of weed scientists from over 80 countries including New Zealand and AgResearch’s Trevor James, globally 255 weed species have developed resistance to one or more herbicide, and of 26 known herbicide modes of action, one or more species of weed has developed resistance to 23 of them. The United States tops the table for most species of herbicide resistant weeds, at 161, followed by Australia on 90. NZ sits at 17th with 20 herbicide resistant weed species, in a table of 70 countries. See www.weedscience.org

ENVIRONMENT | HILL COUNTRY

It’s not rocket science Hill-country land has its own challenges when it comes to nutrient management, resource management consultant Keri Johnston writes.

lot of land use and water quality articles relate to more intensive land uses such as irrigation and winter grazing of cattle on fodder crops, or being break fed. These types of activities are deemed “high risk” from an environmental point of view and so have been a particular focus for regulators to date. With this, there is also an emphasis on managing nitrogen, which leaches into groundwater and surface water through excess drainage. As the rule frameworks around the country are developing, one area that is starting to come to the fore is land-use on hill and high-country land. About 70% of New Zealand’s lambs and beef calves are born and weaned on hill country, and it occupies 5.6 million hectares of our 7.9m ha of improved grassland and freshwater catchments. It also presents very different challenges environmentally, especially around erosion and sediment loss. In this case, the emphasis is not so much on nitrogen, but on phosphorous and faecal contaminants. Regions such as Gisborne and its Freshwater Plan have certainly recognised this in their regional planning processes.

There are also still mumblings about stock exclusion in these areas and whether this should or shouldn’t be required. Unlike nitrogen, phosphorous and faecal contaminants are actually easier to deal with. Nitrogen is the unseen contaminant – it leaches below the root zone and disappears from sight. Given this, less is known about what happens to it at that point – where it actually goes, and how it gets there.

It also presents very different challenges environmentally, especially around erosion and sediment loss. But phosphorous and faecal contaminants enter waterways through runoff or overland flow – you can see it, so you can do something about it. The answer to these things isn’t rocket science. Environmental performance in these areas can simply be improved through riparian management, erosion control and grazing management, and there are plenty of

people and resources around to provide support in these areas. The best way to work out what you might need to do is to follow the Farm Environment Plan process: Identify the risks, plan to address the risks and carry out the plan. There is still no expectation that everything gets dealt with overnight, but you tackle the low-hanging fruit and the high-risk areas first, then work your way down the list. One of the key risk identification tasks you will address is that of the ‘Critical Source Areas’. These are gullies, swales or depressions where runoff accumulates in high concentrations and delivers it to waterways or field tiles. These areas are a particular problem when cultivation or intensive grazing is carried out in close proximity, or the area is significantly devegetated by stock or cultivation. They tend to also be more prominent during seasonal wet periods (spring and winter), or when heavy rain occurs. Planting, or the creation of grass buffer zones in these areas, will reduce the loss of topsoil and nutrient and sediment loss to waterways. Thinking about where you plant crops (avoiding steep areas) and how you graze these areas will make a big (positive) impact. Hill and high-country farmers are no longer avoiding the spotlight, but the good news is that – stock exclusion aside – most of what you have to deal with from an environmental point of view is totally achievable. So, get on with it.

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September 2018

ENVIRONMENT | FORESTRY

Alternative species need more work The first report from a major government and industry research programme has left farm forester Denis Hocking feeling very underwhelmed.

ne of the bigger forestry research programmes of recent years is the ongoing Specialty Wood Products Research Partnership, a seven-year, $14 million government/ industry research programme on alternative species that supposedly started in mid-2015. Recently it produced a “programme description” and although I am not sure of the purpose of this report – it reads like a very belated research plan – I can only describe it as a profoundly underwhelming document. I have long been an enthusiastic advocate for diversifying our alarmingly narrow forest industry, but if this is all that two and a half years and some millions of dollars can produce my hopes are wavering. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I think I could have done a better report on alternative species in half the time and with a minute fraction of the resources, as could a number of other farm foresters. There is nothing in there that is not already common knowledge, or just a promise of work planned with results in a hazy future. Regarding alternative species, we actually know how to grow and process them, but there is a huge void in the necessary processing and marketing infrastructure. This void reflects the reality that there are only very small and scattered resources that cannot justify investment – a classic chicken and egg situation. But the problem with this report is there is little attempt to build on experience and no sign that they have got out and tried to find out what we already know. There are four groupings of species

