Learn, grow, excel
November 2020
HOT science SOLVING BIG ISSUES WITH SCIENCE
DAIRY + WAGYU = Black Origin wagyu beef Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz |
DO YOU HAVE TIME FOR TOXIC MASTITIS? November 2020
RAIN & GRASS in Aussie! 1
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Learn, grow, excel
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
CONTENTS MILKING PLATFORM 10 Adaptability saves the day for the Davidsons’ business 11 Trish Rankin and family are moving on, but where to? 12 Shiralee Seerden is worried about the impact of
neighbouring pines
13 Gaye Coates takes responsibility to do the right thing 21 SEASON SHINES AS VICTORIAN DAIRY FARMERS CUT COSTS
UPFRONT 14 Red Meat Profit Partnership - What has it achieved? 18 Market View - Milk price forecast increases 20 DairyNZ slashes university scholarship scheme 21 Global Dairy - Season shines for Victoria’s dairy farmers
BUSINESS 24 DBOY - Barns lift performance, cut N and P losses 28 Farm workers - Competing for talent 30 Diversification - A station for life
SYSTEMS 24 BARNS LIFT PERFORMANCE, REDUCE N & P LOSSES Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
34 Cycling to fewer bobbies 40 Cutting the sediment flow 3
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
SPECIAL REPORT
SPECIAL REPORT: Science on the farm 45 Testing systems for change 48 How much mud is too much? 49 Native seaweed could reduce GHG emissions 50 Shelter in place: rethinking heifer grazing 54 Fodder beet: Acidosis hazard with lactating cows
HOT
science SOLVING BIG ISSUES WITH SCIENCE
ENVIRONMENT 58 Phosphorus leaching - ClearTech gets the tick 60 Deep dive gems on N-use efficiency 62 Negative messages unhelpful 63 DairyNZ - Strategies to meet the nitrogen cap
STOCK 64 Collar-ing technology 68 Sexed semen - Precious cargo 70 Vet Voice - Toxic mastitis: Saving cows takes time 72 CO Diary - Keeping cows cool over summer
YOUNG COUNTRY
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
44
74 Rallying to the cause
WELLBEING 76 Do you DediKate time to you?
DAIRY 101 34 CYCLING TO FEWER BOBBIES
78 Pasture management hacks for dry weather
SOLUTIONS 80 LIC flies fresh semen to South Island 81 Sprayfo CMR closest alternative to whole milk
OUR STORY 82 The Dairy Exporter in 1970
COVER:
74 RALLYING TO THE CAUSE Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Nguyen Truong Thi is a Vietnamese PhD student studying the effects of plantain based pasture on milk production and nitrate leaching in dairy cows at Massey University. Photo by Brad Hanson
5
DAIRY DIARY November 12 – Know your numbers in
November 17 – Building a Bankable
farming business. More? visit https://www.
Otorohanga and Whangarei are part of
Agribusiness is the topic for a field day being
dairyevents.co.nz/media/1825/2020-flyer-
nationwide events run by DairyNZ and Fonterra
held in Rongotea. A banking panel with
canterbury.pdf
to clarify the key numbers for profit and the
representatives from all the banks in the region
environment in your business. It focuses on
provides an opportunity to ask rural bankers
November 18 – Tech talk and eradicating
the requirements of He Waka Eke Noa and
direct questions and find out how the banking
BVD is the topic for a practical on-farm
the Essential Fresh Water policy. It will look
environment has changed. The session runs
workshop near Putaruru. Run by Dairy Women’s
at the latest changes and timelines relevant
from 10am to 1pm. For further information
Network in partnership with Allflex, IDEXX
to your business, the importance of these
contact Kate Stewart from DairyNZ on 027 702
and MSD Animal Health. Another workshop
numbers going forward and how to practically
3760.
is being held near Dargaville on December
apply them, plus regionalised benchmarks
1. For details of the Putaruru workshop visit
to compare operating profit, nitrogen,
November 17 – Your Farm Business Future,
https://www.dwn.co.nz/events/tech-talk-
methane emissions and scenarios. Other
South Canterbury, is a Dairy Women’s Network
and-eradicating-bvd-south-waikato-18th-
dates/locations: November 16, Dannevirke;
workshop run in partnership with ASB and NZ
november/
November 17, Winton; November 17, Taranaki;
CA Ltd that focuses on succession planning
November 17, Te Awamutu; November 18,
and preparing the next generation for farming
November 18 – Online Zoom meeting about
Gore; November 18, Okaihau; November 18,
and farm ownership. More? visit https://www.
the results of the flexible milking trial and what
Tatuanui; November 19, Milton; November 19,
dwn.co.nz/events/your-farm-business-future-
is happening this year. More? visit https://
Pahiatua; November 24, Putaruru; November
south-canterbury-17-november/.
www.dairynz.co.nz/events/waikato/onlinemeeting-flexible-milking-trial/
25, Rotorua; November 26, Edgecumbe. More? visit https://www.dairynz.co.nz/
November 17 – Smaller Milk and Supply
environment/step-change/know-your-
Herds (SMASH) is holding a Spotlight on the
November 20 – Rural Women New Zealand’s
numbers-events/
System field day at Manutahi, Taranaki, to
annual general meeting and NZI Rural Women
look at setting and achieving your breeding
NZ Business Awards 2020 are being held in
November 17 – Northland’s Extension 350
goals, feeding your herd this summer, and
Wellington. More? visit www.ruralwomennz.nz
project is holding public field days across
successfully managing your heifers. Another
the region for farmers and rural professionals.
field day is being held at Te Aroha, Waikato,
November 24 – AGRI TALK 2020 in Taupo is
Farmers involved in the project will talk
on November 26 and Pakotai, Northland on
an interactive seminar covering issues farmers
about their goals and plans for achieving
December 10. More? visit www.smallerherds.
are facing and providing a risk rating for your
them. This field day is being held at Parkers
co.nz
business. Check out the agenda and register at https://www.bfa.co.nz/agritalk/
farm in Kaiwaka. For more information about this field day and others in the region,
November 18 – A Dairy Business of the Year
contact Hamish Matthews from DairyNZ on
field day is being held at River Terrace Dairy
November 25 – Owl Farm focus day on the
021 242 5719.
Ltd near Ashburton. A chance to look at the
Waikato farm. More? visit www.owlfarm.nz
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Editor’s note
LET’S SCIENCE
the sh*t out of this
T
he actual quote was “So, in the face of overwhelming odds, I’m left with only one option: I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this.” The quote is from the book, The Martian, and was made famous by Matt Damon who played the lead role in the movie The Martian - when he managed to keep himself alive and eventually make it back to Earth after being left behind on Mars by the landing crew who thought he had died when a huge storm hit the planet. This year, 2020, has been crazy, with the Covid-19 pandemic landing on top of the world-wide climate change hysteria and it’s easy to get demoralised about the future. But huge problems have been solved in the past and will be in the future by science - by investigating why things happen and understanding how to change the outcomes. It’s as difficult and as simple as that. In our hot science issue we look at some of the great science going on in New Zealand to help solve some of our difficult issues - the leaching of
nitrogen through soils, the problems of dairy farming under new wintering rules, farming under an N cap, and of dairying in a variable climate. It’s important to not be too stressed about the new regulations and to try not to be too negative, says Keri Johnston, who has worked in environmental regulation for 20 years (pg 62). She says not one single process she has been involved with has got it perfectly right the first time, but regardless, you do what you can, and implement what you can you are the most innovative farmers in the world! She has some pretty stern words for the rural media too saying negativity on our part just contributes to poor mental health outcomes for farmers. On the mental health side, our wellness writer Harriet Bremner says it’s important to prioritise health and wellbeing and taking time to exercise and eat healthily contribute to both (pg 76). Make that your resolution for 2021!
WINNERS AND GRINNERS: Congratulations are in order for Dairy Exporter writer Anne Lee for winning both the DairyNZ Dairy Writing Award and the Rural Women’s Connectivity Award, and to the team for coming Runner-Up in the Rongo Award for Excellence in Agricultural Journalism 2020 at the Guild of Agri Journalists Awards. The Dairy Exporter was also Highly Commended for Best Trade Magazine at the 2020 Magazine Media Awards.
NZ Dairy Exporter @YoungDairyED @DairyExporterNZ @nzdairyexporter
Sneak peek
DECEMBER 2020 ISSUE
• Good budgeting - What are the secrets of good budgeting? And what does it bring to your farm business? A case study of a good budgeter, and how much can you do on the back of an envelope. • Holding on to the peak - how to keep your cows pumping at peak lactation. • Win for grazing partnerships: How Waikato farmers Phil and Megan Weir are adding value to the dairy support package they offer, and generating returns on a par with a bull beef system. Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
7
NEW ZEALAND
NZ Dairy Exporter is published by NZ Farm Life Media PO Box 218, Feilding 4740, Toll free 0800 224 782, www.nzfarmlife.co.nz
NEW ZEALAND
ONLINE
Dairy Exporter Editor Jackie Harrigan P: 06 280 3165, M: 027 359 7781 jackie.harrigan@nzfarmlife.co.nz
New Zealand Dairy Exporter’s online presence is an added dimension to your magazine. Through digital media, we share a selection of stories and photographs from the magazine. Here we share a selection of just some of what you can enjoy. Read more at www.nzfarmlife.co.nz
Lead sub-editor: Andy Maciver, P: 06 280 3166 Reporters Anne Hardie, P: 027 540 3635 verbatim@xtra.co.nz Anne Lee, P: 021 413 346 anne.lee@nzfarmlife.co.nz
DAIRY DIVERSIFICATION AT MT SOMERS STATION
PODCASTS: For all Dairy Banter Podcasts visit www.nzfarmlife.co.nz/tag/dairy-banter
Karen Trebilcock, P: 03 489 8083 ak.trebilcock@xtra.co.nz Andrew Swallow, P: 021 745 183 andrew@falveyfarm.co.nz Chris Neill, P: 027 249 1186 waipuvian@gmail.com
The NZ Dairy Exporter & Country-Wide are proud to support this fantastic initiative to help feed those in need. Dairy Exporter senior journalist Anne Lee talked to the farmers behind Meat the Need, Wayne Langford (Yolo Farmer) and Siobhan O’Malley (PukekoPastures) in our latest podcast - take a listen, visit meattheneed.org and help out if you can. www.soundcloud.com/ user-951516558/meat-the-need
We visited David and Kate Acland at Mt Somers Station where diversification is embedded in their intergenerational business vision. Dairy, beef, deer, sheep and honey, lambswool blankets, two country stores and a winery exporting to 17 countries. The 850-cow dairy conversion has been a key factor in making it all happen adding value without risking the overall business and land. (story pg 30)
www.facebook.com/MeatTheNeedNZ
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km-83gw3Al0
EPISODE 4 - ANGUS HASLETT: TAKING THE REINS AT CRV GLOBAL In this episode, Angus joins Sheryl Haitana from his home office to talk about his tenure with CRV Ambreed, the benefits of the Dutch-Kiwi relationship for NZ farmers, and his views on where the industry is heading in the next 10 years. EPISODE 3 - MAKING GOOD DECISIONS WITH MYHERD Sheryl Haitana talks with CRV IT manager Andrew Singers and the company’s herd testing manager Mark Redgate about the new tool and how herd testing data will be incorporated.
8
MILK PAYOUT TRACKER:
Average $6.77/kg MS
2020/2021 Fonterra forecast price 7
$/kg MS
EPISODE 5 - HOW BODY CONDITION INFLUENCES REPRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE The latest episode in the podcast series with CRV Ambreed is up now. Sheryl Haitana chatted to the knowledgeable Jane Kay from DairyNZ in the latest CRV podcast about infertility in the NZ dairy herd and how to manage BCS to achieve better results. www.crv4all.co.nz/podcast/episode-5/
6
6.50
6.75
6.80
7.12
7.00 6.35
Design and Production: Jo Hannam jo.hannam@nzfarmlife.co.nz Emily Rees emily.rees@nzfarmlife.co.nz Social Media: Charlie Pearson, P: 06 280 3169 Partnerships Managers: Janine Aish Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty P: 027 890 0015 janine.aish@nzfarmlife.co.nz Tony Leggett Lower North Island P: 027 474 6093 tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz David Paterson South Island P: 027 289 2326 david.paterson@nzfarmlife.co.nz
5
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www.nzfarmlife.co.nz NZ Dairy Exporter @DairyExporterNZ
Printing & Distribution: Printers: Ovato New Zealand Single issue purchases: www.nzfarmlife.co.nz/shop ISSN 2230-2697 (Print) ISSN 2230-3057 (Online)
@nzdairyexporter NZ Dairy Exporter Sign up to our weekly e-newsletter at www.nzfarmlife.co.nz
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Whether you’re looking to get into dairy, or reconsidering your existing supplier arrangement, MyMilk can offer you the flexibility you need. With one year rolling contracts for up to five seasons of unshared supply, including access and support from Fonterra, we’ll help you every step of the way. Get in touch today. Subject to strict eligibility criteria, terms and conditions apply.
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
9
MILKING PLATFORM CANTERBURY
Left: Roan deliveries in Lyttelton.
Adaptability saves the day A positive attitude helped Chloe Davidson survive a tough season.
T
he arrival of Spring has brought so much happiness to Roan Farm! Calves have arrived, milk supply has increased so the anxiety around supply has settled, and there is a sprinkling of grass in the paddocks. As this is the last column for 2020, I thought it would be poignant to take a moment to reflect on the biggest year of our lives so far. It has been the hardest, yet also the most rewarding year, and I’m so proud that we have got through it as a family. I read a post this week that said that with every challenge comes opportunity, and this sums up 2020 perfectly for us! At the beginning of the year we decided to end our contract milking job with nowhere to go, a brand new small business and two very young children. This was very challenging both practically and for our mental wellbeing as we had no stability, but the opportunity that resulted from this decision has been life-changing. We never thought that farm ownership was in our sights in the short term but, 10
with the help of a very generous farm owner, we were able to get our foot in the door with a farm sale with an extended settlement and a place to call home for the first time in eight years. New calves. This ended up providing the perfect amount of stability for our young family. I think it definitely shows that you don’t need to have all of your ducks in a row to succeed, you just need to have a dream and the confidence to jump in and do it! Covid has undoubtedly been the biggest challenge for many of us this year, particularly small businesses starting out, not just in the physical sense but also in the emotional sense. I know for me, as a
mum of two little ones and with a busy husband who is very rarely home, being unable to head out the door into a social setting made life very difficult. The normal daily routines were gone and I found myself sitting at home trying to satisfy my mental wellbeing with food. I had A LOT of time for baking and, funnily enough, I also had a lot of time to eat it! Covid presented an unexpected opportunity for us in that it gave us the chance to grow our business into a door-to-door milk delivery service when demand was at its absolute peak. Between the pending lockdown being announced on the Monday and lockdown beginning on the Wednesday, we processed literally hundreds and hundreds of orders. Being adaptable to any situation is the key to successfully running a small business. I believe that it is imperative that all small businesses adapt to enable them to run effectively during a Level 3 lockdown in some capacity. If we hadn’t become a door-to-door delivery service, Roan may not still exist because we lost all our stockists overnight. Winter 2020 has undoubtedly been our hardest season of farming to date. With barely any grass cover we had huge outlays buying feed in, a significant drop in supply which took its toll on the bank account, and costly development to get the farm fit for purpose. I’m still not quite sure what the opportunity was that presented itself here, but I do know that it made me teach myself to be consciously grateful. Every single day I consciously looked for the good in our life, whether it be seeing the sun when I looked out the window, truly appreciating the happiness exude from our children’s faces, or just simply opening our fridge and seeing fresh fruit and veges inside. The power of a positive mindset is greatly underestimated. It will get us through the darkest of days, weeks, months and years. James and I often sit down and wonder how we managed to get through this year intact, and I truly believe a positive mindset has helped push us through the hard times.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
MILKING PLATFORM TARANAKI
MOVING ON…
Where to next? The Rankins’ sharemilking contract is coming to an end. Trish Rankin tells of the deliberations on the family’s future.
T
aranaki has had good weather this season to date, milk production is up, the cows are happy and the grass is growing well. The stress for us this season is knowing that our sharemilking contract is coming to an end as our owners move to a contract milker system. The topic at the dinner table that we spend the most time on is where to next? Many out there will know ‘that’ feeling of not knowing where you will be living on June 1 next year. It is not just the family we have to find a home for, but our valued cows, pets and farming business. It is not a comfortable place to be. There is often talk in rural communities about the ‘brain drain’ but here in Taranaki, with farm ownership such a big (perceived) step away from share farming (LOSM/Contract/HOSM), we have “progression and succession drain.” Taranaki is prime dairy farming country. With little apparent opportunity to grow, sharefarmers move away from Taranaki to other regions that have cheaper land, bigger farms and more diverse share farming contracts. Many in the Taranaki dairy sector seem to be in survival mode. Farms have been on the market and don’t sell. Sharemilkers spend an anxious year having to finish on one farm as their contract expires, not knowing where they will have to uproot their family to. Single farm owners know to grow they have to expand, but don’t have the capital/HR skills or desire to take on another business down the road.
Aging farm owners unable to sell may cease dairy farming altogether on the land, or run a skeleton operation. Opportunities for sharefarmers, single farm owners wanting to expand and farm owners wanting to exit the industry require support, advice and brokering. Equity partnerships, lease to buy, share farming models outside the norm (50/50) or farm owners leaving equity in are all possible winwin scenarios for the various stages of farmer’s businesses and appetite for risk. There is so much change in our sector, we need the best people in Taranaki to farm for and with us. For example; Towards a low emission economy (2050 Taranaki), reducing methane/GHG requirements (He Waka Eke Noa), promoting and improving freshwater (Fresh Water Policy), developing farm environment plans (FEPs) all while meeting the Dairy Tomorrow strategy 6 commitments can be and is everyday practice for many skilled sharefarmers who are unable to take the next step in their business growth due to high land prices and not meeting equity bank requirements. We are looking forward to being creative in our way forward and hopefully by the time Christmas comes, we will have our next family farming business location finalised! Right: Enjoying the awesome location Taranaki is! Opunake Lake, Mt Taranaki Ski Field, Kaupokonui Beach, Kids with pets.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
11
MILKING PLATFORM HAWKE’S BAY
Left: Seerden family outlook.
