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Bay of Plenty and Waikato Farm, Orchard and Rural Lifestyle News

July 2011

PH (07) 578 0030

Issue No. 130

Spike in dairy

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this month

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salmonella A harrowing outbreak of highlyinfectious salmonella can kill cows in a matter of hours. The disease spreads quickly through a herd and depending on the time of the season, can cause a massive drop in production, bring on slips or have a huge effect on fertility.

More cases of salmonella are being reported and the reason behind the increased presence has vets scratching their heads. Read full story on Page 3.

Veterinarian Bill Teague.

Photo by Sheryl Brown.

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COAST & COUNTRY

Page 2

Coast & Country

Avocado boom in the Bay

But crops still yet to meet expectations

salmonella, as vets are seeing more and more crippling outbreaks on farms. I also talk to Bill Webb on why he is selling his contracting business. Writer Sue Edmonds pins down the issues of Variation 6 and looks in at the innovation winners at the Fieldays. Meanwhile Psa continues to have an impact in Te Puke, with restrictions put on nurseries. Avocado growers in the Bay on the other hand are smiling at heavily fruit-laden trees, anticipating harvest.

Snow has finally arrived for the skiers – not so exciting for those about to start calving – so wrap up warm by the fire and read all the latest news and information in July’s issue of Coast & Country.

This month we look at the risk of

Avocado production in the Bay of Plenty is expected to double this harvest – booming the region’s economy with more jobs.

The Avocado Industry Council is estimating to harvest between 5.4 and 5.8 million trays this season, with about 3.5 million of those coming from the Bay of Plenty.

AIC chief executive Jen Scoular says they have been talking to pack houses which have provided them with the record estimate numbers.

“They assure us they will get the labour and the resource required for the harvest,” says Jen.

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Extra jobs

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“There will be a few extra jobs in the Bay of Plenty for backpackers here for the Rugby World Cup.” Jen says this year’s crop is on target to meet the industry’s anticipation of an increased yield, which is “not necessarily happening yet”.

The AIC has a vision to be harvesting between 10 and 12 million trays by 2015.

“We have been talking up avocados for about eight years – this is

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the crop we’ve been waiting for.”

She says for kiwifruit growers in the region who have avocados too, “it will be nice for the morale of the horticultural industry” after the negative effect of Psa. Avocado Growers Association chairman John Schnackenberg says it’s “expected to be our biggest crop ever”.

“Bay of Plenty is looking exceptionally better, but it was exceptionally bad.

“Bay of Plenty might have doubled by 100 per cent this year.”

Interesting dynamics

Not only is this year expected to be the biggest crop ever, it will also be the biggest export crop, estimated to be about 3.5 million trays, which “introduces some interesting dynamics in the market place,” says John.

“Our primary market is Australia.

The most fruit we’ve sent to Australia is 1.9 million trays.

“We are expecting to send in the vicinity of 2.5 to 2.7 million trays to Australia this year.”

In Australia, consumption of avocados has increased 35 per cent in the last five years.

Exporters are planning to send the rest of the trays to Japan, America and South East Asia.

“There is a limit to what Australia will take and we don’t want to seriously test that limit,” says John.

“We simply are trying to put another 800,000 trays into the Australian market that we’ve ever put there before.

“We do know that the Australia supply at the same time will be significantly down, in fact, ironically, it’s down about the same number that we’re up – so the match might be okay.”

After good prices over the last two seasons, John says the industry is trying to “wean our growers off an expectation that prices will be as good as they have been”.

John says the size profile of this year’s fruit is very good, however.

“We’ve had a very good growing season – we’ve had regular dollops of rain from January right through; the chunk of the growing season.

“That’s presuming we don’t get a big storm – potentially a severe weather event would drop our crop by 10 per cent.

“It’s not prudent to get too excited just yet.”

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COAST & COUNTRY

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Stress = Salmonella Acceleration of cases in recent years

Te Awamutu V.E. Veterinary Services veterinarian Steve Herbert says salmonella is always ‘there’, but it needs a stress factor to manifest itself.

It’s an orally ingested bacteria and if a cow is scouring, it will be contaminating the pasture and other cows will pick it up that way.

“It’s a gut infection – it takes the lining off the stomach – I imagine it is quite painful,” says Steve.

“Scouring is the most commonly presented symptom.

“Cows will appear a bit off colour – a bit listless, have high temperatures and from that stage on it gets into their blood system.”

When a cow gets really sick salmonella has changed to blood poisoning and the cow is more likely to die, says Steve.

When it goes through the blood, it ends up infecting the foetus as well causing slips.

Calves can be seriously affected – and will “usually die pretty quickly”.

Risk to farmers

Steve says the risk to the farmers themselves is a huge factor too.

“Humans can pick it up and get quite sick as well.”

One common theory for the rise in salmonella outbreak cases is an increase in the amount of high-intensity farming.

This is to do with how cows on these kinds of farms are being fed more grain and maize in sheds and on feed pads, which attract a large number of birds.

“Salmonella is an oral ingestion – we always blame birds, quite a common culprit – and it’s very hard to keep birds out of sheds,” says Steve.

Veterinarian Bill Teague says in cases of salmonella he has handled it is “definitely not the birds”, but rather most New Zealand herds have chronic carriers of the disease.

A vet at Tokoroa and District Veterinary Services, Bill has seen an acceleration of cases in the last few years.

“In every case – when I said your herd has salmonella, nobody said ‘what is that?’

“They all knew about it and had had cases in their herds before.

“But for some reason there is a trigger setting off larger outbreaks in the herds.”

‘Bloody shit happens’ was the title of Bill’s seminar at the annual New Zealand Vets Association Conference in Hamilton.

The first big case Bill saw in Tokoroa was in 2009 on an 850 cow farm.

The farmer noticed the cow faeces were a bit ‘looser than usual’, then there were 25 cows suddenly sick and within 24 hours, 23 of those were dead.

“He was feeding out far too much crop according to my 30-year-old textbook and so I decided it was probably ruminal acidosis – because that’s what it had always been in the past when that kind of thing had happened.

“We increased the fibre content of the diet and it was all good until two weeks later – then there was a whole heap more sick cows; diarrhoea, sunken eyes, they had rectal temperatures more than 40 degrees and the whole herd production plummeted from 1.5kg/MS/day to 0.7.

“I didn’t know what was happening.”

Bill took more samples, which all came back with heavy growths of salmonella.

They vaccinated and treated the cows with antibiotics and fluids and Bill told the farmer

it would be 7-10 days before there was any effect, “which I thought was quite brave because I didn’t really know what was going to happen. Eight days later new cases stopped so he was quite happy.”

It cost the farmer in excess of $165,000 with loss of production, dead cows and vet costs – not including the effect on his reproduction.

“So it’s definitely worth doing something about.”

Investigation

Bill has continued to see cases of salmonella and investigate why it is happening.

He’s considered climate, ferel reservoirs, he has taken numerous samples of palm kernel and contaminated water – with no positive results back for salmonella.

He believes effluent spreaders, “if you are hosing a salmonella-covered yard” out onto pastures, as a major issue in the spreading of the disease.

Bill says farmers and vets need to have a quicker response to stop a big outbreak.

His clinic has started to assume salmonella rather than ruminal acidosis.

“Practice attitude to cows with ugly looking diarrhoea has changed. If we are making an error, we are making an error the other way.

“But at the end of the day, it’s better than the other option of a couple of hundred cows dying of salmonella.”

Inoculation is an option and at about $1 a dose, it is one of the cheapest vaccines available to farmers.

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Coast & Country

Tree sale: growing a philosophy Let me tell you ’bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees cause now is the season for planting trees – and there is a tree sale on in the Bay of Plenty.

Dean Martin’s version may have finished slightly more poetically, but the New Zealand Tree Crops Association is more interested in the poetry of people growing their own trees – an act which encourages its own song of birds and bees at work.

The NZTCA Bay of Plenty branch is hosting its inaugural Tree Sale Day in Katikati on Saturday, July 16.

Bay of Plenty association branch chairperson Elizabeth Rae is hoping for a good variety of bare root, deciduous and ornamental trees and she is hoping for some natives as well.

There will be a big selection of citrus and a range of different nut trees.

“This is the first time we’ve done this,” says Elizabeth.

“Waikato has done it for years (a yearly sale) – they are pleased we are doing one because they get cleaned

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“We have different varieties, so we can pick citrus all year round.”

out so quickly now.” Elizabeth says there will be a good variety, with more than 200 citrus plants, feijoas, blueberries, grapes, guavas, olives, locquotes, figs, raspberries, persimmons, tamarillos, tea (Camellias) blackberries, inga beans and quince.

National Tree Crops president and hazelnut grower Murray Redpath Hazelnut will be bringing along a good selection of trees too.

“It is tree planting season,” says Elizabeth’s husband, Bill, who has a botany degree and 30 years experience teaching horticulture at secondary schools.

Between autumn and spring is the best time to plant trees as it gives the trees time to establish some roots before putting energy into growing flowers or fruit, says Bill.

“All the trees at the show will be between 50cm and a metre and ready to plant now.

“There will be a good variety of tree cropping plants for sale at reasonable prices – trees that are worthwhile to grow – which haven’t been sitting around a garden centre for two years.”

Bill says the aim of the association is to encourage people to grow their own fruit, nuts – in fact, any crop, which may mean fodder from trees for animals; to firewood or timber.

“With food prices going up – people can be a little bit more self sufficient. It’s noticeable already – how people are trying to grow more,” says Bill.

“As an organisation, we have a philosophy; if people can produce their own fruit all year round they will have a healthier diet and reduce their food bill.”

Elizabeth and Bill bought a kiwifruit orchard in Katikati 14 years ago.

Bill says there are a lot of people who move to the Bay of Plenty to ‘semiretire’ and buy a few acres of land – and aren’t always sure what to do with it.

“We can show them what they can do – without having any commitment to a certain

Elizabeth and Bill Rae are preparing for the inaugural Bay of Plenty Tree Crops Association Tree Sale Day in Katikati.

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It’s gone bananas out there pack house or industry. They can look at a range of things.”

In the Bay of Plenty it’s really easy to grow most things says Elizabeth.

Elizabeth and Bill Rae try and grow everything in their cold gully in Katikati – they even give bananas a go.

“So there is really no excuse. With the scares in Europe at the moment, controlling how your food is produced is really important.”

There are plenty of dwarf varieties that have been developed for pots for people with limited space, or for anyone with an ordinary section size.

“You can get a lot of fruit off of just one apple tree, mandarin and a lemon tree,” says Elizabeth.

Bill says the Tree Crops Association gives information freely.

“We give lots of information.

“The organisation has a wealth of informed people. If someone wants to come and learn how to grow anything, there will be someone there who would have grown it or knows someone who has.”

Bill says people can learn how to do anything, plant, prune, and harvest.

There are about 120 members in the Bay of Plenty, about 1300 members nationally. It costs $40 a year to be a member.

“Figs, tamarillos and feijoas are what you plant if you want quick crops, it takes a few years until you get a really good crop off them though,” says Elizabeth.

However, you just need to get out and plant them – the time will go quickly.

“Bill’s mother was still planting fruit trees in her 90s – she used to say ‘the sooner you plant them the sooner you get fruit’.”

The Tree Sale Day is on Saturday, July 16 between 10am and 12.30pm at the Katikati A&P Showgrounds, Major Street, just north of Katikati.

By Sheryl Brown

Sheep prices increasing; still room for improvement Alongside venison, New Zealand lamb is the best mass-produced edible protein in the world.

Plenty of international consumers believe that, but quite a few locals don’t. That’s because the domestic sheep industry has been in difficulty. The east coast of the North Island has suffered prolonged drought and lambs were worth $85 or less. Even now, as times are looking up for sheep meat and coarse wool, dairy continues to top them with a payout, including share dividends, probably well north of $8kg milk solids. South Island conversions to dairying continue, creating unused space in meat processing factories – risking a price war for stock and a commodity focus. As if that’s not enough, there’s a growing global carbon market intent on planting trees to ameliorate climate change and traditional hill country for sheep is becoming a target for forestry carbon sinks.

New Zealand must keep farming sheep. Cattle are more environmentally expensive, especially when used for dairying; between 19852005, lamb saw higher growth in market returns than other major livestock products. National reliance on a single livestock species is unwise too.

Meat processors have come under a lot of criticism. I’d like to turn the spotlight onto sheep farmers. Dairy farmers feel kings and queens of farming these days. But that edge has principally come from dairy farmers having to work together to create an asset – otherwise they have a massive liability; fouled milk. So they commit to supply dairy processors for long periods.

Sheep farmers can supply meat processors whenever (droughts excluded). As a consequence; too often they sell on the spot market.

Why is anyone surprised we’ve ended up with a marketing crisis when spot market sales are so common?

Meat processors can’t fight on two fronts (supply and marketing) and win. They have to pretty much close one front and largely fight on the other. They can never close the marketing front so they have to close the supply front and switch their resources to ensuring market demand for our lamb always exceeds supply. This means one thing; sheep farmers have to commit to long-term supply to specific meat processors and longterm means more than one year.

Until farmers choose to do this en masse, the sheep industry is going to remain awash with milk.

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Page 6

Weighing in the winning catch The Polaris Big Four Hunting and Fishing competition held at the Quarry Tavern attracted a huge crowd of hunters and spectators.

The carpark came alive as trucks rolled in loaded up with stags, boars, pheasants and trout. Eighty eight teams of four, some 352 hunters, braved the unpleasant conditions to get out and compete for the amazing prizes up for grabs.

Animals and fish came from across the North Island and keen hunters stood

anxiously watching the hard working weigh team to see if they were in the running for prizes. The competition is being featured in upcoming episodes of ‘Outdoors with Geoff ’.

Team Hilux won third place in the teams’ event and walked away with a huge bag of goodies; including a helicopter trip, a meat band saw, Husquavarna Chainsaw, Bradly smoker, weighing scales and more. Gang 47 placed second, which won them a fantastic sleepout, valued at more than $12,000. The winners of the $20,000 Polaris Ranger was a very happy Team

Coast & Country Left Geo Winners P ff Thomas (Outdoor hillip & R s with Geo or ff) yW and Anton Giacon from ard From Team Taup o Polaris Indu stries.

Taupo. Individual first place results went to: Heaviest boar; 119kg, Duncan Robinson: Heaviest stag; 128kg, Philip Ward: Most bars on pheasant tail; 42 Bars, Sid Carter: Heaviest trout; 4.24kg, Brandon Burgess. The 1988 Toyota Hilux spot prize went to a young fulla by the name of Ken Brake. Congratulations to all hunters who won prizes and thanks to all who entered. Also a very special thank you has to go out to all the businesses which supported the competition with prizes, financial contributions and free advertising. Without their help we would never have been able to make it happen. ke accepting Also thank you to the guys from New Zealand Left Ken Bra s for winning the on ti ner and la Deer Stalking Association and the crew from congratu previous ow the Fish and Game Board. These people offered Hilux from mon Urbanc. ta yo To 88 19 ember Si valuable knowledge and advice ensuring a high Committee m standard of fairness and accuracy.