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September 2018

– Douglas fir, non-durable eucalypts, durable eucalypts and cypresses – and the programme is further divided into short and longer-term objectives. Douglas fir is already a commercial species – about 6% of the current forest – and the 18% of the funds allocated to it are mainly for breeding and new engineered wood products. According to the programme the latter work should have been finished by now, but no results are mentioned. I admit I am not familiar with Douglas fir.

process, especially when some (durability and heartwood content) appear to be somewhat antagonistic. Even with new genomic technology, this will be a longterm project. The other eucalypt work on non-durable species will be restricted to E. fastigata, E. regnans and E. nitens. They are relatively site-tolerant and fast-growing, though the very good form of E. regnans disguises some serious wood problems. But abandoned between these two programmes are some of the best timber eucalypts including my own favourite, E. muelleriana, and other stringybarks. While everyone will have their preferred species, I back E. muelleriana because of growth and wood properties – quite outstanding according to one past Scion wood researcher and highly commended in Aussie literature.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I think I could have done a better report on alternative species in half the time and with a minute fraction of the resources, as could a number of other farm foresters. However, I am familiar with durable eucalypts and here they propose spending 36% of budget and essentially handing the whole section over to the Marlboroughbased Dryland Forestry Initiative. While I have considerable respect for the drive and enthusiasm of Paul Millen and his team, I do have some serious reservations about some aspects. Three of the five species listed are essentially new to New Zealand and unproven, while other species that are better proven and more durable are ignored, notably E. microcorys but also E.pilularis. I do commend the DFI for their extensive provenance testing but have serious doubts about their faith in breeding programmes to provide selections with greater durability and higher heartwood content along with better form and growth rates. As all breeders know, breeding for multiple features slows the whole

Another long-term favourite, E. saligna, doesn’t warrant mention either. The cypresses get only 6% of the budget and most of this seems destined for breeding. Several comments are to the effect that growers will have to make do until “improved germplasm is available”, but we already have some very good material including several seed lines of canker-resistant C. macrocarpa. I claim to have one here. New hybrid work may eventually yield better “Ovensii” and “Leyland” hybrids but it will take at least a decade to prove any of them. Waiting for better material could put cypresses into the endless “mañana, mañana” fate. I think there is every justification for getting in and planting now. So I am unimpressed by the SWP performance to date. But I would love to be able to change my opinion in a year or two.

ANNUAL, SHORT ROTATION & ITALIAN RYEGRASS GUIDE Cultivar

Ploidy

Endophyte

Suggested sowing rate kg/ha

Heading date

Comments

Asset AR37 Italian ryegrass

diploid

AR37

20-25 (12-15 undersowing)

+ 14

Long-lived Italian with low aftermath seed head. Suitable for winter grazing, high quality spring and summer silage production. Excellent second-year production potential. Best mixed with red and annual clovers.

Asset Italian ryegrass

diploid

20-25 (12-15 undersowing)

+ 14

Long-lived Italian, suitable for winter grazing, high-quality spring and summer silage production. Best mixed with red and annual clovers. Low aftermath seed head.

Progrow annual ryegrass

diploid

Early sown 1820, late sown 25-30

+ 13

Best as break crop for wintering large stock volumes and early silage before re-establishment of spring-sown crops or pasture. Diploid Italian, lower sowing rate than annual tetraploids.

Hogan annual ryegrass

tetraploid

25-30

+ 16

Bred for rapid establishment, providing fast feed in autumn, critical for sheep, beef and dairy systems, particularly following dry summers.

Shogun shortrotation (hybrid) ryegrass

tetraploid

NEA

25-30

+ 26

Provides very fast establishment and exceptional yielding ability during a 3-5 year period, with its own natural NEA endophyte to improve insect control.

diploid

18-22

+ 14

High performance, suitable for a winter crop, 2-3 year pasture in mild summers, or under sowing (10-15kg/ha) to boost winter-spring growth.