Sentiments not shared Farming in northern Hawke’s Bay, Shiralee Seerden is worried about the impact of pine trees being planted on neighbouring farmland.
W
ith good reason I didn’t stay up to hear the election results as it might be my last chance to have a peaceful sleep over the next three years, still in desperate hope I woke up; but alas it couldn’t get any worse with Labour’s close ally also doing well. A sentiment shared with not all but a few local farmers - despair and disheartenment! I remember in my early 20s meeting a young male of similar age who upon learning of my parents’ farm, distastefully said “you rich farmers”. I was taken aback and hurt with his further vehement remarks. Accusations aside it was far from the truth, my childhood saw me ridiculed at school for wearing hand-me-downs already a decade old, no bach, no boat, a couple of holidays in winter - at the beach brrrr! 12
While I certainly grew up with “rich farm kids” they didn’t outnumber the “rich town kids”. Perception really is where you are standing. Like Jacinda I grew up around Morrinsville in heartland Waikato - dairy country. We obviously wore different shades of glasses; as a teenager I was proud that this small town was thriving and growing, building industries and creating jobs based around the local farming community, and like that young man it seems the Prime Minister did not share the same sentiment as myself. Am I a conspiracy nut? Most likely, but everyone has their agendas, and when two and two don’t make four, I want to know why. Why is it we are being heavily controlled with policies of “one size fits all”? Should I expect anything different from a socialist party which quotes ’fairness’, when golf courses, rugby
stadiums and recreational grass areas can throw as much nitrogen on when they want and aren’t answerable to where and what it runs into. A few years ago I was told first hand how much N was going on to Eden Park just to make it look green, the amount blew my mind! And the icing on the cake was the runoff goes straight into the Auckland water system, it nearly made me cry with the injustice of it all. What could possibly top all this off? Well, the Greens winning Auckland Central. It just makes me believe our city cousins are so far removed from us country folk with a divide so wide we are banging our heads on a brick wall trying to make them understand we all need to clean up our own backyards - together. Not likely though while our Government is comparative to the best magicians; distraction (farmers polluting waterways), deception (1 billion trees by 2028) followed by in your face deceit (major areas of land planted with pines for carbon credits) a weed and major problem already in our native bush; 500 million natives to be planted which we already know through local projects a large number of them don’t survive, compared to 500 million pines which have a fantastic survival rate and self-seed quickly. With farmland in our neck of the woods (excuse the pun) being snapped up by home and foreign forestry investors who are paying well over the price of viability for farming the land, I predict there will more likely be a billion pines by 2028 and I don’t think it will be a surprise to the governing authorities. I wonder if Kiwis have a picture in their head, when every time they hear about the planting of trees and emission schemes, they are naive in thinking the land will be going back to native bush. Maybe a reality check is needed, with New Zealand in 20 years covered in radiata pines and our grandchildren fighting to save our native bushland from this invader! Not to mention most of our food imported! Worry not, our carbon credits will offset any footprint!
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
MILKING PLATFORM WEST COAST
Left: Harm minimisation in practice: the new culvert.
Taking responsibility Government and local authorities have long required farmers to do the right thing. Now banks have added their voices, West Coast farmer Gaye Coates writes.
R
esponsible is one of those commanding words that lingers with dubious reminiscence from my childhood. It sits alongside being told to be good. Both words resonate in my memory as having very subjective definitions with certain but variable consequences when they were not achieved. I naively thought that when I “grew up”, I would have attained these somewhat obscure virtues of doing the right thing. Not so it seems. The words simply changed as did the people admonishing them. Responsible and being good were swapped with modern day directives of being sustainable and ethical. And then, just as I thought I had mastered the language and rules of these new commands, responsible selfimportantly resurfaced. Being told to do the right thing by authorities such as Government policies and Regional Council rules is an expected part of farming. The reproving voices have increased and widened over time. Recently banking has joined the sectors who feel entitled to speak, with one bank now saying to businesses they will
only give financial support if they are responsible. Achieving this responsible label requires providing evidence of compliance with and the delivery of harmminimisation practices. On our farm, our most visible evidence of harm-minimisation practices is our waterway protection, and completing this has taken some years. We weren’t delayed in our response to doing the right thing; the process in its entirety just simply had to be budgeted in terms of time and money. Many a school holiday family bonding session was undertaken constructing a new farm fence alongside a creek. We have achieved compliance with these rules and expectations for some time, but we have been realistic that the standards for good practice are ever increasing and expanding. This month we completed a major project of installing two new culverts over creek crossings. The creek crossings met our compliance regulations but they didn’t reflect what we felt was doing the right thing. With significant expense, they now do – at least for today. While environment has been the big tick
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
measure of farmers’ responsibility, there are less obvious practices to flaunt. Being a responsible employer is important to us and part of this has seen us move to using a payroll company to ensure our team are fairly and accurately paid for every hour that they work. Over the last year, we have been working on improving our responsible use of antibiotics. We are not unusual in that mastitis control accounts for the majority of our onfarm antibiotic use. We have never been indiscriminate in their use, and there have always been sound clinical reasons to begin treatment but we were using more than we thought was reasonable and too often treatment would have to be repeated or changed. Last year we bought a Mastaplex machine which is an innovative piece of equipment that incubates milk samples from suspect mastitis cows, communicating the growth of bacteria via cloud-based technology to a laboratory. They determine which bacteria are present and then report back to us which antibiotic is required to kill the mastitis bug present in that cow. This machine links with our local vet clinic who add to the advice. The benefits of this system have been well proven onfarm over the last season with first time right antibiotic treatment resulting in less antibiotics being used, prompt treatment and quick return of milk to the vat. I would like to think that if we ever had to prove our responsibility to a key player in our business such as our bank, we could provide better than good evidence of our efforts. It wouldn’t be just because we were told to be responsible. For us, it is doing things right because we believe with certainty that is what is important. I’m less sure however that our definition of responsible will match with unity and volume that of the authority demanding it. • First published in Country-Wide September 2020. 13
INSIGHT
UPFRONT SUPPORT
Tangible benefits from RMPP The Red Meat Profit Partnership expires in March, 2021. Phil Edmonds seeks views on what it has achieved.
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s attention shifts to how the new Labour Government might help fund the farming sector to adopt ever more rigorous environmental standards, a former model of support for industry transformation is coming to an end with the Red Meat Profit Partnership PGP due to expire in March, 2021. A comprehensive evaluation of the RMPP programme has been completed to better understand its overall impact, and whether the initial lofty goals of driving transformational change within the sector have been achieved. The numbers suggest the government’s investment has been worth it, but the focus is now on whether the successful initiatives will be sustained by the industry. The RMPP was established in 2013, with a financial commitment of $64 million drawn from the government and industry partners, to attempt a transformational shift in productivity and profitability in New Zealand’s sheep and beef sector. A 2011 Red Meat Sector Strategy had identified a clear opportunity existed to raise the level of profitability by adopting initiatives already proving successful on top-performing farms, and the RMPP attempted to make the strategy recommendations work. At April 2020, RMPP had invested a total of $50.4 million of the initial committed fund. Of this, $38.1m (76%) has been directed towards various external and internal projects to assist farmers with practical ideas and tools to improve onfarm profitability. The remaining $12.3m has been spent on functions associated with managing the programme. 14
The two most significant investments have been establishing the Action Network extension programme ($14.4m spent) and delivering training programmes ($11.8m). A raft of smaller initiatives have also benefited from investment as part of the RMPP, including the nProve user interface (Livestock Improvement), the Electronic Animal Status Declaration (eASD) and the New Zealand Farm Assurance Programme (FAP) but, over the course of the programme to date, the efforts to lift onfarm profitability have been focused on the Action Network. At a high level the evaluation undertaken by independent consulting firm Scarlatti and published in September clearly suggests it has all been worth it. The combined RMPP investment to 2020 was found to have delivered benefits of $845m – a ratio of about 17:1. Confidence that the programme would deliver what it promised hasn’t always existed. In 2017 the then Minister for Primary Industries and PGP champion Nathan Guy effectively pleaded with underperforming sheep and beef farmers to do better at taking up opportunities available to improve onfarm productivity. Soon after, an analysis by the ANZ, one of the RMPP partners, found sector growth had lagged well below the level needed to reach the aspirational target of being a $14 billion industry by 2025. The ANZ study noted that shifting farmers’ focus to a business mindset was difficult given the varied motivations (in some cases skewed towards lifestyle) among sheep and beef farmers for being involved in the industry. There were also doubters as to whether
Farms participating in the extension groups will on average increase profitability by $24 per hectare, or $17,712 per farm, each year.
the government should be involved at all. Then in opposition, Damien O’Connor repeatedly argued that the PGP concept was generally a case of taxpayers funding ‘business-as-usual’. The criticism did fade when a review of the PGP system, called for by O’Connor when he became the Minister for Agriculture, found the government was getting good value from its contributions. This has subsequently been borne out in the Scarlatti evaluation. Why has the return on investment only started to appear in recent years? Scarlatti director and author of the RMPP evaluation Adam Barker suggests the overall success has been assisted by the Action Network extension and adoption work programme. RMPP chair Malcolm Bailey says when the programme was launched there was a sense that work on
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
genetics would deliver the biggest return on investment, rather than transfer of knowledge. However, the evaluation found the Action Network to be the biggest contributor with returns measured at $381m. Farms participating in the extension groups will on average increase profitability by $24 per hectare, or $17,712 per farm, each year. Across the entire sector, the review found the Action Network will raise profitability by $5.51 per hectare, by 2025. Barker says the Action Network has comfortably nailed its expectations from a financial return point of view and is the “crown jewel” in the overall programme. “Investment in the extension groups has been effective because they have been designed to unlock potential of the land through knowledge and technology that already exists – the hard work (research, innovation, etc) had already been done.
Scarlatti director and author of the RMPP evaluation Adam Barker.
The investment has been channelled into people and human capability – to transform the huge economic potential already sitting there.” “One of the key strengths of the model we’ve observed has been the successful engagement between facilitators and farmers to find each other and find top fixes that are relevant to them. Over the last couple of years the rate of farmers coming in did accelerate.” Along with the well-identified economic benefits, some of the Action Network participants reported equally positive outcomes that have not necessarily been economic. Scarlatti took account of this noting that, given the relatively isolated nature of farming, having regular, purposeful, group interactions with fellow farmers provides positive wellbeing benefits. Barker says “The wellbeing outcomes are a significant benefit from the RMPP investment, comparable to what might have been achieved through a more specific intervention.” Manawatu-based Action Network facilitator Gary Massicks has seen these benefits in his groups. “We were successful in making people comfortable to share concerns around wellbeing. The social interaction that some of the members have got probably wouldn’t have happened
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Gary Massicks, BakerAg consultant.
outside their participation, and that’s been a big win.” Returns on RMPP investment across other initiatives have been mixed. Given the transformational nature of the task when established, and the RMPP ambition to have an impact on all facets of the supply chain, it’s no surprise they have varied. Barker says that not every programme has been a good investment, but none has been disastrous. “Some have been spectacular in delivering returns; some have paid for themselves.” One project that has not delivered any measurable economic value yet has been the investment in Data Linker – an attempt to design a framework to reduce the duplication of data collection and entry for farmers and stakeholders and streamline how they capture and share data. Not enough entities have spent money to enable their IT systems to process data 15
in the right way, and to get the benefit everyone has to be in and participating. The talent attraction programme has paid back its money two or three times, which is good compared with putting your money in the bank but possibly not the kind of return that meets the threshold required by an industry organisation where investments are hard to measure. There are also some RMPP initiatives that have a longer-term focus where the benefits will probably not be realised or fully understood by 2025. The Farm Assurance Programme (FAP), for example, was an RMPP project initiative started later than others and a lot of the work is still ongoing. Barker says it has the kind of benefits that naturally take time to accrue. Back to the now. With the RMPP about to expire, what chance is there for the biggest gains made from the RMPP to continue without government assistance. Will they be lost? RMPP chair Malcolm Bailey says that while the numbers in the evaluation represent a phenomenal result, it does require the work to continue. “MPI’s measurement date to determine success is 2025. While we are wrapping up early next year it will require a step change for a lot of people, so we avoid this being a promising initiative for seven years but subsequently dying away. And that would not be an acceptable outcome. It will require farmers, Beef + Lamb New Zealand and others to kick on with this.” Some Action Network facilitators spoken to by the Dairy Exporter have doubts that the value of extension is well enough appreciated to warrant ongoing investment. However, B+LNZ, which is planning to support the transition of the 16
Malcolm Bailey, chair, RMPP.
Sam McIvor, chief executive, Beef + Lamb.
existing extension groups beyond RMPP, is committed to making sure the momentum achieved by the Action Network concept keeps going. “We will be making the concept a key part of our delivery model. We won’t be funding the groups directly but will be providing a lot of support by maintaining contact with lead farmers and the group facilitators,” B+LNZ CEO Sam McIvor says. “We’ll be setting up regional hubs for facilitators to meet and we’re proactively creating a national network to share information and knowledge being undertaken by groups doing similar things across the country.” He expects some of the groups funded by RMPP will come to an end, but that won’t necessarily be a funding issue. “Some will have been set up to achieve a single goal, and they might have achieved that goal. But for others, strong relationships will have been formed by
working together and there will likely be motivation to continue. We expect the majority of them to carry on and pay a consultant a commercial fee.” Looking at what other opportunities there are to capture government support, some Action Network groups have already been looking at how they could generate funding to keep going with SFFF grants, and by anticipating support from Labour’s pledge of $50 million to help farmers with planning to transition to environmentally friendly practices and cope with growing compliance requirements. Prior to the election, O’Connor said farmers have great methods for sharing information and knowledge, and that the Government wanted to support that. But dedicating all funding to extension services specifically targeting environmental compliance may not be optimal. Support for environmental changes is only a small part of what farmers do. There will be some farmers who just want to focus on this, but there are wider opportunities to generate improved farm performance that will make them more profitable, which in turn will enable them to put more money into environmental initiatives. Massicks says he’d like to see the Government front-load funds into the current extension companies. “We are seeing a big future need for consultants to develop farm environment plans. My message would be if you want to get change happening fast – there will be hundreds of farmers needing these plans – then bulk fund those who can assist.” Looking back over the RMPP’s life, Massicks says there may have been mistakes in how some programmes have been rolled out, and some of the incentives to generate involvement might not have been well proportioned. But there has been an improvement in the connection between farmers and the rest of the industry, and that is a good outcome. This view is shared by Bailey. “The feedback from processors and partners is that it has been a catalyst for them to cooperate in a way they had not necessarily done before. When I became involved I was wary about how this programme could be shaped from concept to action. And from the beginning we made sure we focused on how this could succeed beyond its funding life. It was always around succession and, based on what we are seeing now, the signs are positive.”
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
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UPFRONT MARKET VIEW
INSIGHT
Milk price forecast increases Words by: Amy Castleton
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onterra lifted its milk price forecast for the 2020-21 season in mid-October. The revised midpoint is $6.80/kg milksolids (MS), up 40 cents from its previous forecast. The new range is $6.30-$7.30/kg MS. Fonterra commented that the increase is due to improved demand in China. China has recovered quickly from Covid-19, and its dairy demand has also recovered quickly. Fonterra noted that demand for whole milk powder (WMP) in particular has been stronger from Chinese buyers. The co-op noted that the demand has been reflected at Global Dairy Trade (GDT), pushing prices upwards in recent events. Demand for milk powders has been especially resilient. Fonterra said a $6.80 milk price would see more than $10 billion flow into regional New Zealand. The co-op is keeping an eye on a number of factors, given it’s still early in the season and much can change in the remaining months. These factors are why Fonterra is maintaining its wide forecast range. It noted possible volatility in exchange rates, European Union and United States milk supplies increasing, and uncertainty around potential risk from further waves of Covid-19 and how a global economic slowdown may impact demand. “With increasing demand and supply, we see the dairy outlook as more balanced,
but given there are still a number of risks, we are still recommending our farmers be cautious with their decision making.” The NZX milk price sits at $7.11/kg MS at the time of writing, well within the revised range, and higher than the mid-point. This forecast is based on GDT results for the season to date and the outlook from the NZX Dairy Derivatives market for the remainder of the season. The Derivatives market expects commodity prices to remain relatively firm for the remainder of the NZ dairy season. Dairy commodity prices continued to lift through October. Prices were up 2.2% at the October 6 GDT event and lifted another 0.4% at the October 20 event. There has been talk of NZ soils getting dry, which may be providing some of the support to commodity prices. Recent soil moisture deficit maps from NIWA show the east coast of the country, along with the upper North Island, are especially drier than usual for this time of year. Canterbury and Southland are
Parts of the west coast of the North Island – Taranaki, and part of Waikato and Manawatu – are suddenly at field capacity, meaning soils are much wetter than usual for this time of year.
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particularly dry for this time of year. However irrigation in the South Island means dry conditions in this area are less concerning than in the North Island. Parts of the west coast of the North Island – Taranaki, and part of Waikato and Manawatu – are suddenly at field capacity, meaning soils are much wetter than usual for this time of year. However this seems to be due to a sudden burst of rain in midOctober – whether enough rain carries on through the rest of spring is the question. NZX’s Pasture Growth Index model shows conditions have been below average for much of October. Conditions are forecast to improve back into average territory as we head into November; however the recent dryness may result in some impacts on milk production for October and November. At this stage it looks likely that milk supplies through spring will be closer to 2018 levels than 2019 levels. Any continued dryness which impacts on milk production will support commodity prices, particularly those for whole milk powder. This will support milk price forecasts. • Amy Castleton, senior dairy analyst at NZX Agri.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Pasture & Forage News
November 2020
Spin to win with clover oversowing We’re seeing increasing numbers of pasture with little or no clover, which is concerning for two reasons – clover is necessary for its very high summer feed quality, and for its ability to fix N.
Help your pastures survive and thrive with the golden rules of grazing Between November and January, ryegrass goes through massive changes. About 75% of each plant’s tillers that have been through winter and spring will go to seed and die, but before they do, they will create brand new daughter tillers. These daughters are irreplaceable. They are what you will milk off in 2021. They also help your pastures last longer - if they don’t survive, ryegrass tiller numbers will drop. Pastures will thin out. And thin pasture is susceptible to weed invasion. Lack of light is the number one cause of daughter tiller death, so the best thing you can do to look after them is to avoid high pasture covers. Graze at the 2.5-3 leaf stage, before covers exceed 3300 kg DM/ ha, or canopy closure (whichever comes first). Graze down to clean consistent residuals of approximately 1500 kg DM/ha so that light reaches the bottom of the pasture and stimulates production and survival of daughter tillers.