A huge thanks also to Adam, Ken, Roger, Gavin, Robbie, Worzel, Gary and daughters, Simon, Mark, Lisa, Jan, Brooke, Matt, Dave on the fork lift, Sheryl on the camera, Anton from Polaris, Denney and staff for the venue and anyone else who rolled up their sleeves on the day. Bring on next year!

By Clive Mckenney

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Photos by Sheryl Richardson.

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Page 7

Game enough to cook

By Laura Weaser

Game bird and wild meats is a dying product in New Zealand restaurants, with pheasant, duck, wild pig and venison rarely seen on the menu.

Fish and Game New Zealand’s 2011 Gamebird Food Festival is trying to change that, by encouraging new ways of thinking about these foods.

As part of the festival, New Zealand MasterChef contestant Cameron Petley made a guest appearance at Fantail Lodge Country Estate in Katikati to cook for dinner guests to share his experience of game cooking.

Cameron, who has been involved in hunting since he was a child, specialises in game bird and wild meats. His development of tastes and styles came about through experimentation – and he confesses the last formal training he had for cooking was at intermediate.

MasterChef contestant Cameron Petley and Fantail Lodge manager Harrie Geraerts walking back to the lodge to prepare the bird for cooking. Photo Bruce Barnard.

Game marinates The purpose of marinating meats are multiple and usually tailored to the kind of meats, seafood or vegetables being used.

Marinates can vary from basic lemon juice and/or olive oil, a brine or more complex marinates.

The purpose varies also from adding flavour, balancing flavours, tenderising and preserving.

As today much farmed game meats in particular are being used, they do not have the same flavour as truly wild meats. Some prefer a very mild (farmed) flavour – others like to have a little more character to it.

In this recipe, I use red wine, however, for light meats with the intention of a short or light marinate I suggest using an aromatic white. The colour of red wine otherwise may only penetrate partly if timing is relative short.

Base game marinate recipe makes 1 litre volume

Ingredients 1 bottle red wine 100ml vinegar 1 medium onion Small hand of leaf celery Small glove of crushed garlic 3 dried bay leaves 3 cloves 8 crushed black pepper corns 8 juniper berries Small twig of rosemary, thyme 1/4 tsp rock salt Method Place rock salt, thyme/rosemary, juniper berries, pepper corns and cloves in a mortar, but keep it coarse. Keep all together in a large coffee filter or small linen towel which separates the herbs from the meat while still extracting aromas.

Place all ingredients in a stainless pot and bring to boiling point. Let it cool down before placing the meat into the marinate.

The heated marinate option will extend its life with weeks while it extracts easier the aroma’s from the herbs. This marinate can be used to deglaze your pan or baking tray as a base for a rich game jus.

Supplied by Harrie Geraerts, Fantail Lodge

“I was just bringing what I get home and preparing it for the family. At first, they wouldn’t eat it, but when you dress it up and make it look pretty, they get into it.”

Cameron admits game cooking is a hard thing to do and he taught himself the best practices through “trial and error”.

“I have been cooking game most of my life and I don’t find it difficult anymore. You have to cook it right or it gets dry – and you have to find what flavours to marry it up with.

“A lot of people don’t like eating because of the flavour, but if you find that perfect balance, people love it.”

Fantail Lodge proprietor Harrie Geraerts says he was chosen to work with Cameron as part of the festival because he is a qualified game butcher and likes working with game in his restaurant.

Cameron and Harrie worked out a game menu together, as well as cleaning and prepar-

ing the meat.

Cameron says the evening attracted a good crowd and thinks they all went away with something more than they knew when they arrived.

“Not only bird hunters came, but pig hunters showed up too. They wanted to know if Harrie was going to do anymore venison or pork.”

While a lot of people go hunting, Cameron says the problem is not many people know what to do with it and this is where he hoped the evening helped.

“If you teach people how to prepare it properly, the whole family can enjoy it and we might start seeing it more in our restaurants.

“I think New Zealand restaurants can be better, but it is just about getting the game out there I suppose for more people to see and try it. We don’t serve enough wild game in our restaurants, I don’t know why.”

Page 8

COAST & COUNTRY

Coast & Country

Hunting out a kiwi tradition RURaL Dog owneRS 1ST jULY 2011

Welcome to the first edition of ‘The Wild Side’, a new column that takes you into our hills and oceans – hunting, fishing and gathering – then brings it all back to The Wild Side kitchen to make the best of this country’s abundant natural food resources.

Living off the land and sea is more than a means of putting food on the table. It’s an art form, steeped in unique Kiwi tradition and shaped by the ethics, comradeship and care for the environment that is at the heart of every good huntergatherer’s ethos.

These columns will explore the wondrous variety of wildlife to be collected, fished and hunted; and combine that with great ideas for preparation, storing, cooking and even throw in some classic beverages to match.

The duck season is beating its way over the horizon and the region’s shooters are reflecting on what seems to have been a testing, but rewarding year.

Opening day didn’t fire that well for a lot of hunters, with recent heavy rain causing a lot of ducks to head for the hills and paddocks. The following weeks seemed to improve markedly, however, and my mates tell me it’s been a satisfying season generally.

There’s plenty of ducks around and the prospects are looking better than ever for following seasons.

It might have been the wettest season on record, giving the feathered fellas a few options for avoiding the favourite possies and maimai, but it’s also been a lot warmer than average.

This has brought out the amorous intentions of some of those drakes you missed, because they’ve been busily begetting with the ducky womenfolk to bring on a noticeable number of early ducklings. We can only hope with the close of season we don’t have a late cold snap to hammer this burgeoning young population before they get a chance to become pan-sized for next season.

One disturbing trend we’ve noticed in the last couple of seasons is the growing tendency for cowboys roaring around in powerboats and jet skis, all guns blazing.

Not only illegal and dangerous, but not the slightest bit sporting. Any hunter with a modicum of ethics will be shaking their heads at this carry on.

Those in maimai or into drifting from kayak or dinghy, have been horrified to see powerboats roaring around scaring everything for miles and in the end,

the wild side

By Brian and Claire Rogers

achieving very little except riling bonafide hunters.

Come on guys, there’s nothing like the thrill of enticing down a bird with the help of a good caller and some well-placed decoys.

Remember, if you find a duck with a band or a transmitter, Fish & Game will be pleased to hear from you.

By the last week of the season, three of the 50 transmitters had been returned and F&G were continuing to track the remaining birds – valuable stuff for those making decisions on the future planning of our resource.

Meanwhile attention turns to upland game, with pheasant and quail on the menu till August 28.

Pukeko and black swans are also fair game till then.

And the wily Canada geese will no doubt get a hammering with the lifting of their game status.

We’ll be bringing you some recipe ideas for Canadas in following columns.

Back in the kitchen, a good preparation for duck, pheasant and even those supposedly “tougher” game meats, is brining. A day or so in a salty solution does wonders to soften the meat and take the gamey edge off the taste.

From The Wild Side Kitchen From the cooking half of the hunting equation: So far this season I have tried many different approaches to serving duck.

Definitely putting the duck breasts in brine/marinade makes all the difference, (see marinade recipe from Harrie, Page 7).

From there, pan fry the duck breast, skin side down in a hot pan. Turn after a few minutes. Remove the breasts from the pan and rest for about 10 minutes.

Add to the pan, pancetta, onions and sliced mushrooms.

Deglaze your pan with whatever takes your fancy – I use whatever is at hand and open, red wine, port, stones green ginger…experiment and enjoy. This forms a nice sauce.

I then remove the skin, thinly slice the duck breasts diagonally and place briefly back in the sauce.

Serve over a kumara mash. Adding a little coconut cream to the mash really adds a nice touch.

Other favourite recipe experiments for the season have been a marmalade and balsamic sauce. A salad of duck breast with orange segments and candied cashews.

Don’t be afraid to try whatever you have at hand that you think may work.

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Page 9

Debate on Variation 6 water issues Sue Edmonds has been digging around to find out what the ‘dreaded’ Variation 6 will actually mean for farmers.

For years there has been an allowance for stock drinking water, set under the Resource Management Act. Sec.14(3)(b)(ii) ‘the reasonable needs of an individual’s animals for drinking water’ if such a take ‘does not, or is not likely to, have an adverse effect on the environment’.

There has also, at least in the Waikato, been a second 15 cu.m/day ‘supplementary take’ allowance for things such as washing down dairy sheds. Whether this second take is sufficient to wash down the acres of concrete which now exist with feed pads ecterea, may need thinking about.

The question of who should have resource consents for the amount of water actually being used by farms, irrigation, industry, seems to have been somewhat overlooked at regional council level – until a recent

count discovered only 100 out of 4000 farms in the Waikato region actually have consents. At the same time, sums showed under the ‘first in first served’ regime, some parts of the region were already overallocated, either for groundwater or surface water.

Variation 6 is therefore a rather late attempt to sort out who should be getting what in the way of water.

First mooted in 2006, the process has ground on with endless arguments between the multiple user parties ever since. At present, there are a great number of ‘suits’ attending the Environment Court, at great cost, while every clause, of what is about a 100-page document, is debated and rewritten, seemingly ad nauseam.

What many farmers may not be aware of, is that the RMA regulations about water takes took on a new set of rules in November 2010 – Resource Management (Measurement and Reporting of Water Takes) Regulations 2010. To check if these regulations apply visit http://www.mfe.govt.nz/rma/ central/measuring-reporting-watertakes.html For those with consents, this has required some investigative

homework to find out just what has changed for their compliance and reporting obligations. For those without consents, they may find themselves in a whole new sort of queue, where the criteria are based on ‘priorities’ – with the measurement and reporting requirements going to involve different reporting periods, (some even daily depending on water take).

The actual achieving of a consent may well depend on whether the relevant catchment is over or underallocated and whether sufficient farm management planning has been done to not only be sure of how much is required, but also how things would be managed at a time of water restrictions and low flows.

So the rules may not have quite been finalised yet, but there will be rules. Rather than sit around muttering about the trials of bureaucracy, maybe farmers should take some proactive steps in the interim.

Installing one or more water meters, of the right type, is probably a good start. A Ministry for the Environment publication (Measuring and Reporting Water Takes) suggests “Your regional council can direct you to useful guidance material, including information on

selecting a water meter and the contact details of qualified installers and verifiers”. Knowing how much water is being used and being able to say, hand on heart, that one is attempting to minimise use, may well help the case.

If farmers aren’t already geared up to do this, maybe they should arrange a Water Management Guidance Day, similar to the one Waikato Regional Council ran at Mystery Creek on effluent.

This allowed farmers to make up their own minds of which system to choose in an ‘open’ event.

A similar event for water management would, hopefully, preclude an onslaught of what might well be snake oil salesmen approaching farmers individually, which was the case for effluent for quite some time.

DairyNZ’s ‘Smart Water Use on Farms’ is free to levy payers. While some farmers are being very ‘smart’ about it, there are probably many who haven’t had a guided analytical look at how water is used on their farms and could be making considerable savings of both water and electricity if they did so.

Tyranny of bureaucracy paperwork Federated Farmers has elected its new national representatives.

Having a firm national voice is important to the success of every farmer’s business. In a democratic sense, farmers are very much a minority in a line of business that faces challenges on every front – particularly the extraordinary volume of rules and regulations that beset the modern farm.

There’s more to this than the major debates on substantial reforms such as the ETS – difficult as that legislation is to comprehend.

Modern farming needs representation right through the policy process, at both local and national level.

Farm businesses attract a great deal of attention from bureaucracy It requires extreme vigilance to keep up with the legislation and regula-

tion that pours out of the beehive and local councils.

At local level, Federated Farmers maintains provincial organisations and policy staff who identify and represent farmers on regional and district council matters. Much of this resource is used trying to bring sanity to the rules that arise out of the RMA, bylaws and other regulations that affect farms.

Policies and plans are constantly amended and Federated Farmers gets a word in for its members in every district and region.

For an individual farmer, just keeping up with the local stuff would be incredibly difficult – and there wouldn’t be much farming getting done.

At national level, Federated Farmers monitors the parliamentary legislative process closely. Even for a talented team of people, the amount of activity in government can be

bewildering – with the creation and amendment of approximately 105 Acts of Parliament and 405 regulations every year.

A great deal of this bureaucratic effort affects farming directly or indirectly and by one estimate it represents between 6000 and 9000 pages of new legislation.

With all this paper flying about, a big concern for me is the reduced ability of people to keep up with the processes that affect them. Anyone at Federated Farmers will tell you about the phenomenal sea of paper that envelops anybody attempting to submit on policies at any level.

One wonders if this is a new form of tyranny – where there is so much policy and paperwork the citizens are overwhelmed and leave things to the bureaucrats.

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Page 10

CALF REARING

Coast & Country

Recycling tyres

Dear Ingrid, The most significant inorganic contaminant that leaches from tyres is the metal zinc, which is naturally occurring in soils.

Hi Everyone at Coast & Country, I read with interest Sue Edmonds article about using old tyres.

There is a gardening expert in the UK who uses old tyres to grow potatoes.

Using this theme I started a compost heap using old tyres, once one is full; put another tyre on top. I also saw tyres used as tree surrounds, even my husband wouldn’t be able to cut the trees down with his weedeater through a tyre I thought!!

Will the chemicals in the tyres leach into the compost and would they poison trees if used as protectors?

Ingrid Derbyshire. Gisborne

The small amount of zinc that one or two individual tyres could add to the underlying soil in rainwater leachate would be hard to detect as an increase compared with the natural concentration of zinc in soil which is about 30 mg/ kg.

Of the organic contaminant group, tyres contain high levels of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), but these chemicals

tend to stay in the rubber rather than being leached in rainwater. Road-side runoff has been found to contain PAHs, but when examined carefully it is found that this is because small particles of tyre rubber are physically abraded from car tyres as they travel.

The other organic contaminants that can leach out of tyres into rainwater will either break down in the environment quite quickly or be adsorbed by the soil and break down more gradually.

The main issues we have with tyre leachate are cases involving very large piles containing many hundreds of tyres.

When rain runs over a very large tyre pile, the additive effect of all the tyres can result in much higher levels of leached contaminants.

This would mainly be a problem if the leachate ended up in a local stream, because dissolved zinc can be quite toxic to aquatic life.

My view and our environmental chemist’s (Dr Nick Kim) view is that there would be little or no risk of chemicals leached from tyres used in the limited way, as indicated by Ingrid Derbyshire in your column.

Bala Tikkisetty | Sustainable Agriculture Coordinator, Waikato Regional Council

Lack of study on raw milk In response to the “Drinking raw milk” letter written by Mary Western of MAF published in the Coast and Country of June 2011. Dr Donald Campbell of NZFSA released a statement that was published in the media on September 7, 2009. I emailed him the following in response: Your statement released on September 7, 2009 contains the assertion that harmful bacteria such as Salmonella, E. coli, Campylobacter and Listeria monocytogenes “might be” in raw milk.

