STOCK WINTERING The R1s happy in the Omakau fog.
Great soil and water management wins awards Careful establishment, fertilising, and grazing of crops along with controlled water use helped a Central Otago couple win the Ballance Farm Environment Supreme Award for Otago. Karen Trebilcock reports.
I
t’s three in the afternoon near the end of May at Omakau in Central Otago, and Anna and Ben Gillespie are outside discussing the temperature. Anna says according to her phone it’s 0.5C. Ben says the dash of his ute is telling him it’s 1C. Not that it matters. The Kiwicross dairy 720 R1s and 700 R2s on the dry stock farm are warm with their bellies full of fodder beet in the thick mist. The couple were announced as the Otago Ballance Farm Environment supreme winners in April and also won the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Soil Management 70
Award and the WaterForce Wise with Water Award. And it’s their wintering of the dairy cattle that stood out for the judges. Not only is there minimal impact to their soils and nearby waterways but the dairy stock they graze are fully fed and up to weight. “We body condition scored them in April this year and the R2s were at 5.5 and were 450kg,” Anna said. “Last year we did it in May and they were at 5.8 so we had to be a bit careful not to put on any more condition over winter.” The young dairy cattle are from two Southland farms – one at Riverton and the
other Otahuti – and come to Anna and Ben’s at weaning. They stay for two winters and go home ready to calve. The dairy grazing brings in monthly cashflow and they buy store beef cattle in the autumn and spring, depending on the season’s growth, aiming to send them to the works six months later. “If the beef side wasn’t so variable we would have more beef cattle but the prices fluctuate too much,” Ben said. As well, they enjoy working with the dairy stock. “We love making them into pets, which
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | August 2020