This one rule of grazing management pays a generous dividend. As well as getting daughter tillers off to a flying start, it also encourages clover to survive and thrive, and it strikes the right balance between pasture yield and quality, keeping ryegrass leafy and palatable with minimal build up of dead material at the base of the sward.
That N-fixing ability is more important than ever given proposed N fertiliser caps. So check your paddocks for clover this month, and if there isn’t enough, consider over-sowing seed to get those populations back up. Before you do, also check your soil test results, or get new tests done. To thrive, clover needs phosphorus (P), potassium (K), sulphur (S) and molybdenum (Mo). It also needs the right soil pH – 5.8 to 6.2. You may also need to get herbage tests done if you have an on-going issue with lack of clover. Best results come from spinning on seed no more than 3 days before grazing, or a day or two after grazing. Use 4-6 kg/ha AGRICOTE Oversow clover seed, which does not have the grazing withholding periods of other coatings.
Clovers can really suffer from high pasture covers. They grow close to the ground, are susceptible to shading and need sunlight. They are also an essential component of sustainable pastoral production, providing superb animal nutrition and up to 200 kg N/ha/year naturally fixed out of the atmosphere. So just like your daughter tillers, clover plants need to be well looked after at this time of the year, too.
facebook.com/BarenbrugNZ barenbrug.co.nz 0800 449 955 Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
@BarenbrugNZ
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INSIGHT
UPFRONT SCHOLARSHIPS
“Other investment priorities” more important than students? Words by: Karen Trebilcock
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airyNZ is slashing its university scholarship scheme. Since 2001, between 15 and 18 new scholarships have been awarded annually to students at Massey, Lincoln or Waikato Universities, each worth in recent years $6325, which almost covered university fees from year two of study (university fees are free for the first year). From 2021, the scholarships are cut to five, which all must be first year students at either Massey or Lincoln studying a course related to dairy, and is worth $3000 for the second and third years of study only (many agricultural courses are four years).
“Our aim is to reach a broader base of potential entrants to the dairy sector and the options available to achieve that.”
DairyNZ strategy and investment leader Dr Jenny Jago said the changes were “part of our drive for continuous improvement”. “Our aim is to reach a broader base of potential entrants to the dairy sector and the options available to achieve that.” Instead of offering financial support, DairyNZ would increase its focus on mentoring university students. “The increased emphasis on mentoring reflects feedback from scholarship students who tell us the greatest value they gain from scholarships is in the relationships 20
DairyNZ scholarship holder Peter O’Connor.
with DairyNZ staff supporting their university journey and transition into work.” She said details of the new programme were still to be developed and the numbers of students who would be mentored only was still to be decided. While funding for the 2021 programme would be similar because existing scholarship holders were still “in the system”, it would begin to change after that. “The resourcing will be considered alongside other investment priorities, to ensure we’re delivering the best outcomes for dairy farmers.” Of the more than 350 DairyNZ scholarships holders who have graduated, it’s estimated more than 80% are still working in the agriculture industry. About 40% are from non-farming families. DairyNZ scholarship holder Peter O’Connor, who is finishing a four-year Bachelor of Agriculture (honours) degree
at Lincoln University, said he was “very disappointed” DairyNZ would not be investing in the next generation of dairy farmers and dairy scientists to the same degree as before. “The scholarship has provided an incentive for a large number of academic people to go to agricultural universities and into dairy, which is what the sector needs going forward both on farm and in research.” The eldest child of four from a West Coast dairy farm, Peter hopes to start dairying next year and said although the mentoring that came with the scholarship was important, so was the financial assistance. “I will leave university this year with no student loan mostly due to the scholarship, which will be one less debt to have to pay off in the years ahead. I am very grateful for this. “The scholarship has helped guide me to want to be part of the industry after I leave university. “It gave me the opportunity to meet with people in different parts of the industry. It was always good to hear someone else’s view on what they did in the sector, how they saw dairy progressing in the future and ask them for advice now that they are further down their career pathway.” For 2021, scholarship applicants will be chosen on their evidence of and/or planned activity to support the New Zealand dairy sector, academic merit, evidence of potential leadership skills and/or service to the community or sporting activities, and agreement to contribute to the development and promotion of New Zealand dairy sector, such as school visits and career day promotions. Applications close 7 December.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
GLOBAL DAIRY AUSTRALIA
South West Victorian dairy farmers Con and Michelle Glennen.
Season shines as Victorian dairy farmers cut costs Rains have brought a big turnaround for many Australian farmers, with exceptional spring growth. Simone Smith reports.
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t was an overcast day in October. Rain was due at Con and Michelle Glennen’s dairy farm within days. Normally, silage preparation would be in full swing. Walking through the paddock towards the milkers, it’s clear the herd will be grazing these paddocks for at least another month. “I can’t remember a season this good in my lifetime,” Con said. “I’ve been on this farm since 1992 and farming longer than that. I can’t remember it being this good.” “We had a really good summer, good autumn start, and we are wet now and it is the start of spring. We went through
winter with heaps of feed, we’ve had a great run.” This stark improvement in seasonal conditions isn’t unique to Victoria’s south-west region and in some areas the turnaround has been more profound. Throughout Victoria, which last season produced 63% of the nation’s milk, dairy farmers are making the most of the spring flush and conserving feed to help buffer drier seasons. In some cases, especially in Gippsland – the eastern region of Victoria – some paddocks of ryegrass were going to head with their roots and stems submerged in water.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Rethink cups on If you could cut cupping times by 1-2 seconds per cow, how much time would you save during milking? For Waikato dairy farmer Dries Verrycken who’s milking 500 cows, he can now save around 16 minutes at cups-on alone thanks to the new iCR+ with EasyStart simple lift or pull vacuum activation. That’s over 30 minutes a day and over 3.5 hours a week in this 50-bail iFLOW rotary. Meaning his cows can be back out to pasture quicker, and he can get on with other jobs. Time to rethink how you put the cups on? We can help. gea.com/new-zealand Driving dairy efficiencies? We can help.
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‘I can’t remember a season this good in my lifetime. I’ve been on this farm since 1992 and farming longer than that. I can’t remember it being this good.’ Improved seasonal conditions have buoyed most Australian agricultural commodities with the dairy industry benefiting from reduced feed costs and improved livestock returns. In September, Australia’s winter crop production was forecast to increase by 64% this year to 47.9 million tonnes, 20% more than the 10-year-average. There’s also expected to be plenty of hay made throughout Australia, the quality though will carry a huge question mark following untimely rains throughout many export hay producing regions. The upside is it’s a lot cheaper, there’s plenty of it however, it doesn’t look like it will be needed in many areas for months to come. The old saying ‘there’s money in mud’ has also sent the Australian beef industry into a restocking frenzy, as producers who endured years of drought and huge bought-in feed costs are now flushed with feed. This restocking surge has been reflected in the price of dairy cull cows. These values were up 15% to the end of August and 19% compared to the five-year average, according to Dairy Australia. Australia’s climate is fickle, the long-dry spells add huge costs to dairy businesses and strains profitability. These pressures have been acutely felt in northern Victoria and the New South Wales Riverina, regions reliant on irrigation water to grow pastures and crops. Relief has been delivered for these farmers too, with irrigation water prices reducing up to 60 percent, according to member-based irrigation water trading platform Waterpool Trading. The prices reflect the decline in demand and increase in availability due to droughtbreaking rains throughout large parts of 22
Australia. The average price of water traded during the 2020 season (July 1, 2019-June 30, 2020) was $517.73 a megalitre. The price for water traded for the first four months of the 2021 season was $204.25 a megalitre. Independent ruminant nutritionist Steve Ralston works with Debenham Australia with the bulk of his dairy clients in Victoria. He anticipated the grain spend across his southern region dairy customers would be down about $200/cow year-onyear. “If you are in Northern Victoria, you could double that,” he said. These savings come from an average price drop of about $100/tonne for stock feed. “For our customer base it is a decrease of about 35c/kg MS in the southern dairy regions,” Steve said. Fodder was also expected to be $100 a tonne less than last season but dairy farmers would have to adjust their feeding regimes to account for quality downgrades. For dairy farmers operating a fully-fed Total Mixed Ration (TMR) system – a small proportion of business mostly operating in northern Victoria and the NSW Riverina these bought-in feed savings would equate to $2/cow/day, according to Steve. That’s about $1/kg milksolids in reduced costs, he said. Fundamentally it is a margin. “If you juxtapose year-on-year, prices (this year) dropped well less than $1 per kg from the historically high farmgate milk price last year,” Steve said. “The economics of dairy in northern Victoria are better this
year than they were last year.” Supplementary feeding is common practice throughout many Australian dairy farms. According to last year’s Dairy Australia National Dairy Farmer Survey Above: Directly grazed pastures at Con and Michelle Glennen’s Victorian dairy farm is valued at 7-8 cents a kilogram of drymatter. Below: Con and Michelle Glennen farm at Noorat in South West Victoria, they are saving $300-$400 a day on irrigation costs due to the good season.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
“nearly all” dairy farmers engaged in some level of supplementary feeding. In 2018-19 the average was 1.6 tonnes of supplementary feed per cow per year. Steve said grain, particularly, “helps buffer an unreliable season” while the economics of dairying “generally support moderate concentrate feeding”. “Australia is blessed with a vast amount of cereal grains within 200km of dairy regions,” he said. “Here in Victoria, that’s a competitive advantage.” Back at Con and Michelle Glennen’s farm at Noorat in south west Victoria, they are making the most of having the scales tipped in their favour. “Milk prices aren’t bad, the commodities are cheaper, interest rates are cheaper, and we are growing grass,” Con said. “We ordered vetch from a supplier for $250 a tonne testing 24 protein and 12 ME (metabolisable energy) with a 36 NDF (neutral detergent fibre), basically rocket fuel. “It’s $250 delivered to the farm, we stayed out of the market this time last year, there was just no return in it. It was up over $400 (a tonne) for that sort of stuff, near 50c/kg DM fed to cow and with the milk price, it just wasn’t on. Even though the price was better, the numbers didn’t add up.”
This year the Glennen’s return on grain feeding would be 30-40 percent per tonne. Last year they were breaking even, despite the better farmgate milk price. Milk production this season has been up 15 percent and they are milking 10 more cows – up to 380. The Glennens are also rearing more calves. They have plans to grow to 500 milkers. In early October, Con said they would have grass now “until the end of November no matter what happens”. Rain was due in the following days and, if they got a dry run, would start cutting silage towards the end of the month. The irrigators were sitting idle in the paddock and this has been a huge saving for the business. Last year, they weren’t going in at this time of year, but the previous season they were running from the start of October. Con and Michelle value price their irrigated pasture at 21 cents a kilogram of dry matter, directly grazed pasture is 7-8 cents/kg DM. Silage is 21-22 c/kg DM. “I don’t care if we don’t start those irrigators until Christmas,” Con said. “That’s $300-$400 a day we are not spending.” “The biggest gain we will make is from the best season we have ever seen, that’s the biggest return,” Con said.
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Taking away the need to push a button to activate cluster vacuum and the requirement to manually remove cups makes for an efficient, consistent milking experience. Plus, post-teat spraying can be taken care of, too. In fact, one operator can milk more cows in less time thanks to the new iCR+ Intelligent Cluster Removers! Time to rethink your milking routine? Call 0800 GEA FARM, or your local dealer for a quote. gea.com/new-zealand
Driving dairy efficiencies? We can help.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
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BUSINESS DBOY 2020
Barns lift performance, reduce N & P losses High MS/ha, high EBIT, exceptional operating profit margin and return on total assets led a Kereone family to the finals of the 2020 Dairy Business of the Year Award. Elaine Fisher has the story. Photos by Emma McCarthy.
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itrogen and phosphorus leaching on Greenacres, the Kereone farm owned by Fiona and Graham Pickett and their son Brad, has dropped significantly, largely thanks to the new 2000m² composting barns completed earlier this year. “The barns were commissioned in January and the cows were housed from June 1st twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. As they calved, they went out to pasture,” says Brad, who with his parents, was a finalist in the 2020 Dairy Business of the Year (DBOY) Award. 24
The family farming business performed well in the awards even though the benefits of the barns were not recorded in the score sheet. Most significant was the achievement of 2110kg milksolids (MS) per hectare and earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of $9,159. Brad puts those figures down to the quality and volume of the milk from the Jersey herd, the farm’s irrigation system, the payout from Tatua Co-Operative Dairy Company, and the high value of the land. The DBOY report said Greenacres’ profit performance is in the top 25% quartile of the entrants:
“Your farming business achieved an exceptional Operating Profit Margin (49%), well done! This means you retain a high proportion of your income as profit, enhancing business resilience. “Your Return On Total Assets (5.5%) is strong, based on high production/ha combined with a high milk price, and good cost control. This is despite having a very large capital base due to your land and share value. “The very high homegrown feed/ ha (14.7t) on milking area is helped by irrigation.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
“I think having barns may well become a cost of compliance for farming in future. We invested in the barns because, with two families to support on this farm, we want to retain milk production, but we also wanted to protect the environment.” Left: Brad Pickett with daughters Kennedy (5) and Stevie (2) and his father Graham Pickett. Above: The barns on Graham and Brad Pickett’s Greenacres farm at Kereone represent a significant financial investment which they believe will help future-proof their business.
“Exceptional milksolids production (510kg MS/cow) as a % of liveweight without resorting to expensive concentrates to do it. “Compared to the benchmark, your business has above average assets per hectare. Income is at the high end of the top 10% which is a very good achievement. If costs are well-controlled, then this is a very good position.” Graham and Brad say the key to their business success is the people they work with. “It is important for us to surround ourselves with the right people. We used Headlands consultant Bill Rys, Anexa Vets, and breeding mentors.” The barns are a big investment but one that both father and son say is essential for the future economic and environmental sustainability of the farm. “I think having barns may well become a cost of compliance for farming in future. We invested in the barns because, with two families to support on this farm, we want to retain milk production, but we also wanted to protect the environment. The soils are heavy clay, which is another driver for building the barns. We used to winter cows off-farm during the dry period: with the new infrastructure we are now able to keep the herd at home.
FARM FACTS:
Owners: Brad and Graham Pickett Location: Kereone Area: 60ha - 58ha milking platform Cows: 240 Jersey cows Effluent irrigation: 40ha Effluent pond: 80 day storage Supplement bought in: Concentrate: hominy, tapioca, canola, palm kernel, also maize Farm dairy: 20-aside herringbone Barns: 2000 sqm
“Our N leaching at around 80 odd kg/ha/ yr was high, and we got it down to around 50 and expect to halve that again thanks to the barns. P loss is also down by 30%.” Careful management of effluent application across 40 ha of the property, and the introduction of the plantain patented variety Ecotain, has helped bring nitrogen (N) numbers down. “Its effects are not yet recognised by Overseer, but it makes the cows urinate more frequently, which means N is excreted in a more dilute form over a bigger area.” Keeping and feeding the cows in the barn from July to August does mean more work for Brad and Graham, the farm’s only staff, but Brad believes the benefits outweigh that. “We try not to create more work and won’t use it all year round, but in the summer it might be useful to give
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
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Milk production: 510 MS/cow, 2110 MS/ha Return on capital: 5.6%
Operating profit margin: 49%
Left: Milking jersey cows is something of a Cost of production: $4.68/kg MS Pickett family tradition and $4.34/kg the breed isMS well Operating expenses: suited to the family’s Pasture harvested:Greenacres 14.7 DM/ha farm at Kereone. Pasture % of feed: 68%
Operating profit: $9,159/ha
Labour efficiency cows/FTE: 169 Left below: Kennedy
Pickett (5) has chosen Environment Score: 7.3/15
HR Score: 9.8/15 a calf for school calf
club from her parent’s pedigree herd.
the cows some shade as, because of our centre pivot irrigation, there’s no trees. In autumn we will feed the cows in there too and adopt an on/off grazing type system, where the herd will spend time off the pastures during autumn months.” Building the barns may be ahead of the game but innovation is something of a Pickett tradition. Graham installed one of the first irrigation systems in the district around 20 years ago, and it’s still in use. “There were few irrigation companies in New Zealand back then, and Dad had to import most of the parts.” Fed by an onfarm bore, the pivot irrigator machinery needs regular maintenance because of its age, but has more than paid for itself by making the farm summer-safe. It has also been adapted to carry a second line of effluent irrigators, with buffers to ensure they don’t spread effluent into or near drains. Greenacres has been in Brad’s family since his grandfather, Stan Pickett, bought the land in the late 1940s. “Previous to that my great grandfather
Left top: Kennedy (5) and Stevie (2) are the fifth generation of the Pickett family to farm on the land near Kereone. Left: Graham Pickett has this model of a walkthrough dairy similar to the one his father used on Greenacres farm in the 1950s.