His published statement: “NZFSA’s principal adviser for public health Dr Donald Campbell says drinking unpasteurised milk is risky because it hasn’tbeen heat-treated to kill any Coast & Country harmful bacteria that might be in welcomes letters. the raw product, such as Salmonella, Send your letters to E. coli, Campylobacter and Listeria the editor to win a monocytogenes”. prize pack. Email to I contacted him and asked him to sheryl@thesun.co.nz please forward me the data the Food Safety Authority reviewed on the testing done on raw milk that NZFSA used to justify the statement. I asked for information on the number of raw milk samples where Salmonella, E coli, Listeria and or Campylobacter was detected and the number of raw milk samples that were tested that had no harmful bacterial contamination detected.

Dr Campbell replied that the NZFSA had not conducted or commissioned any testing of raw milk for any of the we offer you competitive rates, experienced technicians and a nationwide service. pathogens listed in his statement. He Our team of farm field technicians visits more than 80,000 properties annually and provides a wide range of field services to farmers including:

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directed me to a Massey University study titled: A systematic review of the human disease evidence associated with the consumption of raw milk and raw milk cheeses that was prepared for NZFSA by Patricia Jaros, Naomi Cogga and Nigel French that was submitted September 17, 2008. http://www.foodsafety.govt.nz/elibrary/ industry/systematic-review-humanresearch-projects/final-report-rawmilk. pdf See the conclusions of the report below.

Conclusions

The overriding concern, when undertaking this systematic review, was the overall lack of studies and the lack of studies with good internal validity. The evidence provided moderate support for a causal link between infections associated with Campylobacter spp., E. coli spp., Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella serovars and the consumption of raw milk products; and a weak support of a causal link between consumption of raw milk products and infection with Brucella spp. Due to the lack of well designed studies a meta-analysis using the available evidence cannot be conducted.

It appears that Dr Campbell’s statement is based on the assumption that raw milk carries pathogens and is therefore risky to consume. As stated in the conclusion above “there is an overall lack of studies with good internal validity”.

Steve Clark, Edgecumbe

Page 11

CALF REARING

PH 07 578 0030

Stockmanship skills for calving Over the last few weeks DairyNZ has run the first-ever round of StockSense workshops on the topic of calving.

who were at manager level. Of the junior staff, 80 per cent of them had never experienced calving. Naturally, they loved the interaction of getting their hands inside a homemade cow, which were put together using tyre inner-tubes and plastic drums and were spray painted black and white.

By mid June, more than one thousand farmers had registered for the courses.

We know farmers are always interested in tips and advice around calving. Issues like observing springers, assisted calving, calf management and things to take note of around caring for newborns, are sure to spark people’s interest. But the intense level of demand for these workshops came as something of a surprise to us.

Courses booked out within days and our 0800 line was inundated with bookings and requests for more courses. We started with 15 courses, running through June and July – and we’ll have chalked up 21 around the country by calving. We thought getting 500 people along to the series would be a good reason to pop the lid off a milk bottle to celebrate, so doubling that number is great.

Comments from the feedback focussed on how practical the workshops were. Catering to two streams of people may have played a part in that – the workshops were broken into those who were junior staff and those

The experience of identifying calf presentation is important so they know when to get help when things are not normal.

Others told us they gained a helpful refresher, but also learned more of the theory behind the husbandry skills they had picked up in their first season.

Physically being able to try out a captive

Reality of reducing inductions

“Where on earth would we find grazing for all those ‘extras’,” quipped vet Ian Scott.

At a rural professionals meeting in Putaruru, Ian was asked about the practicality of policing the reductions in levels of inductions over the next few years.

Concerns

He says he is concerned that not only is it going to be difficult, but also that the wording of the current documents is unclear as to who would be at fault if percentages were found to be exceeded – the farmer or the vet carrying them out.

While DairyNZ had introduced the In Calf Programme, Ian says it is

bolt was also a new experience for many of the farm managers and owners. Most have moved away from blunt force slaughter and use the preferred method of firearm or captive bolt. Their workshop was an excellent forum for discussion around this point, as well as the benefits of having a good farm policy around humane slaughter and thorough training for staff.

Lifting levels

Doubling numbers

Without inductions, farmers would have to raise 350,000 more replacements nationally a year – 700,000 in two years before they could be milked.

getting results is important for us. Demand and satisfaction is a sign that we’re giving you what you need, when you need it, to help make dairying easier for you.

going to take time for some farmers to get their herd management to a stage where induction levels were very low or nil, as proposed in the new regulations.

The overall aim of StockSense workshops is to lift levels of stockmanship on farms. In many ways, this is about going back to basics and putting the training support around farmers and their staff. Through these workshops we involve various training agencies like local vet clinics and AgITOs so you know who you can get on-going advice from.

From your feedback we’re now looking at two more StockSense rounds. One on calf rearing and another we hope to have ready for later in the year on general care and handling of stock – which will likely form part of the MilkSmart workshops. Putting out the right information at the right time and

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It seemed pointless to make farmers go broke from delays in getting cows in milk and he was concerned that there was a possibility vets might be held responsible – even in court – if they were deemed to have carried out too many inductions while trying to assist clients who had been caught by bad weather, a ‘dud’ bull, insufficient funds to buy feed or other calamities at critical times of the year.

Ian says the ability to induce, when absolutely necessary, was a “tool” that farmers could not do without.

DairyNZ says requests for copies of the In Calf Programme material had topped 1100 in recent times and inductions had indeed dropped this season – so farmers are trying their

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Page 12

Coast & Country

No frolicking please, we’re English Steve Hunt has 45 years farming experience behind him and when he went to milk on an estate in England he found cows are cows, but that’s pretty much where the similarity ends between the British way of farming and New Zealand.

Steve and his wife Glyn are doing their better-late-than-never OE, having just popped across to Paris to celebrate their 60th birthdays.

Steve is working on one of four farms that make up a 1000 acre estate in the picturesque county of Dorset on England’s south coast. He is responsible for milking 300 cows on one of the farms.

Two of the other farms have herds with their own milkers and the fourth carries

the estate’s yearlings and dries. The estate is self sufficient in fodder – maize and grass silage, barley straw and maize grain – and the bulk of each farm is turned over to producing it. The cows are confined to cow houses and a few small paddocks.

The workforce is specialised – one person is responsible for feeding all the estate’s stock, another for growing crops, another for all animal health, another for all calves. Only the milkers remain on one farm. Steve’s responsibilities are for the herd he milks – similar to a lower-order sharemilker in New Zealand.

Big Friesians

The cows are all Holsteins, big animals and very high producing. The cows are divided into two roughly even herds of high – more than 25 litres per day – and low producers. The highest yield during the last year was 56L per day, the average from the high producers herd is 35L. When a cow’s production drops she’s moved into the low herd where she stays until six weeks before calving. Then she’s put out into a dedicated paddock until after the birth before going back to the high producing herd.

AI goes on all year (no bulls allowed) and only Holstein sperm is used so all the calves are big.

“We get a fair number of difficult births for the young mothers,” says Steve.

“And the wildlife doesn’t make things any easier. The other night a heifer was having a difficult birth and spent some time with the legs hanging out. Something spotted a free feed and had a good gnaw on them before the calf even hit the ground.

“And any calf that doesn’t move quickly when born is apt to lose its eyes to the crows.”

All bull calves are shot and all healthy heifers are kept in small individual pens until weaned, when they’re moved to a larger indoor communal pen and fed with a silage blend similar to the adults.

Not until they’re one year old are they allowed out onto

FACT:

grass and able to frolic freely. Dead calves are removed free of charge by the local hunt to feed their hounds in return for the farmer’s support for the hunt.

Farm hygiene and effluent control appears, by New Zealand standards, lax. Yards are scraped, but not hosed down – so there is always a smear of dung over them and a build up around the edges and in nooks and crannies.

“We get a high incidence of hoof infections and because the yards are slippery the cows go down regularly,” says Steve.

No effluent restrictions

Nor is there control on effluent and nutrients entering waterways – in fact streams are fenced specifically to allow cattle access for drinking. Calves are born in the same small paddock year after year where the only water is a stagnant pond.

Maintaining hygiene is possibly not helped by other users of the property – there’s an area of bush set aside where the game-keeper raises pheasants in an enclosure among the trees and the Fromme River runs along the back boundary.

Hunters and fishers regularly come by and the estate has set aside parking areas and huts for them (and their dogs). Deer, badgers and other wildlife regularly pass through.

So what is the animal health like?

“There’s some mastitis, a little bit of eczema and quite a bit of Jonas Disease.

“And there’s quite a high rate of TB because of the free mixing of wildlife with the cattle when they’re in the paddocks, but apart from testing there appears to be little done about it.”

This estate is run according to a fairly traditional model, but things are changing according to Trevor Green, the local vet.

“Farmers are beginning to pick up on new ideas, many of them coming from New Zealand.

“About a third of farms in Dorset have moved away from the traditional cow house operation to open grazing and there are modern milking parlours being introduced.” The British dairy industry has been in a state of flux since Britain joined the EU and a quota system was introduced.

“A quota gives the right to produce a specific quantity of milk,” says Trevor.

“Only a limited number of quota were given and for a while these became a tradable commodity.

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Page 13

Harsh experience for Kiwi couple “Some became very rich by selling or leasing their quota, but the quota system has now lapsed and in the end many farmers ended up losing out badly.”

Today the EU pays each farmer a ‘Single Farm Payment’ of €100 (NZ$200) per acre per year – provided they ‘tick the

boxes’ on such thing as ear tags, animal and environmental health. The threat for noncompliance is withholding of the subsidy instead of a fine, but according to Trevor, inspection is not rigid. Despite the payments there is a general trend away from dairy to cropping. At the moment, Britain is more or

less self sufficient in drinking milk, but for how long is anyone’s guess. It will be until Steve and Glynn head home at least. Last winter was a new experience, but a harsh one neither is keen to experience again. After a look at Europe it’s back to the sunnier paddocks of New Zealand. By Graeme Dobson

Udders on the high producers are so big some of the cows appear to have difficulty getting their legs around them to walk.

The future of soil fertility One of the great advantages of working with family owned and operated farming enterprises is the historical perspective they are able to provide – and of late, there has been an increased discussion regarding pasture production compared to the late 70s and early 80s.

Those of us who have had the privilege of being involved in pastoral farming for that period of time or longer are aware that although total farm production, particularly milk solid production from dairy farms, has increased significantly since 1980, this does not necessarily reflect a similar increase in pasture production.

In the Rotorua and Bay of Plenty region, the rule of thumb was most dairy properties in the early 1980s were able to grow enough feed to carry a milking cow to the acre (2.5cows/ha), grow all young stock (25 per cent of the milking herd) and provide sufficient supplement in the form of hay and silage to winter at home.

This historical perspective is important because it is still the production from grass that provides the profit in pastoral farming. Supplement brings increased cost and were it possible to make profit from supplement alone, we would have seen the development of small acreage dairy properties with the facilities for mostly brought-in feed.

With new banking regulations, the cost of debt to farming enterprises is likely to increase – particularly highly indebted ones. That extra cost will necessarily need to be met from the profit generated from pasture.

We receive enquiries from farmers who have become increasingly aware their future lies in being able to grow more total pasture and focus their enterprises

around efficiently converting it to meat, milk, wool or whatever it is they are selling.

The way forward is our ability to have soils providing more annual growth – and the only way that can be achieved is through systems which ensure more humus is developed on every hectare each year. Humus provides the potential for increased growth and is regarded by some as more valuable than gold.

The current soil fertility model based on the regular use of water soluble N, P, K, S, has only been embraced for the last 50 years and the now regular use of nitrogen fertiliser, for the last 20 years.

The increased use of these products provided rapid initial growth in pasture production, however, has the recent reduction in pasture performance and persistence been a result of overuse?

There is a tendency to abandon practises that are failing and embrace new technology often based on claims that don’t bear close examination. The results achieved by an increasing number of farmers using conventional fertiliser inputs, in conjunction with DoloZest and CalciZest, show consistent and steadily increasing production over time.

Not only is there steadily increasing pasture production, the cost is markedly less than systems using high rates of fertiliser nitrogen. The cost of the nutrient inputs, including cobalt and selenium, for the Berryman property near Edgecumbe last season was a little more than $500 plus GST per hectare.

The cost of nitrogen applied in the form of urea – the cheapest form of nitrogen fertiliser – is currently $1.54 per kg of N. The cost of applying 250kg N/ha is therefore $385 plus GST/ha –without the cost of all other essential nutrients.

“E S I programmes consistently out-perform fertiliser N driven programmes with more total DM grown containing more energy resulting in higher levels of animal production.”

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Page 14

Coast & Country

Carbon footprint in Kiwi flour Give us each day our daily bread, but please make it with New Zealand flour so we do less damage to the atmosphere.

By Sue Edmonds

So went the message presented by Diana Mather of FAR at its recent Maize Winter Road Show.

Diana says work done in the last year shows the carbon footprint of bread made with Kiwi flour is less than compared with that containing Australian flour.

Firstly, Kiwis harvest more wheat per hectare, use less coal power and more renewables for storage and processing and a great deal less in the retail and consumption phase; (0.3kg CO2 eq against

Australia’s 1.25kg). The allowance for transport was calculated to be equivalent. Overall, a loaf made from New Zealand cereals gives out emissions of 0.987kg CO2 eq, while one made from imported flour gives out emissions of 2.283kg.

In both cases, nearly half the calculated emissions were from the manufacture and spreading of

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nitrogen fertiliser and future management of this phase gives New Zealand the best chance of reducing emissions on harvested crops.

This is just one of many research findings from work done by FAR staff during the last year.

With the efficacy of pre-emergent weed sprays apparently declining rapidly, the emphasis has switched to post-emergent treatments, particularly those involving nicosulfuron – which FAR has ensured is now a registered product.

Mike Parker says they’ve found the timing of spray applications is critical.

Once weed cover gets to 20 per cent, there is a significant effect on cereal plant yield. So getting spray on when there are enough weeds to be sprayed, but before they get too well established, takes judgment. FAR is producing photos to demonstrate to farmers what 20 per cent looks like.

Growing a second crop after maize harvest has also been the subject of attention.

Trials conducted in four districts demonstrated with a choice of ryegrass,

oats or triticale, planted after harvesting of four different maize hybrids (early, late, long and short rotation), oats seemed to produce the best dry matter and energy yields. The general feeling, however, seemed to be that ryegrass would be the simplest and most reliable crop for use in the Waikato. But overall, annual dry matter production could be increased by managing the rotation to give best chance growing weather for both crops.

Far chief executive Nick Pyke says the benefits farmers have received from FAR’s work in recent years has been focused on productivity, the right to farm and better farm businesses. Of interest, although not in the maize growing area, is the work on endophytes for grasses, particularly newly discovered non-palatable endophytes –being used with grass swards at airports to reduce bird strikes. This New Zealand research is paying handsome dividends in seed sales to airports in many countries already.