Blade

diploid

20-25

+ 24

Densely tillered, fast establishing, high yielding and very late heading Italian ryegrass available exclusively via Ravensdown. Has high winter growth and good persistence.

Bullet

tetraploid

25-30

+ 15

A highly palatable, very fast establishing, high yielding, robust annual ryegrass with high winter production and strong persistence into spring. Suited to grazing, silage and hay. Available exclusively via Ravensdown.

Dash annual ryegrass

Diploid

25-30

Fast establishing, very palatable and very high yielding with big, bold leaves and high tiller density. Quick out of the ground with rapid re-growth and excellent winter growth activity. Excellent disease resistance. Available via Ravensdown.

Vibe Italian ryegrass

Diploid

25-30

A very persistent and high yielding Italian ryegrass developed as part of a persistence breeding programme. Handles harsh grazings and conditions.

Sonik Italian ryegrass

diploid

20-25

+ 17

Rapid establishment, strong growth over all seasons, good persistence.

Zoom annual ryegrass

tetraploid

25-30

+ 16

Strong cool season growth, specialist 6-10 month winter feed, highly palatable.

Agricom

Barenbrug Agriseeds

Tabu+ Italian ryegrass Cropmark

THE BEET SPECIALISTS

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plant

TRACTA61015_BB_CW

R E I D A G I SF BR 84

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Cultivar

Ploidy

Endophyte

Suggested sowing rate kg/ha

Heading date

Comments

diploid

+22

New New Zealand-bred diploid with improved winter and spring growth and second-year performance.

Jivet annual ryegrass

tetraploid

25-30

+ 18

Strong winter growth, extended late-spring growth and quality silage.

Mona Italian ryegrass

tetraploid

25-30

+28

New New Zealand-bed tetraploid with improved winter and spring growth and second-year performance.

Perun Festulolium

tetraploid

Available with Happe or nil endophyte

25-30

Late

Happe endophyte or nil. Cross between Italian ryegrass for winter growth and meadow fescue for improved quality, tolerance to drought and extra persistence. Now available with Happe for insect tolerance.

Perseus Festulolium

tetraploid

Edge endophyte

25-30

Very late

Cross between Italian ryegrass for winter growth and meadow fescue for improved quality, tolerance to drought and extra persistence. Now with Edge for insect tolerance.

Delish shortrotation ryegrass

tetraploid

Available with AR1 and WE (without endophyte)

22-28

Late (+9)

Italian crossed with perennial for rapid establishment and good, early season growth. Fine leaved and densely tillered.

Feast II Italian ryegrass

tetraploid

+ 22

Late (+17)

Strong winter and early spring drymatter production. Medium density and high yielding.

Lush Italian ryegrass

tetraploid

AR37

22-28

Late (+17)

High yielding with AR37, strong winter-spring growth, excellent second year yields and persistence, medium density.

diploid

15-25

Late (+17)

Cool season growth and longer persistence than Italian ryegrass. Robust, dense sward.

Winter Star II annual ryegrass

tetraploid

25+

Late (+9)

Supercruise Italian Ryegrass

diploid

18+

+ 20

High yielding, with good persistence, disease resistance and summer quality.

SF Indulgence Italian ryegrass

diploid

18-20

+ 11

Tetraploid quality with diploid robustness. Dense and finely tillered, highly palatable.

SF Sultan annual ryegrass

diploid

18-20

+ 15

Densely tillered and erect, good leaf retention well into heading and broad disease resistance.

DLF Seeds Jackpot Italian ryegrass

PGG Wrightson Seeds

Maverick GII short-rotation ryegrass

Medium tiller density with strong winter-early spring growth. Ideal for sowing between maize crops, early feed for grazing or silage.

Seed Force

Tetraploid cultivars have bigger leaves and fewer tillers than diploids. They are not as dense, more open and upright than diploids. Endophyte: N or LE (nil or low), NEA2, NEA, AR1, AR37, S (standard). Heading date is relative to Nui (Oct 20). Footnote: Based on information from companies.