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Frank A Pickett grazed heifers here.” Almost totally flat, the farm, which has 58ha of effective land, is in the Kereone district close to Morrinsville. The site of the walk-through shed from the 1950s can still be seen on the property, but today Brad milks the herd of 240 Jersey cows through a 20-a-side dairy. Calving in 2020 started on July 15, but with the cows housed in the barn that will allow calving to be slowly brought forward. With good grass growth thanks to summer irrigation, Brad keeps milking until May 31. While the irrigation helps grass growth it also fosters unwanted paspalum. “We are not quite Northland in terms of paspalum growth, but it loves our soils and the irrigation.” Getting rid of the weed is a constant battle, which is being won gradually by spraying out and planting an annual pasture to break the paspalum cycle. Pasture renewal includes replanting with tetraploids, and Brad says with high palatability it’s easier to get residuals. “We are also promoting clover growth with the application of sulphur. Using tight, fast grazing rounds in summer is helping control paspalum, which is now found on probably only 15% of the farm.” While no crops are grown on the home farm, maize is grown on a support block, helping to keep the cost of feed down. Maize was used this winter for the dry period as part of the total mixed ration diet. Concentrate in the form of hominy, tapioca, canola, palm kernel (all
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
non-GMO as a Tatua requirement) is also brought in. Like the land, Jerseys have been part of the Pickett family tradition too. “I’m not so keen on crossbreeds but I like the look of all pure-bred cows. It’s great to see a paddock of Ayrshires, Holstein Friesians or Jerseys, which go back to the roots of dairying. “However, Jerseys suit our heavier soils better than most other breeds. They can easily produce 100% of their liveweight with not too much pushing, and have a good temperament. Over the past four years we have extensively used overseas genetics, focusing on larger-framed animals, welding on udders and good components while maintaining strength, and we are extremely happy with the results we are seeing.” Since Brad returned with wife Rebecca to live and work on the farm seven seasons ago, he has started a register of their cows, working towards pedigree status. Joining his family on the farm was not a foregone conclusion for Brad, who completed a civil engineering diploma by correspondence while working off the farm for eight years. Rebecca also has a farming background and worked for LIC until the couple’s children, five-year-old Kennedy and twoyear-old Stevie, were born. Now protecting the future of the land, the farming operation and the incomes of
Right: Father and son Brad and Graham Pickett are a successful farming partnership. Below: Graham Pickett imported many of the parts for this irrigation system he installed on his Greenacres farm 20 years ago.
both Pickett families is Brad’s goal. It was among the reasons for entering the DBOY awards. “We have filled in the forms and got the report three times and this is the second time we have entered the awards. “I’d recommend getting the report and entering as it’s a lot more detailed than DairyBase and drills right down into your data, so you can not only compare yourself with others but also compare your own performance year on year and season to season. “The biggest thing we got out of it was to see exactly where costs were going and areas to try to tighten up where we can. Our costs are not as high as others so maybe we are doing ok, but there’s always room for improvement.”
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
DBOY 2019/20
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Milk production: 510kg MS/cow, 2110kg MS/ha Return on capital: 5.6%
Operating profit margin: 49% Operating profit: $9159/ha
Cost of production: $4.68/kg MS
Operating expenses: $4.34/kg MS Pasture harvested: 14.7t DM/ha Pasture % of feed: 68%
Labour efficiency cows/FTE: 169 Environment Score: 7.3/15 HR Score: 9.8/15
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BUSINESS JOB OPPORTUNITIES
Competing for talent Words by: Anne Hardie
I
f the dairy industry wants to compete with other industries for the best talent, it needs to be competitive with rosters and working conditions. Cameron Walker is Pamu Farms’ dairy business manager on the West Coast, overseeing 10 dairy farms, three dairy support units and two machinery syndicates that employ up to 65 permanent and 20 seasonal employees. Throughout the year, staff average five days on, two days off and never work more than six days on before getting two days off. The rosters are flexible to cover the busiest periods through the year, while still meeting that average. “I honestly think it’s been really good from a health and safety point of view and managing fatigue, but also for attracting staff. “
‘I think it’s a big ask for someone to work 11 days in a row on a salary-based contract and from a health and safety point of view, that’s challenging.’
He says staff turnover has decreased since the new roster was introduced and the business is attracting more people. “I think it’s a big ask for someone to work 11 days in a row on a salary-based contract and from a health and safety 28
Cameron Walker on soil scooped out of the hollows to spread on the humped ridges.
point of view, that’s challenging.” The traditional sharemilking pathway to farm ownership has changed a fair bit over the years, he says. Fewer people entering the industry now view that goal as achievable. Many of those entering the dairy industry now are seeking farm management as their goal, as opposed to ownership. For dairying to compete with any other industry to attract the best talent, he says it has to offer similar working conditions, attractive salaries and a good lifestyle. He admits he was not keen on the fiveday roster when it was first mooted. Born and bred in the dairy industry, he went on to sharemilk for 15 years and then an equity partnership. Being selfemployed, there were no set rules around time off. Instead, it was a case of “the more you put in, the more you get out”.
“So the five-on and two-off was completely foreign to me. It still seems like you get a holiday every week. “I was lucky I sharemilked when I did. But the opportunities are less than they were. The pathways to farm ownership are still there, but they are getting harder. Ask an 18-year-old to come and work 11-on and three-off for the next 20 years without the carrot of farm ownership.” The average age of dairy farmers in New Zealand is getting older and Cameron says it is more important than ever to attract young talent. Rosters are just part of the solution and he says the industry needs to work out clear career pathways for the talent it wants to attract. He says there is still a lot to be done in this area. “We want the dairy industry to be the best industry in New Zealand and to do that we need the best people.”
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
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BETTER COWS | BETTER LIFE 29
BUSINESS DIVERSIFICATION
A station for life
The owners of Mt Somers Station have long family links to the property and plan for those links to remain in perpetuity. Anne Lee reports.
I
t might have been less than a tenth of Mt Somers Station’s total area but converting to dairying in 2013 was the key factor in enabling succession on the historic Canterbury property. The 3800-hectare station, in the foothills of the Southern Alps, is now a highly diverse operation with its owners and custodians, David and Kate Acland, farming it with a deeply rooted sense of responsibility to those who have gone before and those who will come after. If they feel weighed down by that responsibility, they don’t show it. The couple instead share an air of excitement, eager to take on new challenges, learn and grow. They’re prepared to take risks, but calculated ones and ones that don’t put the core asset - their land - at risk. The station was settled by David’s great, great grandfather more than 160 years ago but then sold. 30
In 1983 David’s parents Mark and Jo bought it back. They too saw the benefits of diversifying their income and were prepared to adventurously try new ventures - championing live deer recovery and farm tourism. David has two younger brothers and while there was a succession plan in place, the deaths of first his Mum and then his Dad seven years later in 2014, and the fact his brothers had other careers meant the succession plan had to be fast tracked. “The dairy farm has already been part of the plan because it gave us a parcel of land that could create dividends for all members of the family,” David says. He and Kate have now bought out his brothers and wholly own the station. “We didn’t really see it as an option not to have a go at purchasing the whole station even though it was financially quite a stretch,” Kate says. She holds a masters degree in farm
management consultancy from Lincoln University as well as a degree in viticulture and oenology. At just 26 and before she’d met David, she bought a 7ha vineyard and packhouse in Marlborough and developed a small winery in time for the 2008 harvest. But it was there that Kate learned the art of survival and “pivoting “– a phrase that’s become all too common for many this year amid Covid-19. She’d just started her Sugar Loaf label when the global financial crisis hit and grape land prices plummeted. “I was young, I was really naïve and I had to change direction really quickly if I was going to survive in business. “I threw the business plan out the window and identified a market where there was a shortage of winemaking space for small producers. “So changed direction a bit and did contract winemaking where people
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Left: “Profit not production is the aim”: the dryland dairy farm unit adds value to the station and produces beef dairy cross calves for the sheep and beef unit. Right: David and Kate Acland from Mt Somers station: the dairy farm was established to add value to the land and provide another diversified income stream.
contracted us to take their grapes and make wine for them under their labels. “That became a major strength of the business in addition to making our own wines. “We focused on providing an excellent service so they felt like they were a big fish in our small winery rather than what had been the more typical situation for them with larger wineries. “It worked and it allowed us to retain the business and then grow,” Kate says.
‘As with any diversification the numbers have to stack up first and with the dairy farm, even though it required capital the numbers worked and the bank would lend on it. It added value.’ In 2008 she was processing 200 tonnes of grapes and by 2012 that had grown to 1000t producing one million bottles. The winery and the Sugar Loaf label along with its sister label Orchard Lane remain part of the wider business and is one of many strings to the Mt Somers bow. It’s continued to grow and its wines are now exported to 17 different markets internationally. Kate and David have put their minds to pivoting too on the station and constantly have an open mind to new opportunities. The dairy farm for instance, itself a diversification from the station’s core sheep, beef and deer is now offering further income streams. “As with any diversification the numbers have to stack up first and with the dairy farm, even though it required capital the numbers worked and the bank would lend
100-YEAR VISION
Diversification is embedded in Mt Somers Station’s business vision - to be a highly diversified, values-led, multi-generational, agri-food business that our families and staff are proud to be part of. It’s centred around three pillars of success – place, people and profit. Place
Our land is fundamental and central to our vision. We value the health and integrity of our land and native habitats and take a 100-year view on all decisions. People
We aim to have a safe and secure environment for our people, foster their development and recognise our farm is their home. We value our community and remember the achievements of those who came before us as we plan for the future. Profit
We recognise that in order to farm sustainably we must farm profitably. We set high expectations and remain agile, flexible and open to change.
on it. It added value,” Kate says. “Its core business is to produce milk for Synlait and we’re not going to risk that with anything else we do but there is more we can do with it without risking that core. “It gives us a ready resource in the calves. “They’re not just a by-product. We’ve got the opportunity here to add value again – to both the dairy farm and the rest of the business,” David says. The 350ha dairy platform, on the river terrace land, peak milks 850 cows to produce about 425kg milksolids (MS) per cow. Profit not production is the aim
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
with supplement use on the non-irrigated farm kept to about 400kg barley grown on the station and silage from the milking platform. Through the first six weeks of mating, Hereford semen is used over any lower BW cows or cows cycling that they don’t want to keep replacements from. Once the artificial insemination (AI) period is over, station-bred Hereford bulls are used to follow up. The station has a 220-cow Hereford herd and the best 150 dairy cross bull calves are kept for finishing while the best dairy cross 31
DAIRY DIVERSIFICATION AT MT SOMERS STATION VIDEO
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km-83gw3Al0
heifers are run with the beef heifers. A total of 200 heifers are finished and all of the other beef cross calves are sold as yearlings. All calves move off the dairy platform once out of the rearing sheds to be grazed on the station. The couple employ a dairy farm manager, Brent Tutty along with three dairy staff. Twenty people are employed across the wider business, including the winery. David says being exposed to the vagaries of the weather on the dairy farm means feed supply can be a lot less certain than it is for those further down on the plains with irrigation. “Pasture walks are a constant here – monitor, monitor, monitor. We’re always looking ahead, asking questions and forecasting so we can plan for periods when it gets dry.” He uses crops rather than relying on feeding out and says he’s always looking at new ways of improving feed supply. They graze lucerne successfully and have also found success with Raphno rape. It’s a hybrid between kale and radish developed by PGG Wrightson Seeds under the Forage and Innovations joint venture
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with Plant and Food Research. Sown in October, it can be grazed by Christmas, giving a boost in drymatter when pasture can often come under pressure from the dry. It saves on running the tractor feeding out and the time pressure that puts on staff at a time when people are trying to take time off. It provides multiple grazings with the last grazing in May and is undersown with grass in the autumn. A total of 60ha has been sown with heifers also grazing it on the station. David says they had used turnips for a summer crop and fodder beet in autumn but they’d moved away from both this season with the success of the Raphno. “We’re in a high wind zone here and we can struggle to get good yields with fodder beet.” David says there’s a precision and science he enjoys in dairying. “It’s very numeric, more science than art and there’s a lot of work that goes into controlling the variables.”
The couple looked at further processing a portion of the milk from the dairy farm but couldn’t readily make the costs and time involved in the red tape and meeting food regulations stack up. That’s even though they have ready outlets in the two local stores they’ve bought and rejuvenated. The Mt Somers and Staveley Café and general stores are destinations in themselves, retaining the yesteryear look and feel. Kate says they feel strongly that having a local store is key to helping retain thriving rural communities. The Staveley Store was established in 1876 and both stores stock the farm’s produce including venison, lamb and beef as well as their popular honey, heritage lambswool blankets and Sugar Loaf wines. The station has 800ha of retired scrub and beech forest at the base of Mt Somers and three years ago David and Kate saw the opportunity to switch from simply allowing access for beekeepers supplying
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
The Aclands bought the Mt Somers General Store to provide a community hub and an outlet for their products wine, honey, blankets and meat from their station.
a local honey company, and earning royalties from that, to employing a fulltime beekeeper themselves and branding their own honey. They now have 450 hives and sell 6-7 tonnes of mono-floral manuka honey with a unique manuka factor (UMF) of 7-9 in bulk by contract. They sell another 4-6t of multi-floral, clover and beechwood honey dew under their own label. “Again, it was diversification without
risking the core. It makes the most of an existing resource without any negative impacts on the environment,” Kate says. The lambswool blankets too, make the most out of the existing resource – something the wool industry has been struggling to do. “They’re totally made here in New Zealand, processed, spun and woven and we’re very proud of them,” she says. One of the key aspects of successful diversification is to make sure they’re
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
things you enjoy. “The café, the winery, the honey, the blankets – they all stand up financially but fundamentally they interest us and we enjoy them,” she says. “Since we took over the farm in 2012 diversification has been a deliberate strategy. “We’ve spread our income stream so we’re not at the mercy of any single industry. Now 83% of our income comes from four sources.”
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SYSTEMS MATING STRATEGIES
C
Cycling to fewer bobbies Equity partners Catherine Tither and Sally Harper are boosting milk production and reducing the number of bobby calves on their Rai Valley operation. Anne Hardie reports. Photos by Anne Hardie. 34
atherine Tither was already milking 161 cows before the tanker drove up the track for the first milk pick up of the season and by August 23, 75% of the 665-cow herd had calved. Into that hectic start the team ended up rearing the dairy-beef calves on the farm as well which meant a total of 490 calves on the milking platform. On the Rai Valley farm about an hour east of Nelson, Catherine and her partner Sally Harper are part of an equity partnership that bought the property eight years ago. The farm ranges over 313 hectares that sweeps up from a 240ha milking platform to the steeper surrounding hillsides that have been planted in forestry over the years. Taking a snapshot of their background, Catherine was a farm adviser through the 1980s and had a stint on the Irish Farmers’ Journal before spending 24 years on the family dairy farm near Whakatane. Sally had retrained after nursing and was working in human resources by that stage, plus helping out on the farm for a couple of years. When the family farm was sold, they headed to the Rai Valley, teaming up with two other couples who Catherine says brought not only capital to the business, but a range of complementary skills. Together they set a goal of hitting 255,000kg milksolids (MS) in five years, but surpassed that in their first season. Now their production is close to 300,000kg MS and this year just 87 calves went on the bobby truck. One of Catherine’s pet hates is seeing perfectly good calves go on the bobby truck and to avoid that, they have teamed up with a beef breeder in the North Island to produce the type of calves he wants to finish. They are all born in a tight time frame, thanks to the Why Wait programme which condenses calving. They began using Why Wait four years ago after inductions were banned and their vet suggested using the programme. It brings the later-cycling cows forward and hence more days in milk, plus better early submission rates the following spring. Pre-mating heats this year indicated a submission rate of 93%. The programme requires a single
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
FARM FACTS:
Equity partners: Catherine Tither and Sally Harper (in partnership with two other couples) Location: Rai Valley, Top of the South Area: 313ha including forestry Milking platform: 240ha Herd: 665 cows Calves reared: 490 including 275 beef calves Calf contract: $450 90kg Friesian bulls and $500 90kg beef-cross, plus $2/kg extra weight Mating: Why Wait programme, synchronised heifers, heat seekers.
Far left: Catherine Tither on pasture converted from forestry. Left: Heading in for afternoon milking.
‘What I love about it is that you’re dealing with cows that are already cycling and the conception rate is high. In the past we used cidr’s which are expensive, the in-calf rates are dismal and you have to wait five weeks before you can pregnancy test to find out whether they are in calf or not.’
Cyclase (PG) injection to bring cycling cows forward a week which condenses the submission rate. Cows cycling during the week before the planned start of mating that are usually mated in the third week of mating are injected with Cyclase so they cycle during the first two weeks of mating. “What I love about it is that you’re dealing with cows that are already cycling and the conception rate is high,” Catherine says. “In the past we used cidr’s which are expensive, the in-calf rates are dismal and you have to wait five weeks before you can
pregnancy test to find out whether they are in calf or not.” Last season, they used Why Wait to bring 152 cows from week two to week one for mating and 190 cows from week three to week two, with the start date for calving planned for July 23. Heifers are synchronised each year which adds to the frantic start of the season. All done with the aim of maximising days in milk for the entire herd and giving ample time for the cows to recover from calving for mating. It did mean they had 161 cows calved
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
before the first milk pick up by Fonterra on August 1 and consequently 17,000 litres of milk stored for feeding calves. Catherine reckons it might be time for Fonterra to rethink its pick-up dates anyway to accommodate the effect of climate change and summer drought. She says they looked at putting the start date of mating back, but didn’t because they would have lost their sexed semen allocation with LIC. The synchronised rising two-year heifers get sexed semen to produce replacements from their highest genetic animals. Producing more heifer calves from the first calvers means they can mate the bottom 20% of the herd’s BW cows to beef sires. The first five weeks of artificial insemination (AI) focuses on replacements and then beef AI follows, using Angus semen supplied by the beef breeder who has the contract for the beef-cross calves. Due to mycoplasma and staff preference, they stopped using bulls for natural mating and now AI for 11 weeks. 35
Above: This year 490 calves were raised and just 87 went as bobbies. Far left: A calf-rearing job led to a full-time contract for Zeudi Pearse. Left: The two-year-old herd wasn’t eating the plantain in this recently converted forestry paddock.
Semen from nominated short-gestation bulls is selected for the beef calf contract and while last year they used Hereford genetics, this year they are using Angus because the calves are considerably smaller at birthweight – 34kg average as opposed to the Hereford’s 46kg.
HEAT SEEKERS Because accurate heat detection is critical for achieving good mating results, heat seekers are used throughout mating and an extra person is put in the dairy at milking for the first five weeks. Their job is to identify and draft bulling cows, touch up tail paint and replace missing heat seekers. Catherine says having competent, diligent people implementing the mating programme is paramount to achieving the results. The farm has five full-time staff, plus Catherine, so through mating they have two in the dairy during the morning milking, another bringing the second herd 36
in for milking and another doing all the tasks associated with mating. “It’s definitely a staff cost, but it’s so critical to get every heat,” she says. Last year her staff took charge of AI, doing a “fantastic job” that achieved 73% in calf at six weeks and less than 10% not-in-calf. The team includes two full-time Filipino staff, Glenn Lovitos and Don Rondina, who are both on three-year working visas. Glenn joined the team seven years ago when the farm struggled to find staff for the shared accommodation. Both came from dairying backgrounds – one in Saudi Arabia and the other Japan – while Don’s partner, Janice Allado, who also had experience in Japan, has joined the team. Another staff member, Brett Murphy, was a neighbour back in Whakatane and has worked with Catherine and Sally off and on for years – in between fishing. The latest addition to the staff is 16-year-
old school leaver, Zeudi Pearse, who was employed this season to help with calf rearing. She did such a good job that her position morphed into a full-time contract and apprenticeship. Catherine says it is heartening to know there are young Kiwis who are passionate, engaged and love dairy farming.