FAR is not short of ideas for future opportunities. Not only higher value seeds, but higher values for food products (protein, flours), feed products for dairy, pork, poultry and aquaculture and other new products, markets and value chains.

Nick urged all FAR members to remember to use their vote in the upcoming levy referendum to ensure all this work can continue.

FAR CEO Nick Pyke.

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DAIRY

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Newest celebrity Dear Coast & Country Just a BIG thankyou on behalf of Bear who received his awesome prize pack of a bag of bikkies and a frisbee.

He is thoroughly enjoying both! Many thanks.

Janine and Bear Vicars

Thankyou very much yummy Tux for our bi frisbee. They scuits and mail and I w arrived in the ill Austin even th share them with ou because I didn gh he sat on me ’t w my bone! I ke ant to give up ep I am not his telling him bean ba Woof Woof. g :-) Kim and Au stin Forsythe Coast & Country has two more prize packs to give away thanks to Tux for our readers. To go in the draw, send us your name and details along with a photo of your best friend to sheryl@thesun.co.nz or PO Box 240, Tauranga.

Please include a name, address and phone number with every entry.

The home of valves Delvin Flow has been an active distributor of valves and related products in New Zealand since 1997.

Based in Wanganui, Delvin Flow quickly established a network of stockists and end users around the central North Island.

In the early 90s, Delvin Flow created its website and this has been responsible for many new clients from throughout New Zealand. Many of these were from the South Island and earlier this year, Delvin Flow opened a branch in

Christchurch to support these clients.

Part of the philosophy of Delvin’s owner, Kerry Olsen, was to become recognised for offering quality products at a fair price. Most of the core-line items are directly imported by the company with suppliers in Europe, USA, China, Taiwan, Korea and Australia. Nationally, the company also has a strong network of suppliers to support other brands of products.

Amongst the range on offer includes ball valves, gate valves, butterfly valves, safety valves, camlocks and pressure gauges.

New Zealanders have spoken and chosen their newest animal celebrity – NZ’s Next TUX Dog – and the winner is: Amazon, from Ohakune.

The Huntaway was entered by 11-year-old Toby Proude, who has had Amazon (otherwise known as “Amo” or Momo”) since she was a six weeks old.

Amazon will star in the new 2011 TUX TV commercial to be filmed later in the year and will enter the hearts (and lounges) of Kiwis as part of one of New Zealand’s most iconic television campaigns. Left, Toby with Amazon.

Page 15

FORESTRY

Page 16

Coast & Country

The rules of economics

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I remember well when I first did economics at school.

For one thing, I sat next to Rod Carr, who now has a doctorate in economics and went to the top at the Reserve Bank, Jade Corporation and now Canterbury University. I guess he must have listened better than me.

That aside, I remember being fascinated by the whole concept of supply and demand setting a market price. Even though it was a new concept to me at an academic level, we could see examples of it every day in our lives and to me, it made perfect sense.

The concept of demand increasing against a shortage of supply, pushing up price and the opposite of excess supply in the face of diminished demand reducing price, is something we see every day in our lives without even realising it usually.

The log market in the last few months is a perfect example: Following the reduction in supply from Russia as a result of tariffs, the largest source of logs into China was severely disrupted. This has seen the price of logs in China pushed up steadily during the last two years. Other than a small dip last winter, we have seen month-on-month price increases for nearly two years – until we reached a point of 15-year record highs in April.

Unfortunately, the powerful forces of supply and demand cannot be ignored. With the high prices, there is an incentive for alternative producers to be attracted by the high prices and start supplying logs into the Chinese market. This is exactly what has happened with Canada and the United States, attracted by the high Chinese log market price, starting to send large volumes of logs across to China.

An added incentive has been the collapsing sawmill industry in the USA and Canada as the United States building industry continues to be on its knees. It was the collapse of the USA housing market which sparked the 2008 general financial crisis and looks like a long time recovering.

The result has been a build-up of log stocks in China and the price coming off the high peak it hit in April.

The price drop has been quite sharp, but is coming off a high level – so compared to historic levels, is still attractive.

The test will be next spring when we see whether this is the normal winter dip or whether the market has changed fundamentally. Most in the market are optimistic that after the Chinese summer, building activity will pick up again and the stock level reduce – so that prices can improve back to the levels we have been enjoying.

Like it or hate them, the rules of economics unfortunately can’t be ignored.

FIELDAYS

PH 07 578 0030

Fieldays numbers drop in the rain

Page 17 Left: Fieldays at dawn.

The 43rd Fieldays at Mystery Creek attracted some 17,495 visitors this year, down four per cent on last year’s numbers.

The New Zealand National Agricultural Fieldays had a record number of 32,935 visitors, the busiest Thursday since Fieldays launched in 1969. Wet weather saw the numbers fizzle out during the weekend.

Mystery Creek general manager Barry Quayle says the enthusiasm of visitors was encouraging for businesses, with some making record John Key breaking the barriers of productivity.

Busiest Thursday ever.

sales and leads during the four day event. Actual spend at the event will be revealed following the Fieldays exhibitor survey released in the next few months.

Above: Fencing doubles competition.

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FIELDAYS

Page 18

Coast & Country

Innovations abound at Fieldays

Ben Shannon and a ute corral.

Just use one at a time – bright patches a helpful reminder for milkers.

The innovations section at the Fieldays had a bigger tent for 2011, but still the innovators filled the site to capacity with ingenious ideas.

Lincoln University’s Switch programme produced another Young Inventor of the Year – award winner Ben Shannon. His concertina crate seemed to be able to be folded every which way to suit differently shaped utes and different sized animals to be carried. It could not only have side panels opened up, but also included a sliding one for easy entry and exit by its passengers.

Craig Short also had travelling animals in mind with his rollup cover for high-sided trailers carrying sheep etcetera. Not only does it provide a calming influence by putting a roof over the animals’ heads, but it could be used side-to-side or frontto-back, thereby providing the necessary windbreak for road travel. Craig’s idea won him the Inventions Merit Award.

Townies might think cows wearing coloured patches on their rear ends are a hoot. But when those rear ends on a rotary platform number are in the hundreds, remembering which ones are colostrum cows, which have withholding periods, which are ready for mating and which need dry cow therapy, a brightly coloured reminder patch is very useful. So rather than a fancy computerised system, an infinitely smaller investment

Craig Short covers them up.

is the latest development from COWaPATCHe. This year they’ve produced both new packaging and also horizontal or vertical containers to hold both a variety of patches and the glue to stick them on with.

Julian Retikaukau, a Northland dairy farmer, obviously has cows which like going round on a rotary platform and don’t want to get off. His bright yellow mechanical pusher, named Moove Off not only pushes them backwards at the critical moment, but possibly also teaches them to read the words at the same time? With a future need by dairy farmers to be much more mindful of water use, the replacement of shower sprays to the cow’s head is an area where savings could be made.

Hugh McCarroll stopped running airports and turned to painting his elderly Hamilton house with high gables. After the success of his first wooden scaffold, he turned his attention to extruded aluminium and steel tension wires to produce a three-tier model which could reach up to five and a half metres, with a platform which allowed for movement from side to side, room to store all painting gear and even drink a cuppa when a rest is called for. Hugh was seeking commercial interest, although I fancied asking if I could borrow it to finish off my elderly gables.

Another entrant had solved the problem of putting ladders up against corners and having patented his idea, was seeking

Julian Retikaukau has a new way to get cows off the platform.

commercial backing to produce his natty clip-on corner wedge which attaches to the top of the ladder.

Lindsay Lewis of Clean Green Ltd in Dunedin won the major award two years ago for his twin ponded, light application effluent system.

Since then, he’s come up with several models of siphon for quick transfer of liquids from tanks and barrels and this year he has been working on a new ‘coagulant’ for separating effluent solids and liquids. The research continues, but initial results have seen opaque brown liquid separated in half a day into almost clear water and a jelly-like mix of solids which sink to the bottom. Lindsay has already reduced the nitrogen in the water by about 20 per cent and is aiming to improve on that. Thus the liquid to be sprayed on pasture would have low nitrogen content and with his low application system, would be safe to spread in all weathers. The solids, when dry, can be spread when conditions are suitable.

The girls have good ideas too. Overalls provide good protection for dirty jobs, but one-piece garments have definite drawbacks for women.

Zanux overalls for gals not only come in cheerful colours, with fancy patches for pockets and sleeve tops, but they have ‘zips on the hips’ which go across the back and solve the girly problems. Such intelligence – it took a Kiwi to think of it.

By Sue Edmonds

JORDAAN

PH 07 578 0030

FIELDAYS

Page 19

Leaps forward for biological farming their aspirations for economic development in a manner that is mindful of, and does not compromise, the receiving environment – bearing in mind Maori historical values on land and water.

The Lakes Trust has already, through its make-up of Te Arawa FoMA and the Rotorua/Taupo province of Federated Farmers, set up the Vallance Project – which is exploring how biological farming systems can reduce nitrate leaching from farms, while keeping farming profitable.

A second trial will be set up on a Maori-

owned farm, which will look at pasture productivity, pasture quality and key indicators of soil physical, chemical and biological properties.

The aim is to research methods of farming in a sustainable manner, which could eventually be introduced to a collective of Maori farms, firstly across the Central Plateau and later be spread to fellow members of FoMA. For information on the October conference email biologicalfarming.systems@gmail.com

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The second development is Rotorua Lakes and Land Trust is supporting an October conference in Rotorua focused on biological farming entitled ‘Towards a susThere was apparently much interest shown by farmers tainable farming – by farmers for farmers’.

There is already interest for this due to the Te Arawa at Fieldays this year in the stands of various organisaFederation of Maori Authorities investigating biological tions providing products for biological farmers. farming systems for its member organisations.

Like any movement which ‘strays’ from the status FoMA is endeavouring to help its members advance quo, those following a biological farming path have endured comments that scientific reports are lacking to substantiate their claims, despite being able to demonstrate hefty reductions in animal health costs and often green pastures when all around them is browned by drought.

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There are plans for this funding to be used to set up an online web portal, allowing interested and involved farmers to exchange ideas, ask questions, find international research reports and trial results and access a directory of relevant services.

There will also be a series of six on-farm open days held around the country in the next twelve months showcasing biological farming. A significant strategy meeting is to be held in Auckland on August 16 to actively engage with supply companies to form a strategic vision for the entire industry. This will be followed the next day by the association’s AGM and an after-

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COAST & COUNTRY

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Territory meets its diesel match Ford’s new Territory Titanium clearly demonstrates it has taken up the challenge to make a great SUV even better.

The new Territory models feature improved power and fuel efficiency.

Ford Territory Titanium Engine: 2.7 litre V6 Common Rail Turbo Diesel Power: 140Kw @ 4000 rpm Torque: 440nM@ 1900rpm Transmission: 6 Speed Automatic Towing Capacity: From 1.0 tonne (unbraked) to 2.7 tonne (braked) Wheels: 18 inch alloys Features: Alpine DVD player, Leather, Sat-Nav, Bluetooth, iPod Compatible, LED Running Lights Fuel consumption: 9.0L/100km combined, 6.5L/100km open road Price: $69,990 Test Drive at: Ultimate Motor Group, Corner Hewletts Road and Totara Street,Mount Maunganui, Phone 07 579 0180 Contact: Phone Paul Jackson 0275 888 232 or Chris Frost 021 945 801

Make no mistake, the Ford Territory model New Zealanders have come to love so much set a high bar for the latest version just released. It picked up a clutch of motoring awards, including the prestigious Wheels magazine ‘Car of the Year’ back in 2004.

Its effortless, car-like handling, great ergonomics and familyfocussed design made it a very easy vehicle to live with and a very worthy winner. But for all that, there was one thing missing…a diesel to push it along.

Owners who may have had cause for restraint when driving an older Territory did not do so because of the limits to its driving dynamics, but rather that little fuel conscience in the back of the mind that would get louder and louder as the right foot pushed down harder. I’m also sure anyone who had ever driven the turbo version would be keenly aware of increased fuel consumption as the turbo kicked in.

It says much then about the vehicle’s design that it changed little until the latest model. Obviously, drivers were prepared to sacrifice some cost at the pump for a machine that was extremely accommodating and capable of laying down many miles in comfort, with plenty of power in reserve for towing or the hills ahead.

Effortless diesel power

So Ford had quite a challenge in one respect with the Territory – to make a great machine even better. In another, when it came to a diesel power plant it was, as they say, a “no brainer” that an oil burner would be included in the line-up.

The Titanium has full leather trim and superior comfort levels.

The 2.7 litre turbo diesel V6 powerplant developed for Land Rover’s Discovery 3 lies under the bonnet of the Territory and makes complete sense, given 80 per cent of the SUV market in New Zealand is now diesel and only likely to increase if the petrol price continues to hover at post $2.00/litre heights.

It also makes for good driving sense. The diesel is perfectly matched to the six speed transmission, providing very responsive pull in the mid power range. This provides for a very relaxed, effortless level of acceleration, with a sense that there is more in store if you opt to take advantage of the Territory’s 2.7 tonne towing ability.

Improved economy – superior comfort

With a claimed combined cycle fuel economy of 9.0L/100km in the new top-of-the-line Titanium All Wheel Drive model, it is a long time between drinks. It could actually be even longer, based on the open road cruising figure achieved of 6.5L/100km, which could see you almost get to Canterbury on one tank. This is not a bad effort for a machine that ferries you along with an almost presidential comfort, thanks to significantly revised suspension and steering systems.

It is evident that extra effort has gone on new dampening, stabilising and noise control systems, which all combine to create a quiet, relaxed driving environment, with steering that offers car-like precision.

It is not only the driver who gets some extra attention in this new model. Family friendly extras like multiple cup holders and stash areas, including a drawer under the driver’s seat for valuables, are very welcome.

The Titanium, like all the Territory models, also comes with

Comprehensive technology is controlled by the intuitive Command Centre. seven seats that are properly set up belt-wise and will be welcome by anyone with the task of ferrying kids, teams and gear around when they exceed the standard family headcount.

All the ‘toys’

The Titanium’s in-car entertainment system promises to keep the team happy during those mad Saturday dashes during winter, with a full 10 inch screen folding down for the Alpine DVD system. Complete with wireless headphones, it will earn instant popularity.

Other Titanium features include the very smart “Y” pattern 18 inch alloy wheels, the reversing camera, full leather seats, the touch screen “command system” up front, Bluetooth, music streaming capability and Sat Nav. All up, this is a very complete luxury package that more than justifies the price tag.

The Command Centre is very easy to move around and its touch screen capability is more than just a gimmick. It is intuitive and clear, making set up and changes on the move safe and simple.

Once you settle behind the wheel of the Territory Titanium and get positioned in a very supportive driver’s seat, you will soon feel like you just want to keep on going…south, north, west, wherever! It is a highly practical, roomy vehicle that is in tune with what modern families need in a larger vehicle. Now with the balanced thrifty diesel under its bonnet, the new Territory promises miles of economical motoring. It is a welcome and perfect union of a thrifty diesel and a spacious, practical SUV.

