NZ Dairy Exporter August 2021

Page 52

SYSTEMS ALTERNATIVE PASTURES

An

alternative pasture solution

Tall fescue and cocksfoot are proving a game changer for Northland farmers as climate change impacts their pastures. Delwyn Dickey reports.

A

s more Northland farmers watch their ryegrass pastures wither under the increasingly hotter and drier summers and autumns, many are weighing up their options with alternative pastures. After using alternative pastures for around 10 years, Murray Jagger has no doubts about their effectiveness. Having watched their own ryegrass pastures struggle over 40 years, even after changes to various modern cultivars and their associated endophytes, he and wife Helen changed their game plan and moved to mixes using new cultivars of tall fescue and cocksfoot. This alongside learning to live with, and get the most out of, that bane of northland pasture – kikuyu. It probably helps that Murray’s family have farmed the same area for 150 years and have a 52

long-term understanding of the seasonal cycles of the land. The willingness to try new things may also be rooted in his family history. They were among a group who left the western highlands of Scotland in the early 1800’s for what is now Nova Scotia in Canada, and became boat builders. A generation later many sailed on to New Zealand in the 1850’s, some in boats they had built. While some families stayed with boat building, others became farmers.

SUMMER STRUGGLES Dry summers have always been an issue for ryegrass pasture in the north, Murray says, and the ubiquitous kikuyu wasn’t seen as a viable economic option back in the 1980’s. This saw Murray and Helen start to experiment Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | August 2021


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook

Articles inside

The Dairy Exporter in 1971

3min
pages 106-108

Tech comes to the farm

6min
pages 102-103

Running away from grief

6min
pages 100-101

Whakapapa win inspires finalist

5min
pages 96-97

Nitrogen system trial drawing to a close

2min
pages 98-99

Vet Voice: Diagnosing your down cow

5min
pages 91-93

Oyster season in beef land

12min
pages 86-90

Bobby calves an emotive but profitable product

6min
pages 84-85

Big idea leads to native plantings

4min
pages 82-83

What dung beetles do

3min
page 79

Combating milk fever with diet changes

5min
pages 70-72

Fortify supplement with P

2min
pages 74-75

Don’t let cows go hypo

1min
page 73

Cows energised on winter diets

4min
pages 68-69

Efficiency from amazing maize

9min
pages 62-65

Feeding the cow and the rumen

5min
pages 66-67

Transition management

5min
pages 60-61

Feed tactics win the profit battle

9min
pages 56-59

An alternative pasture solution

7min
pages 52-55

All hail hay bale grazing

7min
pages 46-49

Torunui farm on emissions reduction path

9min
pages 42-45

Fodder beet pulling nitrogen out of the soil

7min
pages 50-51

Sustainable farming sparks excitement

12min
pages 34-38

SIDE: Cost control and the five ‘nahs’

5min
pages 39-41

Focus on your workers during busy times

2min
page 33

Resilience shines over West Coast flooded waters

6min
pages 30-32

‘Pure magic’ making raw milk cheese

9min
pages 26-29

Sustainable sourcing the trend for dairying

2min
pages 23-24

The opportunity of alternative proteins

9min
pages 14-17

Ireland has developed a Grass-Fed Standard. What are the ramifications for NZ?

2min
page 22

How Brazil combined intensive land use with rainforest protection

7min
pages 18-21

Richard Reynolds reflects on a great SIDE conference

3min
pages 12-13

Trish Rankin ponders why farming is so hard right now

3min
page 11

Say G’day to NZ Dairy Exporter’s new contributor Hamish Hammond

3min
page 10

China’s demand for dairy speeds up

4min
page 25
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.