UN BEET ABLE

SF 1505Bv September 2018

> High proportion of bulb above ground with good quality leaf > Very high potential yields from its medium â&#x20AC;&#x201C; high DM% > Maximum versatility suiting a range of feeding systems Talk to us about how SF 1505Bv can help increase production on your farm. Freephone 0508 733 336 or visit

www.seedforce.co.nz

A61015_BB_CW

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SF 1505Bv fodder beet

PERENNIAL AND LONG ROTATION RYEGRASS PASTURE GUIDE Cultivar

Ploidy

Endophyte

Suggested sowing rate kg/ha

Heading date

Comments

diploid

AR1, AR37, LE

18-20

+ 20

Medium leaf, high production, suits intensive systems with fertile soils. Excellent spring quality and summer leafiness.

Grasslands Halo

tetraploid

AR1, AR37, LE

25-30

+ 25

Medium leaf, good tiller density and heat tolerance. Late heading date for high spring feed quality.

Grasslands Ohau

tetraploid

AR1, AR37, LE

25-30

Grasslands Prospect

diploid

AR37 & AR1

18-20

+ 12

Grasslands Request

diploid

AR37 & AR1

18-20

Medium leaf, low aftermath seeding returning to leaf by summer.

Grasslands Samson

diploid

AR1, AR37, LE

18-20

Medium leaf, general purpose grass with good summer growth and quality.

Governor

diploid

AR37, LE

18-22

+ 14

Fine leaved cultivar with excellent year-round growth and persistence.

Arrow

diploid

AR1, LE

18-22

High winter-early spring growth. Ideal for early calving or early lamb finishing systems.

Rohan SPR

diploid

NEA2 or N endophyte

18-22

+ 18

Spreading ryegrass bred for sheep-and-beef farmers, persistent, easy care pasture. Spreading helps fill in pasture and recover from adverse climatic events..

Trojan

diploid

NEA2

18-22

+ 16

Top yielding category of DairyNZ Forage Value Index nationwide. Persistent, resistance to rust and plant pulling.

Tyson

diploid

AR1,LE

18-22

-7

Persistent ryegrass with exceptional early spring growth. Ideal for sheep and beef farmers wanting to finish as many lambs off mum as possible.

tetraploid

NEA

+ 19

Bealey replacement with more early spring growth and better total yield than Bealey. Add to this improved rust resistance and better summer feed quality.

diploid

GrubOUT U2

25-28

+16

Festulolium (perennial ryegrass X meadow fescue), medium leaf, very palatable, strong insect pest tolerance.

tetraploid

25-35

+ 20

Long rotational grass, fast establishment and regrowth, strong winter activity.

Agricom Ceres ONE50

Medium leaf, long rotation grass, high cool season growth, good for dairy and-or finishing. Strong all-year-round production, high total drymatter production.

Barenbrug Agriseeds

Viscount

Cropmark Seeds Barrier Kai

A medium-high dry matter content variety (18-20%) Dual purpose grazing and lifting variety Bulbs have low dirt tare Very high yield potential Very good disease resistance and bolting tolerance Suitable for sheep, cattle and deer Available from seed retailers

www.cropmark.co.nz

Freephone 0800 427 676

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September 2018

Cultivar

Ploidy

Endophyte

Suggested sowing rate kg/ha

Heading date

Comments

Raider perennial ryegrass

diploid

NEA2

25-30

Matrix

diploid

SE, N

16-20

+ 23

Palatable, persistent, and high yielding with high pasture quality and strong winter activity.

Ultra

diploid

AR1, N

18-20

+ 20

High yielding, general purpose, good overall disease resistance with strong winter activity.

24Seven perennial ryegrass

diploid

Edge Happe

18-22

+24

Recent New Zealand-bred diploid with Improved winter and spring growth and high density. Now with Edge or Happe for insect tolerance and persistence

Ansa

diploid

Edge Happe

18-22

+ 14

Medium leaf and dense habit, high performance, improved coolseason growth. Now with Edge or Happe for insect tolerance and persistence.

Jeta

tetraploid

Edge Happe

25-30

+ 10

High performance grass with unusual robustness. Now with Edge endophyte for improved insect tolerance and persistence.

tetraploid

AR37, AR1

22-28

+ 22

Dense, high yielding tetraploid perennial ryegrass with a very late heading date providing excellent late spring quality. DairyNZ FVI five star status in all NZ regions.