By Richard Rennie

*

Page 22

*

* COAST & COUNTRY

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the line work truck. will ensure you'll finish right back where you started.  CD player, MP3 Player & audio  Active Traction Control a tank of fu  Climate Control wheel with audio controls, it has got all the style and comforts of a car with awesome *Free leather seat upgrade is only available on Triton GLS 4WD manual and automatic models. Price excludes information on this Mitsubishi Triton Fieldays Special

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4WD ability. jack  ABS with EBD ford.co.nz ANCAP safety rating plus Active Stability Control (ASC) and Active Traction Control (ATC) GST and On Road Costs of up to $950 consisting of vehicle registration, WOF, 1,000km Road User Charges and Ph: 07 578 0039 140 Cameron Rd, Tauranga Open 7 days Www.baycitymitsubishi.co.nz ** $40,990 price based on Falcon XT and includes on road costs.

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After Hours: Brett Davies 07 868 5200 or 0272 906 662

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Available with 17‐inch alloy wheels, cruise control, privacy glass and leather steering wheel with audio controls, it has got all the style and comforts of a car with awesome 4WD ability.

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PH 07 578 0030

AUTOS

Mazda CX-7.

Since it was first launched in New Zealand, the Mazda CX-7 has won over the hearts of many, with its ability to provide a car-like drive with the added comfort, space and performance of an SUV. Its popularity soared further with the release of the new range of CX-7s in May 2010, when the two wheel drive GSX model was introduced to the range. It offered higher levels of specifications with the likes of a reversing camera and Bluetooth as standard, plus the advantage of lower fuel consumption…the result of a lighter body weight coupled with a reduced power output of 120kW. When Sun Media’s motoring writer Richard Rennie road tested the CX-7 GSX last year, he thought the new 2.5 litre engine was “extremely responsive, delivering taut and precise handling through a five speed activematic gearbox”.

He also found the new CX-7 GSX to have “a ton of room inside, defying the usual rule of an SUV, which is to sacrifice load space for visibility and size” and it “satisfies the practical demands of daily family motoring exceptionally well”.

For those seeking that little bit extra luxury and performance, including heated leather seats, Mazda offer their flagship four wheel drive CX-7 Limited model, with its proven 2.3L turbo engine. Both the GSX and the Limited models continue to sell well locally, but this year Mazda is enjoying even more success with

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Mazda CX-9.

The recent introduction of the new Mazda CX-9 has further enhanced Mazda’s wellloved SUV range by adding more room, but still with plenty of zoom.

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More choice for Mazda buyers

Page 23

their “big brother” – the new Mazda CX-9.

As yet another example of Mazda’s adherence to offer a sports-like experience in every vehicle they produce, the CX-9 has already established itself as a serious contender to the traditional “people mover”.

This is a big SUV, powered by a smooth 3.7 litre V6 engine, but with a lower profile and sharp styling, the CX-9 has the look of a large-ish station wagon. It is nevertheless, a true seven seater with all the space that goes with it, for both passenger comfort and load carrying.

Richard was also lucky enough to take the CX-9 out on the open road recently and was impressed with its “sure-footedness and power”. He also noted the CX-9, which is only available in New Zealand in one luxury spec’d model, was “kitted out with all the extras that one usually only finds in a European SUV at more than twice the price”.

The CX-9 comes with an impressive array of features, including an all-leather interior, heated front seats, dual zone climate control, Bluetooth, reversing camera, auto wipers and sunroof. Plus of course a superior level of safety features.

As Richard concluded, “the CX-9 is a joy to drive or be driven in. It was a blessed relief to slide behind the wheel into ultra comfort and quickly dial in to all the on-board technology”.

Both the CX-7 and CX-9 are available for test drives now at Ultimate Motor Group, Hewletts Road, Mount Maunganui. Phone Christine or John for more information 07 579 0180.

By Gaylene Moore

AUTOS

COAST & COUNTRY

Page 24

Accelerating global growth The Nissan Motor Company has announced an exciting six year growth plan.

Called “Nissan Power 88”, the plan emphasises Nissan’s goal to focus on customers’ overall experience through actions that elevate the brand’s power. Its aim is to secure a global market share of eight per cent by the end of the 2016 fiscal year.

In order to achieve this goal, Nissan has set out a clear global vision and direction for Power 88, highlighted by four powerful strategies. Leading the way is the company’s extended new product plan that will deliver, on average, an all-new vehicle every six weeks for the next six years. This will take Nissan’s global portfolio to 66 vehicles, covering 92 per cent of all markets and segments. To support this, Nissan will introduce 90 new, advanced technologies at an average rate of 15 per year.

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S 3 ay − lDst May Fie lid 1

Nissan will also continue to concentrate on sustainable mobility, developing zero-drive emission vehicles and low-emission technologies that support PURE DRIVE. Its goal for electric vehicle sales is 1.5 million units world-wide during this period. This will be significantly aided by the company’s recent success at being selected to design and supply the next generation “Taxis of Tomorrow” to New York City. To be called the NV200, this hybrid vehicle will become the exclusive taxi for the “Big Apple” from late 2013.

The company is also planning to expand “mobility for all” with dedicated new cars and light commercial vehicles to be developed for entry-level segments and emerging markets.

“Nissan Power 88 is the roadmap for our company’s profitable growth,” says Nissan president and chief executive Carlos Ghosn.

“We will bring more innovation and excite-

Coast & Country

Nissan Leaf.

ment to our products and services, as well as cleaner, more affordable cars for everyone around the world – in line with the energy and environmental challenges of the 21st century.”

New models coming soon

New Zealanders will get a taste of this global expansion very soon with the imminent release of two exciting new models onto Kiwi shores.

The first is the revolutionary 100 per cent Electric Leaf, which is powered by a compact electric motor and inverter in the front of the car to drive the front wheels.

The AC motor develops 80kW of power and 280Nm of torque…enough for a maximum speed of 145 km/h via an advanced lithium-ion battery that has the capacity to store twice as much energy as the previous generation battery.

This zero-emission car is also fitted with latest features such as satellite navigation, parking camera, smart phone connectivity and remote control air conditioning – allowing temperature inside the car to be adjusted prior to opening the door.

Further endorsement of the Leaf comes in the form of it being awarded the trophy for 2011 European Car

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of the Year in February – the first ever electric car to achieve this distinction.

The second eagerly awaited model is the Nissan Juke…“baby brother” to the Qashqai and Murano.

Publicity material released ahead of the launch notes that “the Juke combines attitude with irreverence, modish style with energy and a mischievous sense of fun”.

It will be available in two and four wheel drive versions and three different engine options – one diesel and two 1.6 litre petrol units.

The top-of-the-range model will boast a new turbocharged petrol engine with direct injection developing 140kW and 240Nm of torque.

The Juke not only offers a sporty new look for Nissan with its coupe-style body and racy interior, it is also equipped with an advanced central command and information system, giving the driver instant control over the myriad of technology built into the car.

This unique, compact SUV also sits higher up on 17 inch alloys to give a robust stance that helps to deliver exceptional ride comfort and agile handling.

By Gaylene Moore

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Army gets rural inspiration

The New Zealand Army has increased its engineering capability with the acquisition of six new armoured engineer tractors, allowing deployed forces to operate more effectively in high threat environments.

The total cost of the vehicles, parts, training and other support is $4.7million and represents a significant investment for the New Zealand Defence Force.

From later this year, the tractors, known as High Mobility Engineer Excavators will be operated by 2 Engineer Regiment, based at Linton Military Camp. Lieutenant Colonel Rian McKinstry, from Land Combat Capability Branch, says the HMEE has been designed to provide comparable mobility and protection with the NZ LAV. “The vehicle will allow deployed personnel to operate in areas not normally accessible with the ability to clear routes for military use, build fortifications

and defensive measures and construct or enhance roads in areas that can be dangerous.

“With the armoured tractor we can build roads for people in war torn areas who would not normally have access to basic healthcare or education.”

The New Zealand version of the HMEE is based on systems used by other militaries around the world and has been proven to be effective working with armoured vehicles in high threat environments. Experience overseas has shown the HMEE to be capable of withstanding attacks and mine strikes that other vehicles may not have been able to protect against.

The technology used in the construction of the HMEE is leading edge and is in the early stages of its production life.

It also incorporates a number of safety features that have only recently been developed, including a rollover protection system, run flat tyres, and a blackout facility for night driving.

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• ABS brakes.

• Rollover Protection System.

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• Air Conditioned Cab.

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Page 26

MACHINERY & EQUIPMENT

Coast & Country

Contracting business up for tender Bill and Vicki Webb have made the decision to sell the contracting side of their business in a bid to concentrate on feed solutions for their clients.

Bill Webb machinery up for tender, closes July 14.

getting harder to keep paying to stay at the top.

“Farmers are buying more palm kernel and grain supplements rather than making silage, which means that farmers are making less farm supplements – so there is less contracting work.

“We have been seen as being reliable and providing good service and that is how we would like to think our contracting service will be remembered.”

The tender closes at 1pm on July 14.

The machinery is currently available for viewing from 1-4pm week days.

Bill says they have already had more than 200 people come through and they have been impressed with the quality of the machinery.

“We’ve had good strong interest and everyone’s been impressed at how good a condition the machinery is in and how well it’s been looked after and maintained.

“Usually in a tender, people expect the stuff to be worn out and buggered, but we’re the opposite, we’ve kept it wellmaintained, everything has good service records – we are controlling our exit.”

From now, Bill is going to focus spending towards growing and selling supplement feed for farmers.

Supplement feed is going to be in demand shortly too – after all the rain, says Bill.

On his ‘piece of damp paradise’, just out of Te Puke, he’s had 238.5ml of rain in May, followed up with nearly 190ml in June. The soil is saturated, just like LL

BB - EST 1 WE

many places across the regions, and pasture is at a high risk for pugging.

Cows will be returning from winter grazing soon for calving and Bill says farmers are going to need to be extra careful with their pasture.

“Pugging does a lot of long-term damage.

“The air and oxygen goes out of the soil and it takes a long time to get the oxygen and the right bacteria levels back into the soil for good grass growth.”

Meanwhile, the weeds come through the patches and you are back to a weedinfested pasture, says Bill.

The grass is lacking dry-matter at the moment as well he says; sitting at about 9-10 per cent of dry matter.

“There is not a lot of guts to it. Farmers are going to have to think about supplement feed for during calving; be it a source of fibre to get the best out of their low dry matter pastures so that the cows don’t lose condition or risk lower production, and so that they are fully fed to maximise production and conception rates moving forward.”

Bill says enquires have already started coming in for hay and silage.

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ment and machinery to keep it upgraded and ensure its reliability.

He says with increased financial pressure since the global financial crisis struck and with the increasingly common switch farmers are making to buying-in palm kernel or grain as supplementary feed – it is

BI

Bill Webb Contracting has been operating from Te Puke in the Bay of Plenty for more than 35 years and the business is going to continue leasing farms and land and supplying farmers with grass silage, lucerne and maize silage along with hay and straw.

Bill says the decision to put all of the machinery up for tender – bar one planter and harvester – was based on a lifestyle choice.

“It’s a life changing decision for us. We have spent 35 years in the making of our business and we’ve come a long way,” says Bill.

“When we came into this business, farmers used to see contractors as being unreliable because they used old equipment and machinery.”

Bill says it has been costing about $1 million a year to maintain equip-

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Page 27

Controlling hedges and trees with ease The ultimate trimming and cutting machine is set to forever change the way landowners tackle the foliage.

We’ve been let loose this winter with the super versatile combo – Stihl’s new multitool for trimming, cutting and more.

Foliage beware: The brilliant new CombiSystem from Stihl uses one engine with multiple attachments to slice, saw, trim, top and drop.

Connectivity

The KM90 Combi engine simply connects ‘with a click’ to a range of devices.

We hit the hedge with the trimmer attachment and the trees with the longreaching chainsaw bar. The results, ease of use and the safety factors have never been better.

As fans of the Stihl range, having owned a couple of their fine little chainsaws and

brushcutters, we knew the gear was good.

Super reliable and high performance.

Now with the CombiSystem, Stihl provide the ultimate in versatility – Germany’s answer to the Swiss army knife.

The user can tackle a multitude of outdoor jobs with one tool – saving time, money and space in the shed. With only one engine to keep fuelled and serviced, plus the familiarity of using a single powerhead, the CombiSystem is perfect for all properties.

The hedge, affectionately known as the Triffods, was quickly brought under control with the 135 degree hedgetrimmer.

It has laser-cut, diamond-ground blades that trimmed and shaped the Triffods in no time. Plus the 13 different angle settings allow us to keep unruly foliage topped tidy with two feet on the ground.

No more wobbling around on ladders with chainsaws or trimmers – the CombiSystem has an extra metre extension bar to reach for those high and hard to reach hedges.

Same for the chainsaw. A couple of clicks and we’d swapped mode, with the chain bar, complete with oil reservoir at the chain gear base, dealing to the bigger branches and thicker hedge stalks.

I can see this system not only suiting the home gardener start since. The helpful guys at the Stihl shop in Elizawith limited space in garden sheds – but the orchardist beth Street, Tauranga, set us up with the CombiSystem. and farmer who’d like to get mobile on They’ve also got the full range of the property on quads and tractors, other attachments for brush cutting, Now with the with minimal amount of paraphernatrimming, edging, raking, sweeping CombiSystem, Stihl lia. No need to lug several machines; and blowing. just the one engine to run a multiprovide the ultimate in Your local Stihl team, whether tude of devices. Our standard Stihl Tauranga, Mount or any of the versatility – Germany’s other branches in the C&C area, chainsaw and the brushcutter haven’t made it out of the shed this winter. really know their stuff and with the answer to the Swiss Nothing wrong with them – in fact new CombiSystem can tailor a set army knife.

“Stihl working” as they say – it’s just to cover all trimming tasks, based the Combi is easier and essentially around one cleverly designed, versaone tool. The new generation engine tile power plant. takes premixed oil/fuel, but is essentially a four stroke – Test drive by Brian Rogers providing low emissions and reduced fuel consumption.

It is remarkably smooth and easy running. The starting phenomenal – first pull, straight out of the box and every

Orchard tractOrs

ORCHARDISED TRACTORS

Pruning

Greg demonstrates the long reach of the CombiSystem, fitted here with the bedgetrimmer attachment.

Then it was onto pruning fruit trees, tidying up the avos and then whipping some big branches off the fig tree while Claire wasn’t watching.

The long shaft even reached through the hedge to deal with some troublesome self-sown pests that were back-breaking to reach with the standard chainsaw. It’s not always the height of a branch that creates problems – often it’s simply a matter of accessibility.

The reach and balance are excellent and the chainsaw bar operated effectively at any angle. Tree trimming is safer and easier than ever before. The combi engine has a loop handle which can be used left or right handed, even in confined spaces.

The engine and the attachments are incredibly light weight considering the quality of build and performance.

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The Combi engine retails for $875 and the hedgetrim attachment $695.