CALF REARING Meanwhile, 490 calves including 215 replacements, 180 Friesian bulls and 95 beef calves have been raised on the milking platform this year with two women employed for the job. The calves take out 13ha, or 6% of milking platform and Catherine says they would prefer to have a rearer doing the job somewhere else so they could concentrate on their core business and put as much grass as possible into the milking cows, but they couldn’t get a calf rearer. “This year we were lucky because it was
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
dry weather and the calves do well in dry weather. But it’s a lot of work at a time of year when you have so much to do.” Their calf contract is based on $450 for a 90kg Friesian weaned calf and $500 for a 90kg beef-cross calf, plus $2/kg for any extra weight, based on truck weight. That way, the farm keeps feeding the calves until there is a truckload ready. “It’s practical because the buyer isn’t coming in weekly to pick up 90kg calves and it’s fair for us because we keep growing the calves and get paid for the feed going into them.” She thinks the dairy industry needs to put more effort into building partnerships with the beef industry so fewer calves go as bobbies. “The partnership between the dairy and beef industries has been the calf industry and dry stock grazing. Calf rearer numbers are well down this year as many rearers were unable to sell their Friesian bull calves due to mycoplasma and then the nationwide drought. Apparently the bobby calf kill was up this year and milk powder
sales are down which means the calves haven’t been reared. It will be interesting to see how this reduction in supply will impact on Friesian bull weaner prices.”
FORESTRY Moving on from calving, the heifers and lighter cows are separated from the rest of the herd from September 18 and go on to once-a-day milking while grazing the furthest paddocks which are a 3.5km hike from the dairy. Some of those paddocks are on the lower hill country rising out of the valley and have been recently converted from forestry. Since they have been on the farm, 23ha has been harvested and Catherine says it was their saviour through the low milk payout years, netting up to $50,000/ ha. Steeper slopes have been replanted in pine, while 15.6ha on the lower slopes have been put into pasture. They budgeted on $8000/ha to put it into quality pasture, but the end result after adding up the cost of
Above: A team effort.
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A pink eartag on 10% of the herd are those used for monitoring cow condition scoring.
Catherine Tither and Brett Murphy discuss the plantain that was originally planted with rape on the converted forestry land.
stumping, fertiliser, seed, fencing, culverts and drainage was more like $11,000/ha. “It costs a lot of money to put forestry land back into pasture, so I hope the Government has done it’s research around planting New Zealand in pine!” Soil fertility after the trees were harvested was dire with Olsen P levels averaging 2.5 and pH 4.8. They have since climbed to 32 and 6.1 respectively. Last spring they planted rape and plantain, with oats drilled into it in autumn as well as Winter Star ryegrass. To date the forestry conversion has provided summer and winter feed of variable yields but now that it’s going back into pasture, it has increased the milking platform which helps production and reduces supplementary feed costs. Whole-farm soil testing every second year and investing in soil fertility has helped them improve pasture production steadily since they took over the farm. 38
CONSTRUCTIVE EQUITY PARTNERSHIP Catherine says improvements are due to being part of a constructive equity partnership which has been more successful than if they had farmed by themselves because of the complementary skills within the partnership. Between phone conversations, farm meetings and monthly reports which also go to the bank manager and accountant, they require good business discipline and she says that is a valuable aspect of being part of the equity partnership. They’ve also got the right mix of people. “The approach we use is very analytical and the numbers drive our decision making. I think the reason our partnership works really well is we’ve got common aims and philosophies. We’re all prepared to spend dollars to make dollars.” Production would have reached 300,000kg MS last season, but when their winter grazing fell through they dried
all the cows off early to have enough to feed some through winter. By May 7, the entire herd was dried off, only to find replacement winter grazing for two thirds of the herd with two different graziers in Canterbury on May 20. “We made sure we had the feed and cow condition to winter them at maintenance if we had to. So winter grazing has cost us a fortune.” Her one ongoing grumble about the dairy industry is the lack of accountability in delivering expected winter grazing feeding levels - whether verbal or in a contract. She says dairy farmers are often so relieved to get winter grazing that they accept what they get. Yet feeding through winter and cow condition at calving has a huge impact on milk production and mating performance. “Winter grazing in Marlborough normally costs $24-$28/week, but then you get the cows back and they haven’t been fed what you thought they would be fed. I’ve learnt the hard way so now I get our vet to come in and condition score within a week of going to grazing and if I’m concerned, he goes and condition scores them at grazing or when they come home. Based on condition score and mean calving date, you know how much they’ve been fed.” Of the two mobs grazed off the farm, one mob put on weight and the other lost weight. She says there needs to be
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
industry-led solutions for putting checks in place so farmers know what their cows are fed by graziers. Winter grazing is expensive in terms of grazing fees and even more so when cows lose weight. She says stock agents get paid for monitoring the grazing and there needs to be more focus on training to improve condition scoring and assessing feed intakes. “As dairy farmers, we’re made to feel like we’re the culprits. If you buy a dozen Speights beer and you get home and five are half empty, you’d be a bit brassed off.” Her goal for the cows going into calving is a condition score of 5.5 and that enables them to “milk like rockets”. Because she has had problems with winter grazing, she is trying to be proactive for next winter and contract a grazier to grow a winter crop for the herd, then have an agent oversee the grazing through winter.
FEED FOR RISK MANAGEMENT Through the season, she uses a mix of distillers dried grains (DDG) and palm kernel to maintain condition and production through cold, wet spells or dry periods. The feed is given to the cows in the in-shed feeder which they installed when the partnership bought the farm. The feeder needs at least 10% of a feed like DDG in the mix for the palm kernel to flow, hence the mix. The cows get half a kilogram of palm kernel a day to get them flowing into the shed well and it can be upped if needed through the season. Last year they bought 119 tonnes of the palm kernel/DDG combo, 27t of palm kernel and 380t of a mix that was 85% palm kernel and 15% soyabean hull. When the farm was short of feed in spring the cows were fed 6kg a day of a mix of palm kernel and the DDG combo. This season Catherine bought in two loads of a mix that was 60% palm kernel and 40% DDG and didn’t need the second load to have such a high DDG component because there was ample grass through spring. Having that second load on hand is part of risk management, she says. “I think palm kernel is a perfect feed. You want to maintain pasture quality by having a short rotation length, but then you have a cold snap, growth drops and you can put palm kernel in for maybe only five to six days to hold rotation and fully feed the cows. Last year it certainly saved our bacon.”
Another factor lifting production has been improving the existing irrigation system that covered 60% of the farm and installing more to take it to 77%. The extra K-line installed further up the farm cost $6,000/ha to establish which is expensive for K-line, but has proven invaluable for growing grass that also recovers better in drought. Depending on the season, irrigation is turned on some time between early November and late March on an eight-day rotation. It does take six hours a day to move all the K-line, but Catherine says it is totally worth it. After taking a season off and employing a manager, Catherine returned to the farm last year. These days Sally works four days a week for the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board in human resources. It means the couple spend their time between the farm and the house they bought in Nelson with the plan of stepping back from the physical demands of the farm. Though this season that hasn’t happened for Catherine and it has been busier than ever.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Above: Glenn Lovitos teaching apprentice Zeudi Pearse. Below: Mates.
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SYSTEMS WINTER FEED
Cutting the sediment flow Humping and hollowing or flipping soils help West Coast farmers cope with the region’s high rainfall. However, sediment loss is an issue state-owned Pamu’s farms are also dealing with. Anne Hardie reports.
P
amu’s dairy farms near Lake Brunner on the West Coast are drenched with a staggering four metres of rain a year, so you would think winter crops and pugging would be a monumental challenge. Yet their humped and hollowed paddocks have come out of winter relatively unscathed. Great from an animal welfare perspective, but there’s still work to be done, especially around sediment loss and that’s why it’s included in the stateowned enterprise’s goal to reduce intensive winter grazing significantly over the next three years. Like other Pamu farms, the West Coast dairy business intends to lead by example to meet the National 40
Environmental Standards for Freshwater Regulations. Cameron Walker is the dairy business manager for the 10 dairy farms between Lake Brunner, Reefton and Cape Foulwind, as well as three dairy support units that together graze 9000 dairy cows, 4300 young stock and 500 bulls. Apart from just under 1000 cows grazed locally through winter and 800 young stock grazed in Canterbury, stock have been wintered on its West Coast properties. Reducing winter cropping means the farms will now need more external winter grazing for more animals, whether that’s on Pamu’s livestock farms, private graziers or lease land. There’s also a range of system change
options being considered. A couple of years ago the West Coast dairy business had 10% of its 13 farms planted in crops for winter grazing with a total of 583 hectares, so it was already exceeding best practice standards for the new environmental guidelines. Last winter it dropped back to 9% and this next winter it will be reduced to 7.7% or 440.8ha, with continuing reductions bringing it down to 5% by 2023. That will be a 55% reduction of intensively grazed winter crops. In Canterbury Pamu plans to reduce those crops by 60% and in Otago, 35%. On the West Coast, part of the reduction will be achieved by removing winter crop completely from two dairy units which
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Far left: Heading in for the afternoon milking on one of Pamu’s farms near Lake Brunner. Left: A digger working on humped and hollowed land to bring soil back onto the humps. Above: A paddock that was a crop of swede through winter and now disced.
have conditions that make it difficult to fully comply with the new regulations. The business has of course got the scale to adapt and the main reason its West Coast farms were able to drop quickly from 10% to 7.7% that first year was by incorporating the third dairy support block of 140ha into the business. While Cameron has the advantage of scale that comes with corporate dairying, he has a background of working his way up through the dairy industry to sharemilking and equity partnerships, so he recognises the task ahead for the industry. “It’s a massive challenge for everyone, whether they’re corporate or private,” he says. “What looks good in models is often a lot more challenging in reality. Every season is different and farming is getting more and more variable.” Modelling is already underway for the West Coast dairy enterprise. An advisory group that includes external consultants, DairyNZ and local farmers who will help assess the effects of various scenarios on the large-scale business. The first of those scenarios is all-grass wintering on the dairy farms and though Cameron says it
is definitely possible, that scenario would be financially challenging. It would mean reducing the stocking rate on the selfcontained farms below the current 2.1 cows/ha, with weather and payout affecting the outcome.
‘It’s a massive challenge for everyone, whether they’re corporate or private. What looks good in models is often a lot more challenging in reality. Every season is different and farming is getting more and more variable.’ “There’s a lot of moving parts involved and initial modelling shows it could impact our financial performance by as much as 30-50%.” The second scenario looks at all-grass
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
wintering on just the support blocks and Cameron says that looks more doable financially, but it’s still early days in the modelling. Thirdly, the business could look at all-grass wintering externally, though costs make that challenging. Last year 915 cows were wintered externally on either swedes or in a pasture system using balage to top up the diet. This year Pamu’s preference would be for all-grass winter grazing for any animals wintering externally, though Cameron concedes this may be difficult to source on the West Coast. The fourth scenario involves capital investment such as herd homes, where crops would be grown for cut and carry to the cows rather than stock grazing the paddocks. That too, has obvious financial implications. Working with Pamu’s livestock farms on the coast, which are mostly deer, could produce opportunities with mutual benefits, whether it’s buying supplements from the livestock farms, all-grass wintering on them or potentially grazing young stock. That would potentially enable the dairy units to graze the cows through 41
Apps assist with grazing The Pamu smartphone apps are additional tools for making better decisions about intensive winter grazing. The apps were designed by Pamu’s geospatial and soil specialists with the goal of being easy to use and interactive, delivering feedback on different options for intensive winter grazing decisions. The results sit on a cloud platform to create a record of where and what mitigating actions are employed, which can then be integrated with other farm information to increase knowledge and understanding of the land. Using mapping technology, farm staff can record the management options they would need to put in place to mitigate risks around drainage features, waterways, soil types, slope and animal welfare considerations to select the most appropriate areas within their farms for forage crops. The real value in the apps is the ability to input data while in the field, in real time. A second winter grazing app involves deeper analysis at the time of grazing the crop, providing photo verification of mitigation actions, plus advisory comments on land management. It also places emphasis on animal health and welfare needs at the time of grazing the crop.
winter on grass. One of the livestock properties, Burkes Creek, has sold silage in the past, so there is the opportunity to sell less silage and winter more dairy cows. In the meantime, it’s about getting the best from the cropping area that remains and focusing on how they can reduce sediment runoff into waterways. In the past, the business has grown fodder beet and kale for winter grazing, but now it’s mostly swedes which Cameron says works best for both animal health issues and yield. The cows hold their condition better on swedes and they have found it is the best crop for utilisation. In the past three years tonnages have improved markedly as well and now average 14-16t/ha which he puts down largely to picking the right windows for planting. That compares well against grass which totals between eight and 10t annually. A small amount of rape and kale is also grown on the dairy support units because it is more palatable for the young stock. At Cape Foulwind, raphno has been planted the past couple of years to combat the summer dry and then regrow for winter grazing. The beauty of that crop, Cameron says, is that they have one crop for the summer and winter and that reduces the total crop area. So far, raphno has been working well for those farms. The aim this coming winter throughout the West Coast dairy business is to have 70 days winter grazing on the dairy farms that includes 10kg/cow/day of crop, plus 2kg of silage and 2kg of straw. Paddock selection and crop
establishment will be critical in minimising the environmental impacts, using minimum tillage practices where possible to reduce soil disturbance, limit sediment runoff and hold soil structure to reduce damage during winter grazing. Technology will play an increasingly important role, including two Pamu winter grazing apps which has been developed to help farm managers choose paddocks, crop species and grazing plans. “I think it will give us assurance we are following best practice because there is no room for error now. You need the checks and balances.” GPS is even more important now, with contractors using the technology for both drilling and spraying crops. Maps show the contractors the hollows or wet areas in a paddock that need to be avoided. Slope profile maps are now part of the paddocks’ assessment for winter cropping and Cameron is hoping the new regulations’ 10-degree slope rule will be calculated on the average fall of the paddock area. Otherwise it will be impossible on humped and hollowed land. Some steeper areas have been identified as unsuitable for grazing because of the 10-degree slope rule. Paddock selection has been under more scrutiny than ever with regard to planting winter crops, avoiding any wet areas that could lead to pugging and sediment runoff. Critical source areas are fenced off during grazing. During wet weather, paddock selection ensures the cows are in the driest paddocks or on nearby grass paddocks. Cameron says it’s critical to
Soil from the hollows is spread along the humped ridges following a winter crop. 42
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Winter crop is only planted on the humped areas.
“It’s a challenge for us to accept,” he says of the new rules. “It’s here, so we have to embrace it and work with what we’ve got to get the best outcome we can get. That’s farming.” have a strategy in place before winter and understand each paddock. Following a winter crop, any paddock that is not planted in grass within 30 days has to be planted in a catch crop under the new regulations. Cameron says they will most likely plant oats because of its ability to grow in lower temperatures. That is aimed at reducing sediment being washed off exposed paddocks into waterways. Oats have been trialled during the past two seasons with varying levels of success, depending on weather conditions. On the plus side, oats can be grazed or cut for silage before being put back into grass. Near Lake Brunner – where the dairy farms fortunately all flow away from the lake – some 3000ha of humped and hollowed alluvial soils are dramatically different from the flipped sandy coastal country of Cape Foulwind which gets by comparison with a paltry 2.5m of rain a year. There’s little solid topsoil to make mud and both forms of development cope
with high rainfall well. Drought hurts a lot more. “All the ground is good from an animal welfare point of view, but sediment runoff is something we need to be focused on with critical source areas.” On the humped and hollowed land, winter crop is only planted on the humped areas which provide a firm stony soil for stock to graze and lie down. Soil tends to slump from the humped areas to the hollows over time, so each year a digger goes through after the winter crop to clean out the hollows and recontour those areas. While sediment runoff is an issue, nitrogen use is already under the N cap of 190 units in the new regulations, averaging 173 units N/ha Pamu on its West Coast dairy farms. When it comes to animal welfare, which is one of the reasons for the new regulations, Cameron would prefer to see intensive winter grazing managed well rather than remove crops completely at this stage.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
“Having 15t/ha of winter crop is comforting going into winter; knowing you have a bank of feed is good from the animal welfare point of view,” he says. “We haven’t had two seasons remotely similar in the four seasons I’ve been here and that’s where cropping works well – you have a bank of feed sitting there. It’s quite robust. Replacing it with something that gives you the security of winter feed is the challenge. “We came into this season with supplementary feed around New Zealand in short supply. There was feed being trucked from Canterbury all over the country. If there’s increased reliance on supplementary feed, we need to ensure the country has enough supply.” In regions such as Canterbury where fodder beet produces up to 30t/ha, replacing it with grass will halve the available feed, he says. It may take six cuts of grass to equal the tonnage provided by crops. “It’s a challenge for us to accept,” he says of the new rules. “It’s here, so we have to embrace it and work with what we’ve got to get the best outcome we can get. That’s farming.” 43
SPECIAL REPORT
HOT
science SOLVING BIG ISSUES WITH SCIENCE
45 Testing systems for change 48 How much mud is too much? 49 Native seaweed could reduce GHG emissions 50 Shelter in place: rethinking heifer grazing 54 Fodder beet: Acidosis hazard with lactating cows
SPECIAL REPORT | NORTHLAND RESEARCH
Three vats provide an opportunity to understand milk composition of farmlet trials.
Testing systems for change
The Northland Dairy Development Trust and Northland Agricultural Research Farm is applying science to test management systems in a changing environment. Chris Neill reports.