Excess

diploid

AR37, AR1

15-25

Mid-season perennial ryegrass with excellent year-round production. DairyNZ FVI five star status in all NZ regions.

Expo

diploid

AR37, AR1

15-25

+ 21

Fine leaf, best suited to rotational grazing, can tolerate setstocking.

Pacific

diploid

15-25

Rely

diploid

AR37, AR1

15-25

Dense, finely leaved variety providing early season production and persistence with AR37 endophyte. Great option for sheep and beef systems or dairy pastures in challenging environments.

Platform

diploid

AR37

15-25

+12

Dense finely tillered ryegrass providing excellent feed quality and persistence. Exceptional dry matter production, DairyNZ FVI five star status in all NZ regions.

SF Moxie

diploid

AR1, N

18-20

SF Hustle

diploid

AR1, N

18-20

New, persistent and very high yielding. Selected for superior persistence. Well suited for cattle and sheep in areas where black beetle, Argentine stem weevil and pasture mealybug are an issue. Low aftermath heading. Rugged and dependable. Available from Ravensdown

DLF Seeds

PGG Wrightson Seeds Base

Fine leaf, tolerates heavy stocking.

Seed Force High yielding perennial with broad disease tolerance and high levels of production. Perennial bred for NZ systems with high production upright growth and diploid robustness.

Tetraploid cultivars have bigger leaves and fewer tillers than diploids. They are not as dense, more open and upright than diploids. Endophyte: AR1, AR37, Edge, N or LE (nil or low), NEA, NEA2, S (standard). Heading date is relative to Nui (Oct 20). Footnote: Based on information from companies.

Consistently high yielding with medium dry matter (15-17%) Tankard shaped bulb sits 45% above ground Excellent top growth Very good tolerance to the diseases rhizomania, ramularia and some forms of mildew Very good bolting resistance A grazing fodder beet that can be lifted Available from seed retailers

www.cropmark.co.nz

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September 2018

Freephone 0800 427 676

PLANT & MACHINERY | CONTRACTORS

Investment pays off A family tragedy forced a change of career which led to a successful contracting business in south Otago. Jo Cuttance reports.

eeing big green tractors leaving the yard from Joe Herbert Contracting and heading along State Highway 1 heralds the start of spring for Milton residents in Otago. Joe employs five staff during the season and one full-time throughout the year. The full-timer is kept busy fencing and feeding stock for farmers when there is no tractor work. One thing Joe never does at the start is work out how many hectares there are to go - nor will he calculate the amount at the end of the season. “I’d be frightened to work it out. It would be thousands.” Joe and his wife Paula started the business in 2002, and have clients from Waihola, south to Clinton and west into the Lawrence area. The services they provide are ploughing, cultivating, sowing swedes and grain, whole crop silage, precision planting and baling. When Joe started out with his John Deere 7810, he thought he would be a one-man band. However, he realised quickly that there was more work than he could do on his own, so he took the plunge and bought a brand-new John Deere 6820 to meet demand. But the season was short and sharp. For his third season, to keep working from Christmas through to March, he invested in a John Deere 7920, a bigger tractor to pull around the Joe Herbert’s new McHale baler. contracting business Ignorance is bliss and the first season with a baler was started with a single tractor, and now extremely wet. Because he had never had a baler before employs five staff he didn’t know any different. When it was dry enough during the season. to get around, they had it going 24-hours-a-day, with Joe and another driver taking shifts. Compared to then, every year since has been relatively easy to do the balage. Steep country has meant a couple of “Oh No!” moments and he When fodder beet started to be planted in the region it didn’t recalled when a round bale took off downhill and hit the rake of a change the length of season but how he managed the start of the tractor working below. It pulled the tractor around a little and left season. Where it used to be a slow build up, now it all happens a bewildered driver wondering what had just happened. over a few weeks. Joe moved to South Otago, when his parents bought a 1000ha With a growing work list a fourth John Deere tractor was sheep and beef farm. He left school in the fifth form to work on bought. Joe and Paula have had a good run with the brand and a farm. A year later his dad was killed while topping thistles, after their service departments. his tractor rolled. His older brother took over the family farm and The other bonus of staying with the same brand was you didn’t Joe joined him a year later. have to relearn where everything was, he said. They later sold the farm and Joe bought Robert Lockhart’s In 2017, he bought his favourite machine - a 7290R - for contracting business. $295,000. It works well on the rolling to steep land many of his He was told there was money to be made - but not to have too clients have. much debt. However, it was also suggested that to make money, “It’s an awesome machine.” you needed to borrow money. Joe thinks he has a happy medium,