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THINK WATER BAY OF PLENTY

Page 28

Coast & Country

Family business switches to ‘Think Water’ G & K ELECTRICAL

Providing Fitting Solutions for over 50 years

Tank Level Indicator

Trough Valves

Tank Fittings

Reservoir/Tank Valve

Unions

Ball Valves

Threaded Pipe Fittings

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Congratulations

Think Water has healthy stock levels of essential parts and fittings in its new refurbished showroom.

Neil and Judy Cooper have been operating their water pump and irrigation services business in Te Puke for 32 years under the company name ‘Industrial & Farm Services Ltd.

all sectors and all regions of Australia and New Zealand.

Beginning in Australia four years ago, Think Water expanded to New Zealand in early 2010 and now has nearly 50 member businesses.

Think Water Bay of Plenty will continue to do what they have always done in terms of servicing their customers with So it was quite a big decision to drop timely water pump repairs, bore pump that name and rebrand the business lifts, frost protection, irrigation ‘Think Water Bay of Plenty’ . and effluent system design Think Neil says Australian and installation. They Water BOP is Bryan Ward, Think continue to maintain basically a one-stop water Water’s general healthy stock levels of shop and, as well as fixing manager, had been essential parts and pumps and pipes, also specialise in fittings in the refurpursuing them for about two years saving water and improving bished showroom before they finally the quality and delivery of it, in order to achieve made the commit- whether it be for drinking, irrigation speedy turnaround ment to join the or sanitation. Whatever the source for customers who group. have no water when of your water, Think Water “We did our due their pumps break can improve the efficiency diligence and our down or reticulation of how you get it, store advisors told us it was pipes get damaged. it and use it. one of the best franchise The personnel remains agreements they had seen. the same, but smartening up “Their operating philosophy, technithe building, showroom, signage and cal support and group buying power clothing with the new branding colours coupled with our existing business were and logos has given the team a boost a natural fit so we decided to go ahead in terms of presenting themselves and with it.” the business in a more professional and Think Water is a leading international efficient manner. network of independently-owned water In-house design engineer Peter Chissell services businesses. They specialise in continues to utilise his 30 plus years the design and implementation of the of experience by incorporating water most water-efficient irrigation and water efficiency ideas in every concept plan he management programs for clients across produces on his CAD system.

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THINK WATER BAY OF PLENTY

Page 29

New branding for Te Puke company The business has always been heavily involved in the dairy industry through parts and servicing for cowsheds, effluent dispersal and pasture irrigation. This continues as usual,

with cowshed expert technician Peter Wheeler recently completing a milking machines refresher course.

The new Think Water partnership and investment Neil and Judy have made in their

building and facilities in these uncertain times can be taken as a vote of confidence in their prime marketplace and customer base, the rural lifestyle and productive sector of Te Puke and the wider Bay of Plenty.

Te Puke water pump and irrigation company ‘Industrial & Farm Services Ltd has rebranded the business as ‘Think Water Bay of Plenty’, a part of the Australian franchise. The team remains the same, but has smartened up the building, showroom, signage and clothing with the new branding colours and logos.

Keeping milk clusters aligned Milfos International Ltd launched a new cluster alignment feature at the Fieldays to support all cow udders – no matter what size or shape.

The PUD – platform universal device – acts as a number of products in one, establishing itself as a ‘must-have’ in a cowshed, says Milfos managing director Jamie Mikkelson.

“It’s for customers wanting a one-man dairy – it puts more tools around the milker.”

Firstly, it does the job of a leg separator – ensuring the cow places her back feet either side to allow the cups to be put on easily.

Before the cups are put on, however, the panel directly under the udder has white LED lights that shine up onto the teats for easy inspection.

“It makes life a lot easier,” says Jamie.

The cow can then be stripped with the lights shining up through

the milk – easily highlighting any clumps or discolour in the milk.

The device connects to the Milfos Herd Management system, so when each cow comes onto the platform, if there is any condition pre-loaded into the herd system it can be portrayed through different colours in the panel.

If there is anything to alert the milker about – the colour of the panel changes from white.

For example, if a cow has been treated with antibiotics the panel will flash red prior to alert the milker not to put the cups on.

The easy alert system is all about productivity, says Jamie.

“There is a lot more automation going into cowsheds, but a lot of farmers don’t look at displays.

We wanted to put the information where they would see it easily.”

Jamie says he got the idea while driving his wife’s car and thinking how good it was to have the navigation system on the front windscreen.

The next unique feature of the device is the ability to align the cluster with individual cow’s udders.

There is a piece on the milk lines which is inserted into the leg separator and can be adjusted for high or low udders.

It means the cluster can be pushed forwards or backwards accordingly and the cluster stays in the middle of the cow’s legs.

“It stops the cluster being dragged and makes sure the cow milks out completely,” says Jamie Mikkelson from Jamie.

Milfos with the platform “There is a tendency for the cluster to drag on their front teats universal device. or skew sideways and one quarter doesn’t get milked out properly.

“When wet, the lines slide up and down easily through the cluster holder, making it easy to adjust for each cow.”

The milk tube can sit in the ‘V’ to keep it aligned when the cow has a particularly low udder.

Finally, it also has nozels for teat spraying. The cup removers signal to the nozzles at the end of milking to spray straight away.

“You can set them to pre-teat spray before milking as well,” says Jamie.

By Sheryl Brown

HORTICULTURE

Page 30

Coast & Country

Psa – nursery restrictions

New ‘Prevent Psa’ road signs erected in the Te Puke area are advising the public of the danger of moving any plant material outside the region – not just kiwifruit plants.

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The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has put a restriction on any movement of kiwifruit nursery stock out of a designated controlled area surrounding Te Puke in an effort to contain the kiwifruit vine bacterial disease Psa. Kiwifruit Vine Health Inc general manger John Burke says, however, that any plant material leaving the Te Puke area should be treated for Psa. “The general public has to be really aware if they’re moving plant material, particularly from around the priority zone, even though it might not be kiwifruit – it still has the risk of actually having the Psa spores on it.

“We want to make the retail nurseries and the people buying plants aware of the risks and if there is a transaction where that plant is possibly going to go onto an orchard – we would expect those plants to be treated before they’re moved.”

John says plants can be treated by disinfecting them with copper sprays.

The MAF restriction only applies to living kiwifruit plants, rootstock and budwood, but John says Psa spores could be on any nursery plants – something people need to be aware of when moving plants.

“In theory, they could take a rose bush from a retail nursery in Te Puke, plant it on the end of a kiwifruit orchard in Katikati and infect that orchard.

“So everyone needs to be conscious of that.”

The controlled area that MAF has imposed the plant movement

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restriction on surrounds the Te Puke township and includes the areas where properties infected with the more virulent type of Psa (Psa-V) are located, as well as a surrounding buffer zone.

Six road signs carrying the message ‘Prevent Psa Disease on Kiwifruit Orchards: Control Plant Movement’ have been put up.

John says the signs are being erected across the country.

“We’re wanting to raise the bar and raise community awareness – and particularly we want everyone to be aware of the risks of moving plant material from Te Puke outside the area.

John says both nurseries in the priority zone have been found to have Psa. “We have worked out a compensation agreement with those nurseries to assist them and for us to be able to control and where necessary buy and destroy their plants.

“We are going to destroy all those plants, starting immediately.”

John says KVH has come to an agreement to buy plants off other nurseries in Te Puke, that are outside the priority zone, but part of the movement control imposed

by MAF. “We’ve tested them all, they’re unaffected; we’ve allowed them to sell nursery stock within the Te Puke area, but they can’t sell it outside the area. Any unsold plant they have got left we will purchase that stock from them.”

John says they are trying to find a way to sterilise the nursery plants using heat treatment.

“If we can do that it means those

plants could be used both within and outside Te Puke in the future.

“Sterilising just in the case of heat treatment means if they have any Psa within the tissue of the plant the Psa is destroyed. If we are unable to do that, we would have to look at our options after that.”

KVH is still encouraging growers to remove infected material from their orchards.

“We are working very closely with the packhouses and with the growers themselves in facilitating that process.

“Growers are generally very responsive, they realise if they don’t remove that infected material it will spread very quickly across the orchard. It’s more about vigilance and identifying infection, and then dealing with it.

“It means orchardists have to be inspecting their plants very regularly.

“One of the issues going into leaf fall is that you can’t see the infection – so they need to be marking infected vines so they know what to expect when we enter the bud

By Sheryl Brown break period.”

HORTICULTURE

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Page 31

Help prevent trafficking Psa ing more problems.

The spray boom can be incorporated into an existing pumping system or a newly designed system can be designed to suit each location.

The team at Steve Miller Rural Services can build to any width or height

A new spray boom designed to clean orchard machinery and reduce the risk of transporting Psa.

With the ongoing issues of Psa in the kiwifruit industry, growers have had to become more aware of the importance of vehicle and equipment hygiene.

Orchard managers have to take extra precautions against the risk of transporting the kiwifruit vine disease when taking vehicles and machinery on and off their property.

The kiwifruit industry is a huge

business contributor for Steve Miller Rural Services Ltd. Growers are investing time and money into Psa control or prevention, as opposed to irrigating and frost protecting.

Steve Miller Rural Services has come up with a simple, but efficient means to clean most orchard machinery and visiting vehicles on entry and exiting the orchard.

The spray boom consists of two vertical sides and a boom along the under carriage, built from galva-

nised piping. The simplistic design minimises manual hose cleaning and eliminates missing washing crucial ‘hard to get places’ on the vehicle.

A press of the button located on a post next to the driver’s window is all it takes to start the system. The pump will spray for any desired time for a vehicle and or trailer unit to drive through, then it will turn itself off.

The press button design eliminates too many hands touching valves and controllers etcetera caus-

required and an injection system can also be installed to inject chemical direct into the spray line and onto the vehicle.

Tim can quote a wash-down system for your orchard design and work with you to design a spray unit that will suit your needs.

HORTICULTURE

Page 32

Coast & Country

Bearing a better consistency Irregular bearing on avocado trees is a splitting pain in the industry’s side, which impacts on fruit yields, export markets and income for growers and the wider industry.

The Avocado Industry Council has a vision to produce between 10 and 12 million trays by 2015 – more than double what the industry is currently producing.

It is with this in mind that a new

five year pruning trial, hoping to alleviate the problem of irregular bearing, has commenced.

AIC chief executive Jen Scoular says if the industry can mitigate irregular bearing, exporters will have a consistent supply and can develop better markets.

“With the increase in demand for food globally and an increasing demand for avocados, we want to attract growers to the avocado industry – and we need to make sure their investment is worth while.”

AIC laboratory manager Toni

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should be better spray penetration from pruned trees so hopefully you get a better quality fruit and growers should have a better performing tree.”

Seven pruning contractors have been tasked with administrating the different treatments for the trial and there is a pruning overseer to ensure

Elmsly says the trial, which started with an autumn prune during May and June, will encompass 12 orchards – nine in the Bay of Plenty, two in Whangarei and one in the Far North.

The next prune will be done before flowering in the spring.

“We’re aiming to quantify here,” says Toni.

“Most people will tell you pruning has a positive effect – but by how much?

“With pruning there should be better access to the fruit, which should reduce picking costs, there

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the treatments are applied uniformly.

The pruning treatments range from a light prune of about 15 per cent removal, to a moderate prune of 35 per cent removal.

The trial includes three age categories: trees six years or younger, 7-12 years and one orchard with trees 13 years and older.

Each orchard will subject 25 trees to the trial. Read more on Page 33.

By Sheryl Brown

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HORTICULTURE

Going out on a limb Avocado tree a few weeks after pruning.

One of the specialist pruners involved in a new avocado pruning trial (see story page 36) is Katikati contractor and grower Mike Darling.

“We’re looking for access – access and height play a big part in the way we prune the trees.

“As a grower and a contractor, if we don’t understand what our trees are doing we aren’t going to achieve anything.

“More fruiting wood is what we are looking for – the flush.”

Mike says one key result of the new Avocado Industry Council trial will be to find out the ideal time for pruning.

“At the moment, some guys are probably pruning 12 months of the year.

“It’s not just limb pruning, it’s the fruit that is small and exposed to the elements that you need to take off – anywhere from April onwards. Once you see it’s exposed and you can see it’s not going to be flush.

“Although that’s easier said than done.”

AIC laboratory manager Toni Elmsly says most growers wouldn’t normally remove fruit as a pruning practice.

“They see a crop – which is money.

“There are a lot of growers sitting and watching with interest to see how this trial progresses.”

A range of measurements are being collected in the trial, including yield, pruning, spray and harvests costs, pack out figures and fruit quality. With the benchmark data collected for trees left unpruned.

“It will give us the whole picture,” says Toni.

The trial has the active participation of three scientists; one from Australia, Dr John Leonardi, one from Plant and Food and AIC’s Dr Henry Pak. “John is the guru on canopy management,” says Toni.

“He’s very envious of what we’ve got in place here (the trial). It’s great to have him involved.”

The trial also utilises the expertise of an experienced arborist – Matt Leamy.

AIC is involved in an international research consortium on irregular bearing with California, Mexico and Australia says AIC chief executive Jen Scoular.

“We recognise that we do need to share research – the more we know about avocados the better, so information from this trial will be shared with the consortium.

“We need to increase both avocado consumption and production and sharing research helps us to do that.”

Jen says many growers are unable to produce fruit consistently because of irregular bearing.

“We are getting the yields we anticipated and every second year we have a real drop on production.

That creates a huge challenge at every level.”

Jen says this trial is a significant investment across the industry with a goal for avocado trees to be bearing a greater crop every year.

Account of a new merger Nick Dykzeul from Greg Finlay & Associates Ltd is excited about the accountancy firm’s purchase of the Te Puke practice of John Verwey & Co Ltd. Nick is going to be based in the Te Puke office and says he is looking forward to working together with the new practice’s clients.

Nick is still available to see clients at the Mount Maunganui office if required.

Nick completed his professional qualifications and became a Chartered Accountant in 2002.

Prior to studying accountancy,

he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from Waikato University and worked for AgResearch and Livestock Improvement.

He began his accountancy career in 1997 while employed by a practice in Otorohanga.

The practice was a rural practice and the majority of the clients Nick worked with were in the agricultural, forestry and related service industries. He also worked with clients involved in property investment. He became a director in 2005 after working for the practice for seven years.

Nick also spent a year working in the United Kingdom for Blackwell Books Ltd, a multinational book retailing and publishing company.

He was employed as an accountant in the head office.

Nick and his family – wife Tracey and their six-year-old twins Toby and Chelsea – moved to Tauranga in 2009.

Nick was employed by Greg Finlay and Associates Ltd. This has been a great move and his accounting experience has been broadened considerably.

In his career to date he has worked with a wide range of clients with an emphasis on clients in the agricultural industries as well as Maori organisations. Nick enjoys helping clients deal with ACC issues as well as the installation and use of BankLink and Cash Manager software.

Page 33

Page 34

HORTICULTURE

Coast & Country

Oasis orchards succumb to Psa

Kiwifruit Vine Health general manager John Burke says copper spray subsidys have been extended to all of Te Puke to reduce spread of Psa.