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he New Zealand dairy industry is well served with information from the basic principles to new technology, helping farmers deal with almost every matter in their farming operation. Much of that information is based on disciplined research with scientific rigour to encourage confidence in the messages delivered, acknowledging that understanding of data leads to challenges of interpretation. The cost of the science is high, so sharing and implementation of the learning is critical to creating value from the research effort. Because of the cost, research is often carried out at centralised locations, a factor which is then used by some farmers to dismiss the messages as irrelevant to their circumstance. Northland dairy farmers
are fortunate to have Northland Dairy Development Trust (NDDT) and the Northland Agricultural Research Farm (NARF) providing information that is regionally and nationally significant. NDDT directs the science and NARF provides the specialised farm facilities plus cows for trials funded by DairyNZ, MPI and Hine Rangi Trust. A Northland team of dedicated farmers and rural professionals are committed to producing meaningful science and ensuring the ongoing viability of the research farm. The three-year NDDT/NARF project “dairying in a variable climate� is in its final year. Through the first two years climatic extremes of wet and drought have tested the team to maintain protocols and produce uncompromised data. There is a connection between this trial and the
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Kim Robinson, NDDT Coordinator and AGFirst consultant with the newly established mixed species pasture.
previous which allows base data to carry forward and provide greater confidence to recommendations for farmers after the extreme weather conditions experienced to date for this trial. The clear messages coming from the trial are:
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Based on farm input costs, regardless of seasonal conditions the farm milk price needs to be greater than $6/kg milksolids (MS) for input of imported feed to be profitable. Behind this recommendation, it needs to be recognised that NARF is achieving 100g MS/kg drymatter (DM) supplement fed. This is significantly better than the industry average of 70-80g MS/kg DM fed and suggests the average farm could need a 25% higher milk price to be profitable. Analysis shows for each $1 spent on supplement there will be additional costs of 60-70c for labour, machinery, and a collection of other minor costs. This is exclusive of wastage which with some palm kernel feeding systems can lose up to 25% of the feed purchased. Minimising supplement wastage is a key factor in the milk response achieved to supplement fed.
Red and Blue herds separated but together at the shed for milking.
Profitability of supplement feeding is more dependent on maintaining pasture residuals than the price of the supplement. When the need for supplement is identified, a common response is to invest time seeking the best possible purchase price for that feed. Pasture is written off as not able to deliver. However, pasture remains the lowest-cost feed. Optimising its contribution through monitoring residuals ensures the least amount of more
expensive supplementary feed is required as well as providing pasture plants with the best chance of regrowing. Simply – an investment in monitoring pasture residuals gives better return than chasing discounted feed. When sufficient pasture is available, cows are very adaptable to the addition or removal of supplement from their diet so adjusting the amount of supplement fed to maintain pasture residuals will not compromise milk production.
Red, green and blue herds To achieve the system comparisons that deliver these recommendations, NARF operates three independent herds on 28-hectare farmlets within the farm. The farm engages additional staffing, allocates randomised paddock for each herd and collects each herd’s milk in separate vat. Make-up of the three farmlets: Pasture-only farm, (2.7 cows/ha). There is no imported feed so pasture allocation and harvesting of any surplus grass are crucial. When weather conditions totally compromise pasture growth and conserved feed is used or allocated, the options are staged through OAD to drying off to culling. Palm kernel-only farm, (3.1 cows/ha). The only input beyond Pasture Only farm model is imported palm kernel. This is a relatively common system in Northland. There is an absolute focus on optimising pasture utilisation through managing residuals and adding palm kernel only when required. Keeping the milk within FEI limits is another constraint and having milk collected separately provides a clear view
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Adding supplement to cows fully fed on pasture after calving makes negligible improvement to in-calf rate. There was no increase in reproductive performance in the supplemented herds compared to the herd fully fed on pasture, endorsing the well-established recommendation that cow condition at calving is critical for achieving a high incalf rate.
of this factor. Fonterra monitor inputs and outcomes to assist the company in understanding the FEI interactions. Palm kernel-plus Farm, (3.1 cows/ha) imports palm kernel and other supplements to fill pasture deficits when pasture residuals indicate the need for additional feeds. This allows for fully feeding cows at all times and adjusting the rations to avoid FEI issues. Dried distillers grain and imported baleage are the key imports after palm kernel. The farm maintains a staff “worry score” to keep track of the pressure each system puts on staff about feed supply and cow condition. Not surprisingly, through the drought, the palm kernel-plus farm has the lowest “worry score” followed by the palm kernel-only farm – until FEI becomes an issue, and pasture only has the highest average score. In previous favourable seasons the Pasture Only farm has had a lower worry score as there are fewer decisions to make. The inclusion of financial considerations to the worry score may cause the scoring to be different. This trial project will conclude on June 1, 2021.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Climate change future focus Preparations are already underway for the next trial. It will build on the work of the two previous trials to focus on future farming strategies to prepare for coming challenges associated with climate change and understand the economics of these strategies. It will again use three farmlets with the control, Farmlet 1 being the pasture of rye and kikuyu supported with nitrogen application and palm kernel. Farmlet 2 will adapt to warming climate by using different pasture species. A combination of fescue, cocksfoot, chicory, plantain and clover will replace rye and kikuyu – the first year of planting has already been done with outstanding pasture production. This farm will have similar stocking rate and input rules to the Control farmlet. Palm kernel will be added as a supplement when pasture residuals fall below target. As a bonus, the separate vats will allow Fonterra to understand the change to milk composition from these alternative pastures. Farmlet 3 will set out to mitigate the emission outputs by adjusting feeding/management systems to achieve the 2050 emissions targets of 30% reduction in methane emissions and 50% reduction in nitrous oxide. The means for adjusting these emissions will be lower stocking rate, low or no nitrogen application and low or no imported supplement. The current trial has shown the all-grass farm can achieve 10-15% reduction in methane emissions against the palm kernelonly farm with little drop in profit. This will be of some comfort to farmers as this drop is equivalent to the 2030 emissions target.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
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SPECIAL REPORT | SOUTHERN DAIRY HUB
How much mud is too much?
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Words and photos by: Karen Trebilcock
lmost all southern dairy farmers will have to apply for resource consent to winter under the 2020 National Policy Statement (NPS) for Freshwater Management. Speaking at the Southern Dairy Hub’s October 8 field day, Environment Southland principal land sustainability officer Karl Erikson described it not as a ban on wintering but as a requirement for consent. “A lot of the new rules under the NPS, if not all of them, will not be able to be met by farmers in Southland,” he said. Although he would not guarantee farmers would be granted a consent to winter, a “fair look” would be given at the mitigations farmers were putting in place. “We really don’t know how the process is going to work.” Farmers would also have to work under regional councils’ rules, which for Southlanders was Environment Southland’s Water and Land Plan. “Whichever one has the most stringent rule, either the NPS or the regional council plan, that is the one you have to adhere to.” Behind the Environment Southland officer was a winter crop paddock with the crop eaten but still to go green with new grass. In the gateway were deep ruts from tractor tyres. In the past week the paddock had been covered by snow, as had much of Southland, followed by surface flooding days later, which made some tracks on the hub impassable with water over the tops of the fence posts.
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Making the most of a dry day, those at the Southern Dairy Hub’s field day in October were able to walk around most of the farm.
Another paddock still had 30t of fodder beet in it ready to be lifted and stored, but the wet conditions had meant the lifter couldn’t get near it let alone a tractor to spread grass seed. Under the NPS, winter crop paddocks must be back in grass by November 1. At the same time as the field day, more than 100 tractors drove through Gore, an hour away, in protest at the NPS, with farmers declaring they would be united in ignoring the new regulations. Hub general manager Louise Cook said the decision had been made not to use the lower terraces of the farm for winter cropping in the future. “We had 60mm of rain on Sunday, and
when these paddocks flood there is flow over them and we don’t want to lose our soils. “It will mean we will be going round our crop paddocks on the top terraces more than we would like, which will be a problem with compacted soils, but it’s a trade-off which we will have to accept.” Sowing next winter’s crop paddocks would include trial work comparing direct drill only, strip tillage or conventional sowing. “We won’t just be looking at the cost and the tonnage of feed grown, it will also be about how well the cows do eating it, how much mud they make,” she said. “We’re taking the risks so other farmers
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
SPECIAL REPORT | EMISSIONS
don’t have too, to see what works.” As well, MPI is funding an offpaddock wintering facility for the hub to be built this autumn. DairyNZ senior scientist Dawn Dalley said during a trial in the winter, pugging depth (it must be less than 20cm under the NPS) was determined by pushing a plastic ruler into the soil. “When it met resistance, that’s what we decided was the pugging depth. What the government comes up with is anyone’s guess.” The trial, called “How Much Mud is Too Much Mud”, looked at whether cows were achieving the minimum standard of eight hours lying time per day while on winter crop paddocks. Behavioural monitoring equipment (CowManager tags and HOBO accelerometers) were fitted to 30 cows in four mobs on kale and fodder beet for the five-week trial. Although the data, including rainfall, are still to be crunched, DairyNZ animal care team leader Helen Thoday said it was hoped visuals from it of what was good or bad practice would soon be available to farmers. “Without a doubt, animals which have sufficient lying time do better.” In answer to a question of whether public perception was a valid measure, she said apart from dividing media articles into negative or positive, it was difficult to tell what public perception was. “We have asked the question whether it reduces our market access and there is nothing certain there either. “But public perception should only be one measure. It is really how the animal genuinely feels and that can also be hard to tell, which is why we’re doing the trial work.” Farm manager Charlie McGregor was an instant fan of the CowManager tags used during the trial. “We got an alert from the system that one of the cows was sick and it showed it wasn’t ruminating, and we were able to treat it. Otherwise we wouldn’t have known.”
Native seaweed could reduce GHG emissions
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Words by: Richard Bentley
New Zealand native red seaweed, if used in stockfeeds, has the potential to reduce methane emissions from ruminants, and the Cawthron Institute in Nelson is investigating the best ways of producing it in huge quantities. Asparagopsis armata grows abundantly throughout NZ waters, and early studies suggest that as little as 2% of dried algae added to stockfeeds could reduce ruminant methane emissions by up to 80%. This is important to NZ’s efforts to combat climate change, particularly because our livestock methane output has increased about 10% since 1990. The potential for Asparagopsis is significant if only it can be grown on a scale large enough to feed all NZ’s dairy herds. As yet not a lot is known about its culture and growth habits. To lay the foundations for a future industry, scientists need to determine precisely how it reproduces and what conditions
Samples of the red seaweed in the laboratory.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
are best for its growth. For example, will it thrive only in warmer waters or can it be grown anywhere? Should plants Dr Johan Svenson. be attached to something or floating? Are there fertilisers that will make it grow more rapidly? Are there some strains that have higher content of active ingredients than others? Which part of its lifecycle is most suited to different production systems (e.g. land-based, near-shore, etc.) and which is best to produce the active ingredient? These are questions scientists at the Cawthron Institute are working on. The Institute has a long history in algal research (seaweed is a type of macroalgae) and the leader of algal research, Dr Johan Svenson, says that they are now studying its life cycle in detail. “Even though it is a seaweed its reproduction is quite complex so we are trying to understand how to get it to reproduce in a controlled fashion on a small scale so that we can optimise the growing conditions on a larger scale,” he says. “Asparagopsis is a carrier of a bioactive component so we want to know when in the life cycle that is being produced and then grow it in a way that we can control the amounts of this compound.”
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SPECIAL REPORT | OWL FARM RESEARCH
Shelter in place: rethinking heifer grazing ‘ Preventing any impact on our milking herd was a non-negotiable.’
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Words by: Louise Hanlon wl Fam has always grazed their heifers off-farm, but this year’s TB outbreak in Hawke’s Bay forced them to reassess their strategy. They were getting good results from their grazier, but he lost access to grazing for more than 1000 heifers, including the Owl Farm calves. This forced a rapid rethink, but fortunately the team had plenty of data on hand to enable a thorough analysis of their options. The simplest solution was to find alternative grazing off-farm, but this proved challenging, with fierce competition from other operations in the same predicament. The next step was looking into onfarm options. “Preventing any impact on our milking herd was a non-negotiable for us - we didn’t want to reduce our herd numbers or their feed allowance,” Owl Farm demonstration manager Jo Sheridan says.
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“So, it was a matter Table 1. Farmax modelled heifer feed requirements of coming up with (June 2020 – May 2021). strategies to provide the extra feed the Supplement Buy Produce Total calves would add to Chicory (tDM) 65.8 65.8 our daily demand over Palm kernel (tDM) 14.3 14.3 the summer months. In an average year the Pasture silage (bought) (tDM) 14.2 14.2 pasture on Owl Farm Total DM 28.5 65.8 94.3 produces 6.8 tonnes drymatter (DM)/ha over the period from December to May. that would fill the summer gap – either This means the calves would require 13ha chicory or a brassica crop, such as forage if they were fed on pasture alone. rape or raphno. “We also had to factor in the additional They decided their best bet was either demands on labour and infrastructure (for to go with supplementing both the cows weighing and handling), and in summer and calves with palm kernel, or growing a the calves would need feed that contains chicory crop which would then form the more energy and protein than our pasture bulk of the calves’ diet (see Table 1). can provide.” Analysis with Farmax showed they could With these requirements in mind, they achieve the same production results by came up with some alternatives which keeping the calves on the milking platform might fit the bill: primarily feeding pasture and supplementing them, but the cost was and buying in feed – silage and palm significantly different. Feeding chicory kernel, and/or planting a specialist crop would cost a lot less (see Table 2).
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Table 2. Cost of keeping heifers at home. Supplement
Calculation
Cost
$1200/ha x 4.7ha
$5640
Palm kernel
14.3 tDM x $340/tDM
$4862
Pasture silage
14.2 tDM x $380/tDM
$5396
Chicory
Staff time (shifting every second day plus weighing 3 times)
Total Per head/week
$2500 $18,398 $7.60
St Peters students weighing Owl Farm calves.
A chicory crop also made good logistical sense. “We have a support block adjoining the milking platform that is not ideal for the milking herd – it is further away from the shed and we find we don’t get good pasture utilisation when the cows graze there; it is better suited to the heifers,” Owl Farm manager Tom Buckley says. “We were going to use it for silage, so we bought that in to free the land up. It will also give us the chance to use the heifers to graze our new grass in autumn, which went really well last season, and we can carry out an analysis of calf growth rates on a summer crop to share with the industry. “I’m excited about tackling the challenge, and it means we will be able to keep a close eye on our heifers - weighing them regularly to check they are on track to meet their MINDA targets, carrying out vet checks when we need to, and intervening with farm feed or bought-in feed if the summer is dry again.”
Kyle Gardyne, from PGG Wrightson Seeds, helped with the decision-making process. “They could have gone with a grass system, but, although it would be low cost, they would take feed away from the milking herd.
‘We also had to factor in the additional demands on labour and infrastructure (for weighing and handling), and in summer the calves would need feed that contains more energy and protein than our pasture can provide.’ “As the lease block next door is a large area to crop, around 4.7 ha, it lends itself to chicory. They can set the 93 heifers up in a rotational grazing system on the chicory,
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
supplemented with 30-40% silage and palm kernel. This will create a complete diet for growing young animals, as chicory is such a high quality, high protein feed (11.5-13 MJME/kg DM, CP 20-26% DM). If there was less area available they could have used a high yielding brassica crop and strip grazed it. A benefit of brassicas would be a reduced cropping area – not so many hectares out, but because they have that amount of land available it made sense to utilise the full area for chicory. “Chicory will give an exceptionally good growth rate over the summer, whereas a grass-only diet may not deliver a desirable liveweight gain. Also, the heifers won’t be grazing pasture in the summer, so their exposure to facial eczema is greatly reduced. In terms of negatives, it is more of an intensive system; there is more to do, break fencing every day or two. There is a feed cost too; they would need silage, and adequate freshwater, every day.” Once the decision was made, the focus
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Table 3. Farmax modelled heifer feed allocation for a 600g/day liveweight gain (December 2020 – May 2021). December
January
February
March
April
May
Chicory
4.0
4.0
4.0
4.0
4.0
4.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
5.2
6.0
Palm kernel
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
Pasture silage
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
Total (utilised)
3.2
3.2
3.2
3.5
3.5
3.5
3.7
3.7
4.0
4.0
4.0
4.0
4.2
4.2
4.2
4.1
End liveweight (kg)
120
126
133
139
145
151
157
163
169
174
180
187
193
199
206
shifted to making sure they produced an optimal crop. “The grass will be sprayed out in midOctober,” Kyle says, “and then a contractor will use a cross-slot drill to direct drill the seed. We will be looking out for slugs and snails, and applying slug bait as a default option as well. Then it is a matter of waiting 42-56 days for the first grazing, this should happen in early December. From that point on the heifers will probably be on a 21-day rotation on the chicory all summer; they will require around 3kg DM/ calf/day as well as ad-lib silage, around 1-2kg DM silage/calf. Of course, as the calves grow their intake will increase (see Table 3). “We also need to keep in mind that if we get another dry season the chicory growth rate might drop away, and we may need to budget for more supplement feeding so that the calves are fully fed.” Table 3. Farmax modelled heifer feed allocation for a 600g/day liveweight gain (December 2020 – May 2021). Soil testing carried out by JB Mikkelsen, from Ballance Agri-Nutrients, showed some of the cropping area’s pH was a bit low for the pasture that would follow on after the chicory, at 5.9, so JB recommended a lime application. Then she suggested following up with a base fertiliser application of DAP, MOP, and Kieserite. The DAP would encourage vigorous seedling establishment, while the MOP would offer some extra potassium – chicory prefers QTK levels of 7-14, on this block they ranged from 4-8, and the magnesium levels were a bit low too, QTMg 8-13, so the Kieserite would
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The shift to onfarm heifer grazing has added benefits unique to Owl Farm’s set-up.
lift that measure. Post-emergence, her recommendation was to apply 100 kg/ ha SustaiN, with an additional 65kg/ha SustaiN after grazing. The shift to onfarm heifer grazing has added benefits unique to Owl Farm’s setup too. “It is a great chance to involve St Peter’s School students in a new learning opportunity,” says Jo. “ Some of the students adopted a calf in spring, now they will be able to follow
them through the whole season, and be involved in regular activities, like weighing.” Although the switch to onfarm grazing will fit the bill this season, long term the intention is to continue grazing the heifers off. However, a successful season at home will broaden their options, and give additional flexibility to shift with any changes in circumstances in future seasons.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
SPECIAL REPORT | PLANTAIN RESEARCH
Testing time for plantain
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Words by: Jackie Harrigan
ffects of plantain-based pasture on milk production and nitrate leaching by dairy cows is being studied at Massey University by Vietnamese animal scientist and PhD student Nguyen Truong Thi. Thi has come to Massey on a New Zealand government scholarship to do his doctorate before returning to lecture at the Danang University in dairy cattle production. While both dairy systems and pastures in Vietnam are very different to NZ, he is keen to learn as much as he can from the NZ pastoral system, while learning about experimental design and research processes. “When I go back to Vietnam, I can teach Vietnamese farmers and students,” Thi said explaining that dairying in Vietnam is divided into two systems - cut and carry of forage to small two-three cow family owned herds, who sell milk to locals, and three or four large dairy companies, who have much larger housed and concentratefed herds, and process milk into products for sale in stores and supermarkets within Vietnam’s towns and cities. With Thi’s project, prior research has confirmed that plantain can reduce cows’ urinary concentration and the nitrate leaching from pastoral systems without negative effects on milk production. But the mechanisms by which there is a reduction in N excretion are not fully understood, nor are the influences on urine-N concentration and milk production caused by the differences in nutritive composition, digestibility and mineral content between plantain and traditional grasses. Combining plantain with perennial ryegrass and white clover (RG/WC) is expected to provide dairy farmers with a sustainable option to address environmental issues without negative
PhD student Nguyen Truong Thi.
effects on farm productivity. But there is limited understanding of the long-term stability of plantain-based pastures and the relationship between the percentage of plantain in the cows’ diet and the N-leaching and milk production. Thi’s research aims to quantify the effects of plantain-based pasture on the whole farm system N balance and farm productivity. He will be testing the relationship between the proportion of plantain within mixed pastures and the N leached, urinary N excreted, pasture yield and milk production, and developing and evaluating methods to monitor this relationship on farms. Experiment design sees 6.6-hectare rainfed forage paddocks at Massey University No 4 dairy farm host grazing trials, with the area split into four pasture treatments (control 0%, 30% plantain, 50% plantain and 70% plantain - all cv. Agritonic) by five replicates. The trial is set up for measuring drainage from the hydrologically isolated plots (of 800 square metres each) and will be grazed by eight cows on a monthly basis (depending on grass growth).