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September 2018

trading in tractors and borrowing the difference to buy new. He used this philosophy when convincing Paula they should build rather than renovate the house they were living in.

Keeping it in the family Family and community are very important to Joe and Paula. Though the tractors work seven days a week from the end of September until the end of February, with the exception of public holidays, Joe makes sure he never misses a family event and he strongly encourages his workers to do the same. Joe and Paula, who is training to be an enrolled nurse, have four children: Meighan, 20, a make-up artist and shift manager at Lone Star. Matthew, 17, year 12 student (who is keen to get involved in the business), Isaac, 14, and Flynn, 9. Joe has been on the St Mary’s board of trustees for about 12 years and chairman for the past five. Staff say if anything needs doing at the school he’s there in a flash. He is devoted to the school and often calls in for a catch up and coffee with the staff. His company sponsors the school’s swimming programme. The school had stopped the Swim Station instructors coming out from Dunedin’s Moana Pool because it was too expensive, so Paula, who was working as a teacher aide at the time, decided to get the programme back in place and arranged the sponsorship. It isn’t just for the students. The swim instructors also taught parents and teachers how to teach the children. The memories of farming never left Joe and in 2015 he and Paula bought a run-down 26ha property just out of Milton. They run 50 sheep and had 100 dairy cows which left at the end of July on it. It’s just enough land to keep his hand in.

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September 2018

Keeping everyone sweet

ontractors around New Zealand have given Country-Wide a few suggestions about what makes an amazing client and the flipside of the nuisances. To start the contractor’s day with a smile, have gates open and be ready when the contractor arrives. Have an up-to-date farm map printed off which clearly shows the paddocks, the hazards in those paddocks and the best routes for getting to them. Communication keeps everything running smoothly, so book well in advance and let the contractors know how the crop is going before harvest time. This gives the opportunity for the contractor to move their dates around to work best for all their clients. Dairy farmers who work in with the contractor when it comes to sending out their cows after milking are particularly well-liked. While the contractor is working on your farm it never hurts to check up on them, particularly if it is a very hot day, early morning and the ground conditions are greasy or just to make sure everything is going well. One farmer insists contractors either toot their horn loudly when they go past the driveway or phone so she knows they are safely off the farm. To be known as a wonderful guardian of the land, pay your bill on time so the contractor can pay theirs.

The flip side Lack of planning by farmers was the most common nuisance. This included not thinking about the position of silage stacks by not having enough room to drive on and off the stack and not having the pit cleaned out before the contractor arrives. Also turnaround areas needed to be a suitable size. Underestimating paddock size and using inaccurate maps upsets the contractor. This pushes their work back because of a couple of hectares extra at each job being added on. Not supplying a farm map with adequate information. All hazards need to be shown and planning a route around the farm that involves the least travel can save a lot of money if paying by the hour for services. This may be achieved by pinning fences down.

Tight squeezes are not great and this can be from tracks and raceways not being wide enough for modern equipment and or trees and hedges needing a trim. Lack of planning can frustrate everyone – but be nice and please do not take it out on the machinery operators. When planning where to grow crops, consider ease of access. Contractors have an acronym for baling grass that is not good quality - GIGO: garbage in, garbage out. The grass being harvested is valuable, and not a bi-product, rather a resource being conserved to feed stock when grass growth cannot keep up with demand. Contractors cannot perform miracles. Honouring the past and not looking towards the future can be frustrating. Technology is always evolving and farmers can gain knowledge from experienced contractors who may suggest different techniques and ways of doing something. The Biggest Frustrations: • Not paying bills. • Not booking in harvesting/cultivation jobs or alternatively booking several contractors and seeing which contractor turns up first. • Stock getting in the way. Just getting to a farm requires concentration and skill to navigate a tractor with duals over tight single-lane bridges and around narrow roads while watching out for unsuspecting traffic. Even roads drivers have been over many times can throw unexpected surprises as one operator found out when he was heading out to mow a paddock. The council had raised the road he was travelling on over the winter because it was prone to flooding. No one had taken any notice of the old telephone wires which crossed over the road. As the driver travelled down the road the mower clipped a wire. pulling the cross bar down with it. That landed on a car, which had pulled over to give the tractor room to get past. No serious damage was done. The contractor then had to have all their gear checked that it was all within the legal limits – which it was. It did mean the council got every company that had wires over the road to promptly check the heights.