‘Oasis’ orchards withstanding infection from Psa in the middle of the priority zone in the Bay of Plenty are all showing signs of the bacterial disease which is killing kiwifruit vines.

Kiwifruit Vine Health Inc general manager John Burke says several orchards, next-door to where Psa was first discovered, were initially fending off the infection.

“We had a number of orchards that are sitting right in the middle of the priority zone that have been resisting infection.

“All of them now have succumbed to some extent – they’ve still only got minor infection.”

John says the resistance is largely due to the spraying protocols on the orchards.

“These guys are really focused on their spraying regime. They’ve done really well – they’re a bit of a shinning light.

“We’re calling them the oasis orchards.

“Whilst they’ve still got minor infections – it will be interesting to track how that infection progresses while they are still adhering to quite a vigorous spraying regime.”

That spraying regime has included using biological sprays such as Serenade Max and now moving into winter; copper sprays.

“Everyone should be applying copper now as we go into the dormancy period.”

The copper spray is quite a common spray – there are various forms of them and they are readily accessible by growers, says John.

“They are well recognised and well suited for dealing with bacte-

rial infections, especially in the dormancy period.”

John says spraying should be occurring regularly, about every 14 days.

Kiwifruit Vine Health has now extended its spray subsidy to all of Te Puke – not just the priority zone.

“We think it’s that important that growers try and lower their incocullent levels over the orchards over the winter period – we’ve extended that subsidy to all growers in Te Puke. “We really want 100 per cent uptake on that – it’s a real opportunity for growers to just lower the risk of their orchards being infected during the winter period.”

John says by applying these sprays, growers can help to lower incolum levels right through the district.

The subsidy only applies if they put on two or more copper sprays.

PH 07 578 0030

COAST & COUNTRY

Page 35

Cultivar bickering continues The court case is over, with the Judge decision reserved, but Turners and Growers and Zespri are continuing their public spat over cultivars.

Zespri is claiming T&G is more interested in political point-scoring than commercial progress.

While T&G is saying Zespri opposed its latest application to

export its cultivars from New Zealand in order to preserve the Zespri monopoly.

Marketing agreement

The application to export ENZAGold, ENZARed and Summerkiwi varieties through a collaborative marketing agreement with Zespri was lodged with Kiwifruit New Zealand (KNZ) late last year after repeated public calls by Zespri

and the government for Turners & Growers to “work through the system� – and assurances by Zespri head Lain Jager “the collaborative marketing provisions provide the best and least-cost path forward for Turners & Growers and others to develop export opportunities.�

Zespri opposed T&G application and it has been turned down by Kiwifruit New Zealand.

The T&G application was a

Uni research reaching agriculture?

Export varieties

Zespri, KNZ and the government claim the decade-old kiwifruit regulations can work for Zespri’s competitors who have developed their own new varieties for export from New Zealand. “This is a deeply flawed, anti-

By Andrew Campbell

EXCEPTIONAL QUALITY & UNBEATABLE VALUE

shared, in order to come up with some practicable outcomes which regional councils and those on the land could make use of. Unless UCONZ is finding ways to do this, it’s a fair bet that some wheels are being reinvented in different places.

Each university seemed to be working on an amazing breadth of projects, both in the areas of their traditional strengths and also areas of current importance.

Many now have their own in-house commercialisation organisations, with some allied to UCONZ. Most are doubtless picking up bright ideas from students, but Lincoln appears to be the only one actually promoting this concept at a practical level through their Switch Innovation Centre. This encourages individuals and businesses to bring ideas about innovations and products for which a practical need exists.

This is then put through a ‘think tank’ of the progenitor, students and advisors, leading to a possible invention process. If practicable, this can then be followed up by design and engineering, followed by a commercialisation plan. Evidence of the originality of what comes out has already won Lincoln students Innovation Awards at Fieldays, including this year.

So is university research actually providing real value to the agriculture industry?

Given the way research funding is created these days, it obviously requires considerable input from businesses before products reach the market. What of nonproduct research? To get this knowledge out to farmers requires a comprehensive and expensive extension process which history tells us can take about 15 years to take hold on farms. Do we have that long in these fast moving times?

From

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It could be said that they’re trying – there’s even an organisation called UCONZ – University Commercialisation Offices of New Zealand – which aims to get good ideas matched up with businesses that can make suitable products for customers to buy.

A pre-Fieldays event organised by UCONZ was held at the University of Waikato recently, where seven universities set up stalls in one place to showcase their wares. It was somewhat hard to tell, due to dark blue name badges and a room decorated in black with dazzling spotlights, where the interested visitors were from. While some were would-be purchasers and developers, others seemed to be university bods finding out who was doing what.

After a welcome by Waikato’s vice chancellor, Prof. Roy Crawford, the guest speaker was Gallagher’s Animal Management Systems marketing manager Mark Harris. Mark says New Zealanders are used to working hard, but it is over to research and development combinations to help them work smarter. He emphasised when it came to research and development, Gallagher’s emphasis was a small ‘r’ and a big ‘D’ and they relied on university research to create the ‘r’, while their own substantial development division could use that to create new products, in a symbiotic relationship.

Research into fresh water appeared to be high on all universities’ lists, with staff in each attracting graduate students to assist with their areas of interest. What was not clear was whether all this work is being

competitive system, which allows unethical monopolistic behaviours that would not be tolerated in any other industry or international market,� says Jeff.

He says T&G want a five year rolling term for any deal made to allow for certainty for New Zealand growers investing in ENZA varieties.

Zespri wouldn’t go past one year.

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Page 36

AVOCADOS

Coast & Country

From all directions on any slope A new all-terrain platform designed to access avocado trees on tough terrain is set to give other elevated platforms a run for their money.

It has been designed by Katikati-based Mural Engineering, which is nestled in the heart of avocado country.

Don Rust says the machine can park between four trees on steep terrain and hit all those trees from the one position.

“It can access where other machines would struggle to operate,” says Don. “Because it has continuous 360 degree slew – and with the two booms – it has a massive operational work envelope in a parked position.”

Part of the technology is its two axles, a front and rear axle – that both oscillate.

“For example, a tractor only has one oscillating axle, the other is fixed, otherwise it would fall over.

“It doesn’t matter where the axles are when you stop – they will lock into that position.

“And if you stopped on the side of a hill, for example, and then you wanted to lean more into or away from the hill, you can do that.”

When driving over undulating ground, the machine follows the contour of the ground and keeps the chassis stable during travel.

“You can multi function, for example, the booms you can slew around, raise up and down and in and out – all at the same time. It’s almost like flying.

“This is all controlled from the cage.”

Don says one of the handier options is the screen in the cage, which tells you the degree of incline the platform is on.

The terrain platform will come in different models, including 4WD and 2WD, both two-speed with diesel engines. “All driving wheels have an integrated fail-safe brake in them,” says Don. “That is not the norm. Some 4WDs only have braking on two wheels, which we believe is unsafe because it means you can climb yourself into a position where you can’t even brake yourself.”

Don says they wanted to accommodate what contractors asked for.

The cage offers a lot of protection around the operator, while still having ease of entry.

Everything is designed to meet within the approved code of practice for elevating platforms.

“It’s designed to meet the requirements of the construction sector. In the horticultural sector, the rules are a lot more lenient and machines built for the horticulture sector are not naturally approved for the construction sector.

“We’re very happy with it. It’s performing up to expectations in every respect.” The platform, which was designed with assistance from Tech NZ, is being trialled

by Katikati contractor Mike Darling.

By Sheryl Brown

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AVOCADOS

Page 37

A match made in avocado heaven A 23-year relationship between BOP kiwifruit and avocado post-harvest operator Apata Limited and Aucklandbased produce marketers Primor Produce Limited has been strengthened with Apata purchasing a 33 per cent share in Primor.

Apata chief executive Steve Low says Apata now has complete integration between post-harvest and marketing services.

“Our principles in growing our avocado business were based on taking the years of success we’ve experienced and figuring out what to do from an orchard, post-harvest perspective to

ensure optimisation of our services,” says Steve.

“The way forward for Apata was to invest in Primor, which is an extremely efficient and high-performing market business, with a well-developed network into key Australian and Asian markets, in addition to the New Zealand domestic market.

“Now, we can share more successes with each other and work closely with growers to target certain markets.”

Primor director John Carroll says Apata was not the first to hold discussions with Primor regarding a financial partnership during the years.

“The fact that we have agreed to sell 33 per cent of our shares says a lot about how much we value doing business with Apata and is a huge credit to them.”

John says the New Zealand avocado industry needs allegiances and stronger, seamless supply chains to help increase export performance and value.

“We already market more than 30 per cent of our national avocado crop, mostly packed at Apata.

“Our focus has been on the impressive and growing Australian market located on New Zealand’s doorstep, where we do substantial business with Coles Supermarkets over the spring and summer months.”

Yet the fruit must reach and satisfy markets further afield than Australia says John.

“The closer ties between Apata and Primor are designed to ensure our supply is regarded as world class and we are recognised as a significant international player in our own right.”

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FROST PROTECTION

Page 38

Coast & Country

Sprinkler system friend to Psa Rainy conditions spreading infection

As temperatures drop, orchardists need to be wary of using sprinkler systems to override frost because of the increased risk of spreading Psa. Kiwifruit Vine Health Inc says the use of water for frost protection will increase the risk of Psa infection in high risk areas.

Its general manager, John Burke, says the kiwifruit vine infection is spread through water droplets.

He says recent wet conditions have caused an increase in Psa infection.

“With the windy, rainy conditions it’s been ideal for spreading the disease,” says John.

“In mapping the footprint – the spread that we’ve seen in terms of identification of infection seems to have followed the weather pattern.”

THREE BROTHERS

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John says if the orchard is infected, or is “adjoining an infected orchard” the use of overhead sprinklers poses a risk of transferring that disease.

“That is really why overhead sprinklers are considered a risk.

“If you have an orchard that is well away from any infection and has no infection itself, using overhead sprinklers is probably one of the best methods of frost protection.

“But it does pose a risk of spreading the infection if it’s nearby or in your orchard.”

Where possible, alternative forms of frost protection are recommended, such as frost fans, heat dragon and helicopter draft.

The use of protectant sprays before frost events and before frost fighting events is also highly recommended.

By Sheryl Brown

PH 07 578 0030

FROST PROTECTION

Page 39

Frost control from the beach When looking at options, Anna says the low noise levels were the main attraction of the Defender Frost Fan. “The FMR one, I was attracted to it for the noise level – it’s definitely a lot quieter than other frost fans and when you’re dealing with neighbours, the fact it’s quieter made it a lot easier to get compliance sign off.

“And the fact it was a New Zealand company – it was quite nice to give work to people that are trying to break into the BOP market and we were quite

Anna Kalma can respond to frost problems on her 5.86ha Gold kiwifruit orchard in Pongakawa from anywhere – even when sitting on the beach in Rarotonga.

She is able to do this for her Eastern Bay of Plenty orchard thanks to the Defender Frost Fan, which she had installed in August last year.

It sends text messages through to growers when temperatures drop to frost conditions and is set to turn on automatically at 0.8C.

“So I was sitting on the beach in Rarotonga and it was quite hot and I got these two texts saying it was one degree and half a degree,” says Anna.

Anna was looking for a reliable frost protection system for when she went travelling last year.

Remote monitoring

“We went overseas for a couple of months during spring last year – that’s one of the reason why were keen to have something we could have a bit more faith in and monitor remotely.”

Anna says historically there have been a few frost events on the

orchard, which had an existing orchard fan – which covered half the orchard – and water sprinklers on the other half, “which had been problematic”.

Sprinklers

“When we were looking at an alternative we wanted to replace the sprinklers.

“The sprinklers didn’t go on automatically and you always had to be a lot more hands-on during frost events.

“The old diesel pump wasn’t reliable, so you’d be down there at 4am trying to start it up with the temperatures dropping.”

happy with their installation and their promise of after-hours service.”

FMR have been in the frost protection business for a long time, but have only recently being offering the machines to the Bay of Plenty market – which has resulted in a lot of enquiries from customers in the region, along with a good number of machines installed last year. They are about to start installing machines for the 2011 season.

By Sheryl Brown

Page 40

COUNTRY LIVING

Coast & Country

Remain in perfect balance Abundant Health

At a recent family function we had a lot of fun in a tug of war contest.

We had about 30 people in each team. Like any good tug of war, there were several minutes where it was a complete stalemate. Then the other team started to gain momentum and we really had to dig deep to hold them and eventually, several minutes later, our team built enough momentum to win.

(PG’s). These are essential for health and are made in our body from Omega 6 and Omega 3 fats in our diet. Omega 6 mostly is responsible for producing PG2 and Omega 3 produces PG1.

These have completely opposite, yet equally necessary functions.

PG2 is responsible for much of our inflammatory response to injury and sickness and causes swelling, inflammation, redness and blood clotting. The PG1’s do the oppo-

It seems like a strange analogy, but our immune system is just like that too. In order to remain in perfect balance, our immune system is pulled by strongly opposite forces.

It needs to do this to maintain a balanced position to be in a state of readiness to defend against invaders. Immune system disorders such as autoimmune disease or even just lowered immunity and persistent inflammation, are examples where our defences are out of balance.

One example is a group of chemicals called prostaglandins

site; they reduce inflammation, reduce clotting and promote blood flow and dilated blood vessels.

The problem is we should have an Omega 6 to 3 ratio of under 5:1 (mine is 2.65:1). Most Kiwi’s have a ratio of more than 10:1 – causing a massive imbalance resulting in inflammatory diseases from arthritis to heart disease and many others. This is like a tug of war with 30 on one side and five on the other – no contest and the winner is unwanted inflammation and disease. We need to realise that this

finely balanced system is largely governed by our nutrient intake and a good diet with nutritional supplements can help restore the natural balance, providing real relief.

This imbalance is usually the first thing I address when creat-

ing a nutritional programme for someone with inflammatory problems. The frustrating thing for me is that it is so easy to do –with many people suffering needlessly.

Sometimes in life small changes can make such a big difference.

John Arts is the founder of Abundant Health.

For product information visit www.abundant.co.nz If you have questions or would like a free health plan you can contact John at john@johnarts.co.nz or phone 07 578 9051 or 0800 423 559. You can join his newsletter at www.johnarts.co.nz Read more from John at www.sunlive.co.nz

Comprehensive timber treating service Apperleys Roundwood and Timber Ltd in the Waikato offer a comprehensive timber treatment service, as well as selling products to meet every rural fencing, building and residential landscaping requirement.

One of the main areas of operations at Apperley’s Otorohanga branch is the contract treating service they provide. Customers can bring in their own sawn or post material and have it processed.

Apperleys is registered to treat all hazard classes, from H3.2 to H6, with H6 being salt water immersion classification.

The treating side of the business was the main idea behind the beginning of the Company, which began in 1975 under the watchful eye of John Apperley. It is now being run by his three sons; Peter, Graham and Kevin.