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Thi has collected data on herbage drymatter yield, milk production, N excretion from cows (post-grazing dung and urine samples), NO3 leaching from pasture plots, and measuring the N balance of the pastoral system. The experiment is designed to run over two full grazing seasons 2019/2020 and 2020/2021.
First year’s results The first-year results showed plantain / ryegrass mixes as a viable onfarm option for reducing the nitrogen leaching while maintaining milk production from grazing dairy systems. The results show the potential benefit of incorporating plantain in ryegrass-white clover pastures as a natural mitigation option to reduce the urinary N loading from dairy cows and the N leached from the urine patches. In an overall 80mm of drainage volume so far (winter-spring period), the total N leached has been 63% lower in the plantain/ryegrass/clover mixes with 30,50 and 70% plantain in the sward compared to the RG/WC clover pasture with 0% plantain.
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SPECIAL REPORT | FODDER BEET
Acidosis hazard with lactating cows
L
Words by: Anne Lee
incoln University PhD student Anita Fleming is warning more work needs to be done on how to safely feed fodder beet to lactating dairy cows and is suggesting farmers may have to feed smaller amounts more frequently to avoid animal health problems. The recommendation stems from her three-year PhD study that included experiments with lactating cows in spring on the university’s research dairy farm. Her PhD, which also included modelling, looked in detail at the effect on the rumen, the impact on the animal and the herd and analysed the farm system in terms of profit and risk. She’s concerned that despite using best practice transitioning methods two of the eight cows (25%) used in her onfarm experiment developed sub-acute ruminal acidosis (SARA), even at small levels of fodder beet feeding. Her findings mirror those of DairyNZ’s Garry Waghorn and AgResearch’s David Pacheco. The experiment was published in the scientific journal Animals earlier this year. Despite the small number of animals involved Anita says the experimental design was robust enough to back up her assertion that 25% of cows in a herd could be at risk of SARA. “We found that despite using the recommended ‘gold standard of transition’ – increasing the amount of fodder beet fed each day by 0.5kg drymatter (DM)/ cow/day, feeding them after morning milking and leaving them for up to two hours to ensure they had fully eaten their individual allocation, 25% of the animals still developed SARA. The cows were fed individually on harvested fodder beet
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PhD student Anita Fleming and her research supervisor Professor Pablo Gregorini.
with the leaf removed and were held at the covered yard area until they had eaten their allocations. SARA is characterised by the accumulation of volatile fatty acids (VFA) which reduce rumen pH. A pH less than 5.8 for more than three hours is defined as marginal SARA while a pH of less than 5.6 for more than three hours is defined as severe SARA. In Anita’s study four cows were fed fodder beet while the other four were fed on pasture only for 20 days with rumen, blood and milk sampling carried out over the period. They then had a five-day “washout” period and the animals were swapped over and the experiment carried out again with cows that had been fed pasture transitioned on to fodder beet and those that had been fed fodder beet plus pasture in the first period fed pasture only. The pasture-only cows were fed 19kg DM/day high quality ryegrass and white clover pasture allocated to each animal in an individual strip while the fodder beet cows were offered pasture in the same way and at the same pasture allocation but were supplemented with up to 6kg DM/cow/ day of fodder beet, with that upper limit
reached following a transitioning process. Anita found that one cow in the first period developed SARA on day 10 of adaptation to the fodder beet with her pH dropping below 5.5 for four hours. Her allocation was reduced to 3kg DM/day and she was maintained at that until the end of the first period of the experiment. Another cow also developed SARA towards the end of the transition period with a pH of less than 5.5 for between 110 minutes and 190 minutes per day. Her allocation was also reduced but neither cow was removed from the study because pH stabilised without intervention, which is a defining characteristic of SARA. Anita collected milk samples, blood samples, rumen content samples and measured rumen pH every 10 minutes using a wireless bolus in the rumen. She analysed amino acids and non-esterified fatty acid (NEFA) in blood, milk urea nitrogen (MUN), milk yield, fat, protein and lactose and milk fatty acid profiles, rumen pH, VFA, ammonia and L-lactate in rumen samples. She also analysed both the fodder beet and pasture quality information including
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metabolisable energy (ME), neutral detergent fibre (NDF), acid detergent fibre (ADF), crude protein, organic matter and water soluble carbohydrate (WSC). The continuous rumen pH measurement showed pH dropping after cows ate fodder beet but it also showed pHs dropped in cows after grazing pasture after the morning milking. NDF of the spring pasture was low at 36-41% and may be behind the drops in pH for pasture fed cows. The fodder beet had an even lower NDF at 13-14%. The low NDF and high digestibility of fodder beet bulbs does not appear to complement the low NDF content of herbage, particularly after calving when the risk of SARA is higher, Anita says. While analysis of all the data she collected on rumen, milk, blood and feed chemistry shows a complex story, she believes it supports her conclusion that fodder beet bulbs isn’t a good supplement for cows post calving. “At an individual cow level, you may be able to manage her to minimise the effects. “But even then, you can still run the risk of developing SARA as the experiments and modelling showed. “So I’m worried for farmers as at a herd level there’s going to be a greater than 25% incidence of SARA, and probably more cows that are at serious risk from its longer term effects. “SARA is sub-clinical so you can’t see it. “When we carried out the experiment at LURDF each cow was given an individual allocation and held separately. “It took up to two hours for them to get through their full fodder beet allocation when they had no competition and still, we had cows getting SARA. “If they’re competing with each other in a herd situation competition is going to change their intake behaviour. “Cows have nutritional wisdom and given the opportunity I think they slow down their intake to help lower the VFA produced in the rumen that leads to a drop in pH. “In a herd feeding situation there’s competition and they stop listening to that post-ingestive feedback,” she says. Anita’s results from her modelling study were also published in the Journal of Agricultural Science in July. That study used the MINDY model, developed by Dr Pablo Gregorini when
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Diurnal pattern of ruminal pH of dairy cows during adaptation to either a herbage and fodder beet bulb (FBH) or herbage - only (HO) diet. Cows reached maximum allocation of FB over 12 days (stage 1, top), acclimatised to FBH between 13 – 17 d (stage 2, middle), and full adaptation was assumed by 18-20 d (Stage 3, bottom). Vertical reference lines depict the time that either FB or herbage was allocated in the morning.
he was at DairyNZ – he’s now Professor of Livestock Production at Lincoln University and has been Anita’s supervisor for her PhD. Anita simulated 90 dietary treatments for a cow in early lactation using the model with variations of fodder beet allowance, timing of allocation and pasture allowance. Fodder beet allowance included 0, 2, 4 and 7kg DM/cow/day with pasture allowances including 10.5, 16.1 and 28kg DM/day. The pasture was offered with fodder beet in the morning or afternoon or split between two equal allowances following morning and afternoon milking. The fodder beet was offered in the same way. Anita says MINDY can determine the effects of the different feeding regimes on multiple animal outputs including rumen fermentation products such as VFA. It can also determine the level of discomfort the animal is experiencing. Anita says MINDY found that milk production was similar when the diet was
0 and 2kg DM/cow/day of fodder beet but dropped by 4 and 16% when fodder beet increased to 4 and 7kg DM/cow/day. MINDY predicted SARA would result at the 7kg DM/cow/day fodder beet level and that rumen pH would be less than 5.6 for 160 and 90 minutes per day at 7 and 4 kg DM/cow/day fodder beet. Further analysis found the best compromise between high milk production and low discomfort was achieved by splitting the 2kgDM/cow/day fodder beet offering into two equal meals per day fed with 28kg DM/cow/day of pasture. “At a farm level that’s just not really practical,” she says. She ultimately concluded that because of the low milk response and high risk of acidosis fodder beet is a poor supplement for lactating dairy cows. To round out her PhD Anita carried out a whole farm modelling exercise, using DairyNZ’s Whole Farm Modelling
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
with that study accepted for publication in the scientific journal Agricultural Systems. She looked at two locations – Waikato dryland and Canterbury irrigated with the farms in the model loosely based on Scott Farm in Waikato of the Lincoln University Dairy Farm (LUDF) in Canterbury. She compared four different scenarios to support milk production in late and early lactation: • using fodder beet on the milking platform, Anita Fleming with cows in a field of • growing maize on the fodder beet. milking platform to produce maize silage, • buying in maize silage as a supplement (base scenario), • growing fodder beet on the platform but having an outbreak of acute (1% stock death) and sub-acute ruminal acidosis. The maize was sown in November and harvested in February or March and was then able to be fed out in autumn and spring. Fodder beet was sown in October, grazed in autumn and the residual crop harvested and fed out to cows in spring. The financial results showed that the time ground was out of the grazing round had a bigger effect even than yield. “We looked at how much milk the cows will produce based on the average BW cow and what that would mean to the farm’s bottom line in terms of economic farm surplus (EFS) as well as the risk exposure in terms of return on asset.” She used 300 different combinations of milk price, supplement price, climate, land appreciation and interest rate. She found the EFS was up 5.8% when maize was grown on the platform compared with the base scenario for both Canterbury and Waikato. That was due to increased milk production, lower feed expenses and shorter crop rotation. Growing fodder beet increased the EFS by 4.8% in Canterbury compared with the base scenario in Canterbury but was similar to the base scenario in Waikato. Anita says there was limited advantage to growing fodder beet in Waikato dryland conditions because the length of time the crop was out reduced pasture production. The ruminal acidosis scenario saw a 6.5% reduction in EFS in the Canterbury situation and 7.1% in Waikato compared with the base scenario. Anita sys the model predictions showed a greater advantage for maize silage grown on the farm than imported maize silage or growing fodder beet on the platform as an autumn and spring supplement. It better complemented New Zealand’s pasturebased system by improving milk production, profit and reduced business risk due to a combination of shorter crop sequence and greater feeding flexibility compared to fodder beet, she says. Even a relatively minor outbreak of ruminal acidosis caused a substantial decline in income. “There appears to be little advantage and high levels of risk associated with growing and feeding fodder beet on the platform to support lactation,” she says.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
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ENVIRONMENT PHOSPHORUS LEACHING
ClearTech gets the tick Use of a coagulant system developed at Lincoln University on dairy effluent has been shown to overcome the risks of phosphorus leaching in light soils. Anne Lee reports. Left: Chris Chisolm – honours project shows E. coli and P losses slashed by common coagulant based effluent treatment system.
That sweep floc motion causes the combined colloids to swirl and sweep down and around until they settle at the bottom of the solution, leaving clarified water at the top. But it’s not just clear water, it’s clean too with almost all of the nasty bacteria gone. E. coli bacteria are both trapped between the colloid particles that have been bound together and killed through a weakening of the bacteria’s cell walls. At the same time a chemical reaction brings the phosphorus (from the effluent) and iron (in the coagulant) together to form more stable iron phosphate compounds.
WHAT’S HAPPENING UNDERGROUND
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eaching of phosphorus from light, stony soils on effluent areas has only recently been highlighted as a problem but Lincoln University PhD student Chris Chisolm has already found a way to combat the issue – albeit with some investment into a new effluent system. Chris is shearing through his summer break – between completing his honours degree and starting his PhD - and although he’s got his sights on cracking the 500-a-day tally in the short term, long-term his mind is firmly in the science of the soil. Testament to his skill in his scientific endeavours Chris’ honours project for his Bachelor of Agricultural Science was published in September in the New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research. His studies found the chemical process used to separate the solid fraction of farm dairy effluent from water in the ClearTech effluent system can all but halt phosphorus loss when the effluent and/or the clarified 58
water is applied to the soil. And that’s turned out to be an extremely important fact given a study published only last year found that, based on 14 years of data from Lincoln University Dairy Farm (LUDF), phosphorus is leaching at a much greater rate through light, stony soils on effluent areas than previously understood. (See sidebar p.59 for more.)
SCIENCE OF THE FLOC The ClearTech system was developed by Lincoln University soil science professors Keith Cameron and Hong Di in collaboration with commercial partner Ravensdown. The science lies in the chemical reactions that occur when a commonly used coagulant, ferric sulphate, Fe2(SO4)3 often used in municipal drinking water treatment, is mixed with the raw farm dairy effluent. The coagulant sets up a sweep floc motion as it allows the colloids or solid particles in the effluent to come together.
Chris’ honours study used lysimeters representing a light, stony dairy pasture and looked at the effects of applying: • the clarified water on its own, • untreated dairy effluent, • treated effluent (solid portion from ClearTech process), • a combination of clarified water and treated effluent, • clarified water spiked with ammonium chloride (to simulate clarified water repeatedly recycled and used as yard ashdown water), • fresh water - as a control. He measured the amount of E. coli, nitrogen, iron and phosphorus in the leachate and also looked at greenhouse gas emissions and pasture growth. His results not only confirmed previous studies, it also found new information too as the effects of clarified water applications to soil hadn’t been closely studied before. No dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) was detected in leachate at all following the application of clarified water, nor was it
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
E. coli, Total-P, DRP, Mineral N and Iron leaching losses from the six treatments E. coli (cfu/ ha)
Total P (kg P/ha)
DRP (kg P/ ha)
Mineral N (kg N/ha)
Iron (kg Fe/ha)
Farm dairy effluent
3.5E+12 a
1.1a
0.2a
1.7a
17.4a
Treated effluent
8.8E+08b
0.1b
0.0b
0.5a
8.5a
Mix
9.3E+08b
0.1b
0.0b
2.3a
8.3a
Clarified water
3.4E+08b
0.2b
0.0b
1.6a
7.7a
Clarified water spiked
1.5E+08b
0.1b
0.0b
9.2b
16.8a
Control (fresh water)
4.4E+08b
0.1b
0.0b
1.1a
12.9a
Note - values with a letter in common in the same column are not significantly different.
detected after the spiked clarified water was applied. DRP was 99.5% lower in leachate after treated effluent was applied compared with untreated effluent. (Table one.) Total phosphorus losses were also drastically cut with no significant difference in leachate levels when compared with applying clean water to the lysimeters.E. coli levels from treated effluent, clarified water and fresh water were all close to zero – a 99.9%+ reduction compared with untreated effluent. Nitrogen losses from all treatments were relatively low with no significant difference between untreated effluent apart from the spiked clarified water which had additional nitrogen from the added ammonium chloride. Even then, Chris says the losses of mineral nitrogen were equivalent to less than 10kg N/ha which is relatively small compared with losses on grazed dairy pastures that mostly come from cow urine.
Iron losses were not significantly different to losses detected in the control or from lysimeters where untreated effluent was applied. Extra modelling to check any effect on iron levels in soil from applying the treated effluent showed that any extra iron going into the soil from the coagulant was so minor compared with levels already in soil that even over a 10-year period of application it’s unlikely any excessive build-up of iron or leaching will occur. Chris also found no significant difference in greenhouse gas emissions or in pasture production. Other major benefits of the system are savings on water and effluent storage because the clarified water removed from the effluent can be recycled and used in yard washdown. LUDF has been using the system this season and expects to save 6 million litres of water.
Chris Chisolm with Professors Keith Cameron and Hong Di - science finding the answers to phosphorus leaching on effluent areas.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Light soil risks with phosphorus Despite following all best practice guidelines phosphorus is at risk of leaching down through light stony soils on effluent areas. AgResearch scientist Richard McDowell’s study published in the Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment journal last year used information from 14 years of leachate data collected on the Lincoln University Dairy Farm (LUDF). He found from 2001 to 2015 the average total phosphorus loss from the free-draining, shallow Eyre soils at LUDF, where farm dairy effluent had been applied, was six times more than other areas. The analyses measured the loss at 1.46kg P/ha/year – significantly more than from the non-effluent area, also on the Eyre soil, where an average of 0.25kg P/ha/year was measured in leachate. The same hasn’t happened on the moderately drained, deeper Templeton soils though. There the average loss was 0.12kg P/ha/year for both effluent and noneffluent areas. The LUDF applies its effluent via sprinklers on an underslung line on its pivot irrigator. The team follows industry and regional council rules in applying it – no more than 10mm of effluent applied at any one time, not applying it within 24 hours of soil saturation, no ponding and ensuring applications keep soil test phosphorus concentrations at or below agronomic optimum to meet pasture demand. Despite this, Richard says, over time phosphorus was leaching through the soil profile on the light soil likely because of the soil’s freedraining properties and macropores combined with possible saturation of the macropore walls making phosphorus less held by those walls.
