SPECIAL REPORT • SMART FERTILISER
Pasture + soils BRINGS SUCCESS Good pasture management and correct soil nutrient levels work together as the key to success on a North Taranaki operation. Jackie Harrigan reports.
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fter 10 years of sharemilking in Waikato and for the past three years in Northern Taranaki, James and Melissa Barbour have honed their systems to sum up their farming ethos. “We are pretty big on pasture production - and it all starts with the soils,” James says. “The relationship between pasture production and soil nutrient levels drive animal production and that is the key driver to profitability.” Coming from a low-input system in the Waikato, the pair said they had never actually been to Taranaki before they were approached to take on the sharemilking contract at Trewithen Farm, home of the Faull family, who have owned the property and gradually increased its size for many generations.
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The Barbours had never farmed with a feedpad or in-shed feeding before, James says, so they had to be careful not to substitute feed for pasture because they could more easily feed out supplement. The farm is milking all year round, with 380 autumn-calvers and 700 cows spring calving, and the kind climate and free draining volcanic ash soils promote grass growth year round. But protecting those high-producing soils is very important and using the feedpad and the runoffs play a big part. “It’s important for us to be able to get the spring calvers off the farm on to the runoffs once they have dried off - this allows us to maintain a 100-day-plus grazing round through the winter and keep grass as the main part of the winter milkers’ diet.” Looking after the pastures is really
important, James says, and rotational grazing has a big role to play. “We put a lot of effort into making sure our pasture management is right - we focus on leaving good residuals and would rather leave a bit more than hammer the pastures - but we are happy to use the mower if we need to.” When they arrived at the property they reduced the stocking rate by 160 cows, to lower the liveweight per ha and build on the per cow production. The 600 cows from their previous job were lighter framed Crossbred cows and the existing cows they bought were slightly heavier, more Friesian cows. The couple challenged themselves to increase production above the previous five year average (502,000kg milksolids) but to ensure they were doing this profitably. Per cow production has been
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2020