With the demise of more and more smaller, independent sized operations – and bigger companies not offering contract services to the general public – Apperleys is putting a bigger focus on promoting the timber treating side of the business.

It has recently seen a steady increase in demand, particularly as there is no maximum or minimum amount of material that can be taken in for treating.

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COUNTRY LIVING

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Subdivision to free up in Western Bay? Following a halt in rural subdivision over the last few years, I believe we are now going to see some options opening up for subdivision.

It has to happen very soon if council, with its large rural base, wants to access the cash flow that subdivision generates. I understand council may have suffered an 80 per cent drop in income generated from development impact fees in recent times.

That obviously leads to much lower growth in the rating base as well. So, where is the future and how long can they afford to take?

We are still helping a number of people subdivide where they have environmental or cultural features of value to the community – such as small wetland areas, stream margins or pa sites. For some, recent new rules have opened up an opportunity to subdivide that ‘additional house’, which for years Western Bay of Plenty Council has not allowed to be cut off the farm.

Coming up will be opportunities

to subdivide horticultural land under a rule that we haven’t had in this district for some time, along with subdivision in the long awaited Minden Lifestyle Zone.

Last month I attended further hearings at council which were required due to council having incorrect and insufficient information at earlier hearings. It has now made considerable changes to the subdivision rules following public submissions and the commissioning of the required traffic modelling study. More realistic numbers of lots should now be allowed in most parts of the zone, however, in some localities the subdivision of additional lots will be significantly limited prior to construction of major roading improvements.

Subdivision in the Minden Zone will be more complex than most other areas, with a need to buy transferable development rights from other landowners and provide geotechnical reporting. Neither of these issues is new to us so give us a call if you want to discuss the

process.

Horticultural land will soon be able to be subdivided into blocks of a size that will be sustainable for productive units. I am waiting for a ruling from the Environment Court after months of negotiation.

Horticultural groups have argued that areas of three or four hectares should suffice and aid economic growth, whereas WBOP District Council initially wanted a minimum size of 8ha. Hopefully, there will be the ability to create lifestyle blocks from any unproductive areas on these orchards.

If you are interested and wish to phone me, I am happy to share my experience and insight into these developing rules to see how you may benefit from them.

Brent Trail, managing director of Surveying Services, specialises in resource consent applications for subdivisions across the Waikato and Bay of Plenty.

For further information phone 07 578 2500 or email btrail@surveyingservices.co.nz

Privacy issue to effect restructuring process

The recent Employment Court decision, Massey University v Wrigley, will have an impact on employers.

This case means any employee facing the possibility of dismissal may have access to a broader range of information than previously thought.

Massey University proposed to reduce the number of academic staff in a particular department and consulted with the affected employees. Existing employment positions were to be disestablished and a smaller number of new employment positions created.

The new positions were to be filled using a ‘contestable reconfirmation process’.

Candidates for the new positions were interviewed and assessed. A comparison summary sheet recording each candidate’s ratings was used for the final selections. The university assured candidates the process was confidential.

The two candidates who had the lowest scores were selected for redundancy.

The Employment Court held that an employer conducting a restructuring process should have provided information concerning the other candidates, to the unsuccessful candidates, including information in the minds of selection panel members, notwithstanding confidentiality and privacy constraints. In terms of consultation, general privacy legislation must yield to the duty of good faith and as such access to relevant information must be provided.

The indication from the court was that an employee involved in a restructuring process should be treated like a business partner and as such he or she should be able to argue against redundancy or dismissal. This is a significant turnaround from the court’s previous stance that an employer should have the right to organise and structure its own business as it sees fit.

The implication of this case for employers is that they will be expected to consult more comprehensively with

employees affected by a qualifying proposal. Employers should expect requests by employees for further information and the possible consequent delays to a consultation process. Employers should seek legal advice as to whether or not to disclose information.

Vice-Chancellor of Massey University v Wrigley & Kelly, 18 April 2011.

This article is intended as a point of reference and should not be relied on as a substitute for professional advice. Specialist advice should always be sought in relation to any particular circumstances and no liability will be accepted for any losses incurred by those relying solely on this article.

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• Total installation is above the floor • The villa toilet can be installed in both warm and cold locations

• As little as 1 cent per hour to run • 5 year guarantee

• Complies with AS/NZS 1546.2.2008

Lewis Gray Limited Lewis Gray Limited 40G William Pickering Drive, PO Box 302060, North Harbour.

Ph (09) 415 3348 Fax (09) 415 3396 www.lewisgray.com Email: sales@lewisgray.com

Page 41

Welome to the Boutique Hotel with a BIG Heart...

Book with us before 30 September and you will receive a complimentary cooked breakfast.

Just quote ‘Coast & Country’ at the time of booking, and we will do the rest!

...let us spoil you! hotel on devonport 72 Devonport Road, Tauranga Tel: 07 578 2668 Freephone: 0800 fabulous Website: hotelondevonport.net.nz

Page 42

COUNTRY LIVING

Coast & Country

Surviving together through dreary weather The word for this time of year is ‘drear’.

It seems to have a slightly Shakespearian connotation, but also describes the short days, foggy and rainy mornings and a generally unhappy malaise throughout the daylight hours, until it’s time to pull the curtains again and shut it all out.

We’ve had enough rain in the Waikato to bring the mud back big time. I watch my neighbouring farmers attempting to find places to put their herds overnight to reduce the number of ploughed and pugged pastures, but a few hundred cows can do a lot of damage in just a few daylight hours.

Tribe of two

I have a ‘sacrifice’ area behind the back gate which includes the donkey and goat sheds. With a tribe made up of two bossy and fat cows, two ‘keep dry at all costs’ goats and two donks which may stand stupidly in the rain during the day, but prefer their earth floored shed at night, feeding out

Lily is going from white to black.

hay becomes a crafty activity.

Sally cow also likes to spend time in the donkey shed, often involving attempts to push the walls out while she scratches bits of her hide, however, my best stentorian tones yelling “Sally, get out of there” usually work after a few repetitions.

Strip grazing

The small paddock next to the house has two gates, one alongside the one into the back garden and the other at the road end. I have yet to discover a method of strip grazing which doesn’t eventually require all six animals to walk its already grazed length for several days to get to the next juicy strip next door.

By feeding cow hay near the road end and shutting the gate into the shed area before putting out goat and donkey stuff, the nightly perambulations are reduced and the cows only get their share. But that bit of pasture always tends to have a slightly battered look.

Like most other farmers, my grass is still growing well due to the warmth of the soil. But having spent a small fortune on having Reems tests done and environmental fertiliser spread, I’ve convinced myself that it’s not just long, but a deeper green than in past winters.

Next time we get anything like a dry day when even the grass isn’t raindrop spattered, I’ve promised myself to march out with my Brix meter – my soil temperature meter – and my pH meter, to see whether

it’s true or just wishful thinking. All of these were given to me by a friend several years ago, but it took me a long time to actually get around to using them.

I couldn’t decide whether it was because I didn’t want to know the worst or because some of my strictly ‘conventional’ neighbours would find something else to rag me about.

However, now I’ve decided I’m openly opting for biological farming and am brave enough to cope with any teasing.

I must be doing something right – because next month Sally cow will be 12 and her daughter Rosie will be 10. Tulip donkey was pregnant when she came from the wild herd on Ponui Island and she’s been here nearly 14 years. From the look of his teeth, the vet thought that Tomas donkey would have been nine or so when he arrived more than five years ago, so he’s at least 14 now. Lily goat, who had always been all white, seems to be turning black from the head down. I put it down to age because she’s probably about seven. Snowy still has the energy of a younger goat, but we’ll never know how old he actually is because he came from the SPCA supposedly full size, although I swear he’s taller now.

Other lifestylers seem to go for fashionable animals. I just have very ordinary ones, but we share a lot of love around between us.

COAST & COUNTRY

PH 07 578 0030

At this session we will be reviewing and monitoring our feed budgeting for autumn/winter and discussing variations to budget and our response to them. We will also be covering spring set up for a successful season. Ph Wilma 021 246 2147 or email: wilma.foster@dairynz.co.nz

Central Plateau Biz Grow

Otorohanga North Discussion Group

At the Turner’s farm, 640 Mangawhio Rd, Ngaroma SN OCC225 10.30am – 1pm. A new season and a chance to get involved in your local discussion group. Come along for a discussion on the current situation on the farm and see how the Turners manage their system. A great opportunity if you are new to the community, with a sponsored BBQ lunch at the end. Ph Sarah 021 770 859 or email: sarah.dirks@dairynz.co.nz

Pasture Plus Te Puke

Held at Micah Savill’s farm, 752 Taumata Road, Pyes Pa SN 21280 11am – 1.30pm. This group focuses on feed management and feeding strategies.

At Room 201, N Black, Waiariki Institute of Technology, Rotorua 7-9.30pm. This is a closed group focused on up-skilling farmers who want to progress further in the dairy industry. We will be drawing on the experience of established farmers, rural professionals and members of the group. This module focuses on Large Herd Sharemilking. Ph Sharon 021 225 8345 or email: sharon.morrell@ dairynz.co.nz

Whangamata – Hikuai Discussion Group

At Jim and Marie Watkins, 945 SH1, Tirau SN77669 11am – 1pm. Do we only need to feed our calves once a day? Come along to the Tirau Discussion Group to see what’s happening on the Watkins farm and discuss calf rearing options for this season. Bring along any new neighbours that may have moved to the district in June. Lunch will be provided. Ph Amy 027 483 2205 or email: amy. johnson@dariynz.co.nz

Tuesday 19 July

Whenuakite Discussion Group

Wednesday 13 July PioPio Discussion Group

Wednesday 20 July

changed in the last six week? Is this a winter for the record books? This will be the Watson’s third season on the farm – what are their strategies to achieve the goals for the farm and business? Ph Sarah 021 770 859 or email: sarah.dirks@dairynz. co.nz

Tirau Discussion Group

Tuesday 12 July Thursday 7 July

Page 43

At farm managed by Ben and Stacey Watson, Mairoa Road SN74959 11am – 1pm. Last group average pasture covers were 2300, how have they

At Fox’s farm, 638 SH 25, Whenuakite SN 75551 11am – 1.30pm. Use the power of the group to collectively solve on-farm issues and seasonal queries. Ph Duncan 021 245 8055 or email: duncan.smeaton@dairynz.co.nz

At Ofsoske’s farm, Hall Road, Hikuai SN 75562 11am – 1.30pm. Use the power of the group to collectively solve on-farm issues and seasonal queries. Ph Duncan 021 245 8055 or email: duncan. smeaton@dairynz.co.nz

Thursday 21 July

Mangakino Whole Farm Assessment Group

At Richard and Anna Webber’s, 2738 Poihipi road, Western Bays (runoff ) 10.330am – 1.30pm.

The group discusses and investigates the farm system on the host farm. We’re at the runoff today and we will be discussing wintering issues such as crop feeding, minerals and cow condition.

The group uses an open forum that draws on the experiences of all its members. Lunch supplied by RD1. Ph Sharon 021 225 8345 or email: sharon. morrell@dairynz.co.nz

To list your rural event please email: julie@thesun.co.nz with Rural Event in the subject heading.

Murphy the dealer from Dublin Murphy, a furniture dealer from Dublin, decided to expand the line of furniture in his store, so he decided to go to Paris to see what he could find.

After arriving in Paris, he visited with some manufacturers and selected a line that he thought would sell well back home. To celebrate the new acquisition, he decided to visit a small bistro and have a glass of wine.

As he sat enjoying his wine, he noticed that the small place was quite crowded, and that the other chair at his table was the only vacant seat in the house.

Before long, a very beautiful young Parisian girl came to his table; asked him something in French (which Murphy couldn't understand); so he motioned to the vacant chair and invited her to sit down. He tried to speak to her in English, but she did not speak his language.

After a couple of minutes of trying to communicate with her, he took a napkin and drew a picture of a wine glass and showed it to her. She nodded, so he ordered a glass of wine for her.

After sitting together at the table for a while, he took another napkin, anddrew a picture of a plate with food on it, and she nodded. They left the bistro and found a quiet cafe that featured a small group playing romantic music. They ordered dinner, after which he took another napkin and drew a picture of a

couple dancing. She nodded, and they got up to dance.

They danced until the cafe closed and the band was packing up.

Back at their table, the young lady took a napkin and drew a picture of a four-poster bed. To this day, Murphy has no idea how she figured out he was in the furniture business.

0800 382 828

Follow us on facebook facebook.com/CstCountry

house for sale

A FANTASTIC 3 bedroom home in Tauranga, warm and cosy with a fireplace and full insulation.

Fenced on a 716m2 section, situated within easy walking distance to Brookfield shops, schools, parks. Separate single garage with power.

Located in a quiet cul-de sac in a great neighbourhood. Only $330,000 please phone Daphne on 027 552 6283.

LIFESTYLE BLOCK for sale at Pikowai within easy commuting to Tauranga, Te Puke & Whakatane. This four bdrm brick home is in paradise. Beautiful sea and rural views. Six acres grazing land, horse pens, heaps of shedding, butchery and chiller for own use. Single garage with sleepout/office. Big games room or can be converted to extra double

house for sale

garage, chook house, drenching race for the cattle. 11.5x4.5 metre in ground swimming pool which is fully decked and fenced. This is a beautiful home and comes with a share in the community woolshed, tennis courts and cattle yards. Own water scheme.

Fantastic community to belong to.

Price of house has been slashed! to $550,000. URGENT SALE. Ph 027 281 74279

TRANSPORTABLE

KITSET

FULL CONTRACT

trades & services

GORSE SPRAYING do you have a gorse problem?

Ph today for a FREE quote for all gorse control. Scott 0274 624 769

www.gorringebros.co.nz

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PULLETS Brown Shaver. Point of lay, good layers. Ph 07 824 1762

Keep your cows in milk over summer Plan your summer crops now • Pasture Sprayout

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Page 44

COAST & COUNTRY

Coast & Country

Prize Pack up for Grabs!

Pictures and details can be emailed (high resolution jpgs) to contest@thesun.co.nz “Country Camera” or posted to Coast & Country, PO Box 240, Tauranga. Please include a name, address and phone numberwith every entry.

Left: This is my daughter Eve and her best friend Roxy the Boxer. Things found on the lawn seem to be the favourite toys for these two, like this pine cone.

Natasha Dunne, Otorohanga.

Mud kids. From left, Hamish Lorney, Myles Janse, Jack Etherington, Sheama Chadwick, Charkiah Redden and Celia Williams from Katikati.

Mia Picard, two and a half. Mia has a huge imagination and loves playing with her teddys. Katikati.

Blake has loads of fun riding our pig around the paddock, we’re sure she enjoys it as much as he does as it doesn’t bother her at all. Tracey Scott, Gisborne.

This photo is of my nephew, Ethan Wylie.

Murphy Preston, 16 months, loves What a cheeky face aye, playing in the muddy to play digger driver when visiting puddles. Sheree Koberstein, Te Puke. his grandparents’ farm at Waharoa. Anee Barbour - Nana.