JOIN JAMIE MACKAY EVERY WEEKDAY FROM 12 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1PM for an informative and entertaining agri-business hour, with a generous side-serving of news, sport and politics.

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PLANT & MACHINERY | EUROPE

Mower tech measures pasture WORDS: CHRIS MCCULLOUGH

Dutch dairy farmer whose cows just recently learned how to graze again after 10 years kept indoors is using a rather novel method to measure his grass yields to ensure he only uses fertiliser where required. Piet Jan Thibaudier, 31, discovered the pasture reader technology in Australia and adapted it to fit on to a mower that sits on the front of the tractor. The technology measures the height of the grass when cutting as well as the yield. With this information Piet can draw up a field map that highlights the areas that require fertiliser the most, preventing overuse and saving money. Piet milks 185 crossbred cows on 100 hectares near Lemmer in partnership with father Luut and mother Coby. The herd averages 8700kg per cow per year at 4.5% butterfat and 3.65% protein but the goal is to increase this average to 10,000kg with 5% butterfat and 4% protein. Years ago, when Piet’s father ran the farm, the cows were switched from a pasture-based system to being kept indoors and fed daily on a zero-grazing ration. However, as markets progressed, processor Friesland Campina was paying 34 euro cents (NZ 58 cents) a litre for the milk plus a bonus of 1.5 euro cents a litre for milk produced from grazing cows. When an earlier opportunity also arose

Country-Wide

September 2018

for Piet to take over a neighbouring herd of Australia with Arjan Hulsman to suit 45 cows and a further 25ha, he jumped at his own farming system by mounting the chance, albeit with the understanding the sensors and readers on to his mower changes to his feeding system was mounted on the front of his tractor. essential. Before the grass is cut the sensors That brought his cow measure the height and yield of the numbers up to over 180 sward as the mower passes over it. This and he was running a information tells him the weakest parts of 20% replacement rate the pasture and which areas are needed to for followers. With fertilise the most. There is also information the bonus Friesland on pH and humidity. Campina was offering The reader scans every three centimetres for milk from cows to gain accurate results in the grass crop. grazed at grass he Piet strives to achieve 2-2.5tonnes DM/ha. decided to let the cows Thanks to the success of the system Piet out. became a distributor for the technology in “However, my cows the Netherlands and already has some sales had not been out to the success for the pasture reader which retails fields in 10 years and had for about €5000(NZ$8650). never learned how to graze. “I already have five It was truly remarkable to customers,” Piet says, “who are see the 45 cows from the all using the system to monitor neighbour’s herd educate their own grass yields and my cows on how to eat quality.” grass in a field again.” Finding the pasture reader The cows are milked on the web is the latest success twice per day and graze six for Piet who also found his hours per day. He wants to rotary milking parlour online in increase that to 12 hours Denmark. Piet Jan Thibaudier. per day with 150 days When he was building his grazing in the season. new cow barn he decided to look for a As a result of allowing the herd to graze secondhand parlour on the internet. outdoors, Piet’s fodder costs fell by two “As luck would have it I found a 26-unit euro cents per litre but he knew the farm rotary machine that was being taken out of required a better grassland management a farm in Denmark.” plan. It was only two years old but was being Piet searched online for technology that replaced by robots. In the end he paid could help monitor his grass growth and the scrap price of $22,500 and had to discovered the pasture reader in Australia. replace all the rubber clusters and lines but Piet adapted the technology from everything else was relatively new.

Farm Life