SYSTEMS WINTER FEED
Cutting the sediment flow Humping and hollowing or flipping soils help West Coast farmers cope with the region’s high rainfall. However, sediment loss is an issue state-owned Pamu’s farms are also dealing with. Anne Hardie reports.
P
amu’s dairy farms near Lake Brunner on the West Coast are drenched with a staggering four metres of rain a year, so you would think winter crops and pugging would be a monumental challenge. Yet their humped and hollowed paddocks have come out of winter relatively unscathed. Great from an animal welfare perspective, but there’s still work to be done, especially around sediment loss and that’s why it’s included in the stateowned enterprise’s goal to reduce intensive winter grazing significantly over the next three years. Like other Pamu farms, the West Coast dairy business intends to lead by example to meet the National 40
Environmental Standards for Freshwater Regulations. Cameron Walker is the dairy business manager for the 10 dairy farms between Lake Brunner, Reefton and Cape Foulwind, as well as three dairy support units that together graze 9000 dairy cows, 4300 young stock and 500 bulls. Apart from just under 1000 cows grazed locally through winter and 800 young stock grazed in Canterbury, stock have been wintered on its West Coast properties. Reducing winter cropping means the farms will now need more external winter grazing for more animals, whether that’s on Pamu’s livestock farms, private graziers or lease land. There’s also a range of system change
options being considered. A couple of years ago the West Coast dairy business had 10% of its 13 farms planted in crops for winter grazing with a total of 583 hectares, so it was already exceeding best practice standards for the new environmental guidelines. Last winter it dropped back to 9% and this next winter it will be reduced to 7.7% or 440.8ha, with continuing reductions bringing it down to 5% by 2023. That will be a 55% reduction of intensively grazed winter crops. In Canterbury Pamu plans to reduce those crops by 60% and in Otago, 35%. On the West Coast, part of the reduction will be achieved by removing winter crop completely from two dairy units which
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