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ENVIRONMENT NITROGEN
Deep dive gems on N-use efficiency Words by: Anne Lee
A
Graph 1. N-ise efficiency: Kg MS/kg fertiliser N applied at LUDF and in Canterbury (average from DairyBase)
deep dive into Lincoln University Dairy Farm’s data sets is offering Canterbury farmers insights into what to expect and how they may be able to profitably offset likely pasture production losses expected from the government’s new farm input control – the 190kg/ha/year nitrogen cap. While others were taking up crafts or completing 5000-piece jigsaws during Covid-19 lockdown, DairyNZ scientist David Chapman’s pastime was to crunch the numbers from the myriad of LUDF data sets. They included 2500 grazing events and 1800 fertiliser events. During the higher nitrogen use years, the His specific focus was to interrogate farm grew 20.4 tonnes drymatter (DM)/ha/ the data on the farm’s shift from using year but during the lower input years that 300+kg/ha/year of nitrogen fertiliser to followed it has grown an average of 18.9t 168kg/ha/year as it moved to a lower input DM/ha/year – so 1.5t DM/ha/year less. farming system that also saw a reduction By David’s reckoning though – based on in stocking rate. his analysis of nitrogen use efficiency – the Among his surprising finds reduction in fertiliser should have equated were a smaller drop in to a drymatter production drop of 2.5t pasture production DM/ha/year. than expected, a big “Something is going on here jump in nitrogen use that’s buffering the amount of efficiency and the nitrogen driven grass growth. discovery of previously “Don’t necessarily assume that by wasted opportunities for taking out a proportion of nitrogen pasture utilisation and feed you’re going to lose all of the efficiency David Chapman. and productivity you were getting from conversion efficiency. David was quick to point nitrogen previously. out there was no simple cause and effect “There are ways of getting it back – (or taking out the nitrogen didn’t simply lead never losing it in the first place).” to single outcomes. The clues to that are in the data. “Less nitrogen means less pasture growth LUDF’s weekly pasture production data and that ripples through the system in showed there was less pasture grown in all different ways. months of the year and the average round “It’s important to understand it’s not just length increased by about four days in the a case of pulling out some nitrogen and lower nitrogen input years (Graph 2). carrying on as usual. “That’s most likely because it was “Some other adjustments have to be growing slower so to get the pre-graze made to the system to keep things sweet,” covers wanted it took longer – you he says. automatically go onto a longer round.” 60
Farmers should expect this sequence of events if they’re making big cuts in nitrogen fertiliser to meet the new cap limits. What surprised him though was the effect the faster rounds in the higher input years had on pasture harvested. “When we took the information from our trial work at the Lincoln University Research Dairy Farm on leaf emergence rates we could back calculate the likely leaf stage at grazing (on LUDF just down the road).” “These numbers really surprised me. “For quite a portion of the year, during those fast rounds, we were grazing at somewhere between 1.5 and 1.75 leaf stage. “Ideal practice is 2.5 to three – we were nowhere near it. Does it matter? I think it does.” Since it made the change to lower nitrogen input levels, with longer rounds, the farm has been grazing more consistently at the 2.5 to three leaf stage and his calculations suggest that’s contributed an additional 1t DM/ha/year compared with if it had stayed at the same round lengths in the higher input years (Graph 3). It looks like that’s significantly buffered
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Graph 2. Average pasture growth rates at LUDF in the ‘high input’ and ‘lower input’ years
what would have been a 2.5t DM drop, keeping it to a 1.5t DM reduction. LUDF’s nitrogen policy and longer round lengths have meant pre-grazing covers through till January have been higher during the more recent years. The farm team has still managed to achieve good post-grazing residuals from those higher covers though, thanks to the inclusion of tetraploid ryegrass cultivars in the mix along with diploids and clover. In 2010 20% of the farm was in tetraploids but by the 2018/19 season 95% of paddocks have the tetraploid/diploid mix. The palatability of the tetraploid encourages cows to eat right down into the sward while the diploid helps persistence. David says the data shows a small drop in metabolisable energy (ME) from 12.2 megajoules of ME/kg DM in the high input years to 12 in the lower years – a 2% drop. Crude protein dropped by a much greater 11%, falling from 23.4% DM to 20.8. “We think we can explain that by the longer grazing interval and re-growth interval. “As grass matures through the regrowth cycle the crude protein concentration is diluted. Older leaves are starting to mobilise some of the nitrogen in the leaf back into the plant and you have a better balance of young leaf and old, so the crude protein concentration comes down. “That’s a good thing in terms of nitrogen surplus in the animal and nitrogen excretion.” LUDF’s management team anticipated a reduction in pasture production when it shifted to lower nitrogen fertiliser inputs and reduced stocking rate from 3.9 cows/ha to 3.5 – a cut from 650 cows to 580. The start of seasonal nitrogen fertiliser applications was shifted from late July to late August/September when there would be a better response and late autumn applications stopped to limit potential winter nitrate leaching. The longer rounds meant fewer grazings which in turn lead to 2.4 fewer nitrogen applications given the policy of following grazing with a nitrogen application. An average of 8kg N/ha less was also applied at each application too. The farm also moved to cut out nitrogen applications to its effluent areas. Some of that shifted to being applied on non-effluent areas but with the new cap for each hectare rather than an average for the farm, that strategy won’t mean more than 190kg N/ha can be applied on the non-effluent areas. Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Graph 3. Average leaf stage at grazing at LUDF in the ‘high input’ and ‘lower input’ years
HIGHER N-USE EFFICIENCY David’s analysis found LUDF’s nitrogen use efficiency increased as it moved to the lower input system, lifting from 6.2kg milksolids (MS)/kg nitrogen fertiliser applied to 10.4 kg MS/kg N. DairyBase figures show in Canterbury, the average milksolids (Graph 1) production per kg nitrogen fertiliser applied for the last 12 years was 7kg MS/kg N. David cautions that the measure isn’t a response rate. “I don’t want you to think that every kg N you apply will give you another 6-8kg MS - it doesn’t. “It grows you another 10-12kg DM so maybe another kg MS (depending on how well you utilise the additional feed).” The nitrogen use efficiency metric takes into account all the inputs and outputs of the farm system. “We can see from LUDF’s data sets that it is possible to reduce nitrogen fertiliser and maintain a high level of productivity but it does require changes to the system.” You will grow less feed but how much will depend on grazing management and how much your productivity and profitability are affected will depend on other systems changes. Others’ experiences show big cuts to nitrogen fertiliser inputs can’t be made in just one season so to meet next season’s cap limit farmers need to be adjusting now.
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61
ENVIRONMENT REGULATIONS
Negative messages unhelpful Words by: Keri Johnston
R
ural advocates have called for the Government to consider the effects of policies on rural communities and farmer wellbeing when drafting them. I would extend this and ask rural media to do the same when it is reporting on them. I was having a very interesting conversation this week about rural media and how we are our own worst enemies. You only have to look at the headlines of farming publications that arrive in our mailboxes each week and it's often a ‘doom and gloom’ story that commands the front page. And this is particularly true when it comes to the new Essential Freshwater Reforms. Rural mental health is a real concern, no doubt about that at all, but when a lot of what is out there in media land is about the reforms being a repeat of the Rogernomics era and that the rules as written will end pastoral and arable farming as we know it, or that the reforms are just the result of a minister on a personal crusade cannot be helping those already finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning. Now please don’t get me wrong, there are elements of the reforms which if I was drafting them, would not look like they do at the moment, but to constantly dwell on the negatives and fire shots at the Government, ministers and anyone else involved in the process of developing them isn’t going to change where we are today. It’s also not an excuse to do nothing. I have been working in environmental regulation for the last 20 years, and I can honestly say not one single process I have been involved with has got it perfectly right the first time, but regardless, you do what you can, and implement what can be implemented because it’s the right thing to do. Digging your toes in and doing nothing is actually not acceptable. I don’t think anyone disagrees with what the freshwater reforms were trying to 62
Riparian planting alongside a stream through a dairy farm.
achieve – stopping further degradation of freshwater resources, reversing past damage and moving towards a holistic, ki uta ki tai approach to management of the natural environment. So, if the ‘direction of travel’ of the reforms is actually okay, the question we need to ask ourselves now is how can we partner with the Government and iwi to deliver on this in a way that is practical, fair, and outcomes focused? We need to rise above the criticism, roll our sleeves up, get some dirt under our nails, and do what we do best – we are the most innovative farmers in the world, so let’s do this. And to those who revel in the negative all the time, it’s easy to criticise from
the sidelines, but if you are not going to offer a solution, then stop complaining. There is a difference between speaking up about what is not right in a constructive manner, rather than being destructive, and the key difference between the two is offering a way forward. Think about the impacts your negativity is having on our rural communities, after all, we actually want the same things and just because we are not quite aligned on how we get there doesn’t mean we stop trying. It means we pick ourselves up, reflect on how we got here and try a different tack. • First published in Country-Wide November 2020.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
ENVIRONMENT DAIRYNZ
Strategies to meet the nitrogen cap Words by: Virginia Serra Selwyn Hinds project leader, DairyNZ
T
he new synthetic nitrogen (N) cap of 190kg N/ha coming into effect in July 2021 means all dairy farmers need to record both the amount and where synthetic N fertiliser is applied onfarm. This means many farmers will be considering how to make changes to meet the new requirements. In Canterbury, I’ve been leading a project with farms in the Hinds and Selwyn catchments. The farmers are trialing options to reduce N loss, including examining and changing N fertiliser use. The findings show some farmers have reduced fertiliser applications with little impact on pasture growth and profit. This project has helped understand strategies for farmers to meet the new nitrogen cap requirements.
PLANNING FOR CHANGES
Before making changes it’s important to understand the current situation. Work out how much synthetic N fertiliser was applied last year and in what areas. We recommend reviewing your current N use strategy, together with a farm advisor, to see how it can be more efficient. This includes looking at whether applications were completed as planned,
Addressing any limits to clover growth will encourage free N fixation in mixed pastures.
and reviewing application rates and fertiliser types. Considering how you will manage pasture and feed is also critical. After reviewing your strategy, work on a plan to meet the new N cap and implement a system to keep track of future applications.
OPTIONS TO REDUCE NITROGEN FERTILISER
The project has shown that farmers have reduced N fertiliser application rates through a range of strategies. Not all strategies may suit your farm, so it’s best to talk through options with a trusted advisor. • Allow time to significantly reduce N fertiliser use - If you need to make a significant reduction to meet the cap, it’s best to start now and reduce fertiliser use gradually. It’s also important to allow time for clover to re-establish so that the additional fixed N is available for growth. • Reduce N application rates and avoid wastage - Limit applications to no more than 40 kg N/ha in early spring and then to 0.8 kg N/ha per day of round length. N applications are most beneficial to fill a genuine feed deficit – such as in early spring. In areas where effluent is applied, fertiliser applications can be reduced. To avoid wastage, avoid applying N fertiliser before a significant rain or drainage event. • Increase grazing round lengths - This will help ensure grazing occurs between the 2.5 to 3 leaf stage of pasture and allow more grass growth. In Canterbury this is between 22-24 days during spring and summer. Where N applications follow grazing, increasing the round length reduces the total number of grazings and N applications per year.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Strategies to limit urea application and using a coated product will all drive down N use.
• Have a monthly N fertiliser plan and monitor it - Several farmers have been surprised at the amount of N they used over a year that was unplanned or not monitored. To keep track of this, farmers can set an N budget and plan to report N use by paddock. • Address factors that may limit pasture or clover growth - Paddock scale soil tests successfully help identify factors including soil fertility, pH, weeds, irrigation, pasture species and drainage. • Pasture walks - Regular pasture walks can help assess a genuine feed deficit. In late autumn, pasture response can be slow while N loss risk is higher due to potential rainfall, so N applications can be reduced. When pasture growth is high, you may be able to skip a few paddocks from routine N applications. • Consider coated urea - This reduces volatilisation (the conversion of N in urea to ammonia gas). Using coated urea in the right conditions can reduce N applications by up to 10% while growing the same amount of pasture. • You can read more about the nitrogen cap online at dairynz.co.nz/nitrogen-cap. 63
STOCK TECHNOLOGY
Collar-ing technology Technology makes its mark on the Coplands’ mid-Canterbury property where generations of the family have farmed for more than 140 years. Anne Lee reports.
Y
ou won’t find anyone up on the stand spotting heats on the Coplands’ 1500-cow Canterbury dairy farm and you won’t find just black and white cows in the huge barns either. While they may have more than 100 years of farming history in the area, the intergenerational 720-hectare Chertsey farm is anything but stuck in the ways of old. Technology is at the forefront, systems are challenged and new opportunities grabbed with both hands. James Copland settled land in the area in 64
1877 and at one stage owned 12,000 acres between Dunsandel and Rakaia. It’s hard to know what he’d make of cows walking around with collars that can accurately indicate heats and illness or milking parlours set up to automatically draft off the animals that need to be attended to or even robots that sweep feed up to animals housed in sheds the size of small villages. The huge black cattle fed secret diets from recipes devised in Japan would also surely have him reeling. All of that and more is going on at Chertsey where Neville and Marilyn with
sons Craig and Wayne are running an integrated dairy, Wagyu beef and cropping operation that also has some horticulture on the side for good measure. Neville took over from his father in 1987 and in 2008 the family converted to dairying from bull beef and cropping. Craig says they bought autumn calving cows as part of the herd and with the new 60-bail farm dairy finished in March decided to take on a winter milk contract to fast track some income. Although they had an 800-cow feedpad, two wet winters in a row saw them invest in a 5000 square metre Calder Stewart-built
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Left: Craig Copland in the large barn housing the winter milking cows; the cows are feed a mixed ration and milked three times a day. Above: The cows all wear rumination collars, and Craig says they are picking up issues a lot faster than would be otherwise. A drop in eating and rumination comes ahead of other symptoms Below: The barn housed cows get a total mixed ration and the outside cows pasture and a partial mixed ration.
free-stall barn in 2014. It has 300 cubicles on each side of a wide central feed lane with waterproof mattresses for bedding and is laid out to give plenty of room for cows to loaf around. To run a high input system profitably feed conversion efficiency is vital, Craig says. Their cows have averaged 780kg milksolids (MS)/cow when milked three times a day and taken at a 305-day lactation mark from 25kg drymatter (DM)/ cow of feed fed in the barn. To make the most of higher paying winter milk contracts and to avoid cow wastage that would come from seasonal block mating, the Coplands are calving three times a year. Cows are housed over their peak milking period with later lactation cows outside. The 600 cows indoors are fed a total mixed ration while those outside are
‘I can jump on the computer or my phone any time and get an update of how many cows are going to be drafted off for mating at the next milking.’ also being supplemented with a partial mixed ration. “We never really get under 1000 cows milking at any time of the year,” Craig says. There’s no grass at all in the housed-
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
cows’ diet, instead it’s made up of maize silage, lucerne, maize grain, straw, wheat, barley and protein such as soy and canola. Dairy Production Systems nutritionist Dr Sue Macky is the farm’s nutritionist, monitoring feed inputs and cow health. 65
Craig Copland, and Roger Alagos, who looks after the milking of the cows three times a day, with Craig’s father Neville Copland in the rotary dairy.
MATING AT THE CLICK OF A BUTTON They mate in autumn and early spring for nine weeks and have a “tidy up” mating in November for four weeks. With cows at various stages of lactation Craig says a herd management system is a must too and the farm invested in the GEA technology back in 2011 which could talk to their in-shed milk monitoring system DairyPlan, also from GEA. They’ve recently upgraded the cow collars to the company’s Cow Scout collars. The technology includes a sensor on the collar that senses where the cow’s head is positioned so it knows when she’s head down eating, ruminating or getting active, moving around and rubbing on other cows. Craig has the system set to send information back to the farm dairy from the collars every three hours. An antenna on top of the farm dairy picks up signals sent from the collars up to 800m away so for almost all of the farm the data can be sent back throughout the day. If the cows are outside the range the data is automatically sent as soon as they come back within the 800m radius. “I can jump on the computer or my 66
phone any time and get an update of how many cows are going to be drafted off for mating at the next milking. “They’re very accurate at picking up heats and when you see the graphs it’s just so obvious. “The new graphs that come with the Cow Scout are very clear and easy to read – a lot easier than the Res 2 graphs we used to have,” Craig says. He’s fully confident in the system and says it’s not missing any heats based on what he’s seen. Mating starts at the click of a button. Craig simply double clicks on the activity formula for mating, sets the time he wants the cows drafted out between, so that it coincides with milking, and by the end of milking all the cows that have indicated heat will be in a pen on the yard ready to be brought back on to the platform for the AI technician. Craig also has the system set to pick up cows based on a drop in rumination and draft them off into another pen. The system is smart enough to distinguish between heats and an animal health alert by crunching all the data
the collars send in. Craig can quickly see which cows will be in which pen via the dashboard on the programme and says he can then look more closely at an individual cow’s history to help determine what’s going on. Cows in the rumination pen are brought back onto the platform and will have their temperature checked, have each quarter stripped and given a good once over. “We’re picking up issues a lot faster than we would be otherwise. A drop in eating and rumination comes ahead of other symptoms. “We’re getting dirty cows treated more quickly and that helps them getting back in calf and with their milk production. “We’re also picking up cows that are suspect for things like LDA (left displaced abomasum) as soon as they’re starting and getting on top of any mastitis really quickly. “We don’t treat anything with antibiotics unless it’s clinical but we can take steps to help stop it coming to that and we’ll pick up clinicals a lot faster and easier than we otherwise would in a big herd situation like this.”
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
BLACK ORIGIN WAGYU BEEF
HFS -
Not long after they built their first barn, the Coplands also got together with former All Black Andy Ellis who, thanks to his rugby experiences in Japan, was also developing a Wagyu beef Business - Black Origin. Craig said the numbers stacked up and the opportunity looked like one he didn’t want to pass up. “For us there was more risk in getting a few years down the track and kicking ourselves for not getting into it.” They started crossing the dairy cows with Wagyu and rearing cattle prized for their fat marbled beef. Last year they took the plunge and invested in an even bigger second barn this time for the Wagyu and this time doing it all themselves with Neville doing a lot Wagyu dairy bulls are grown to over 800kg with a marbling score of 7+, for the Black Origin Beef label. of the metal work including cutting the huge steel beams that hold the structure in place. the Japanese Wagyu Association. Both Craig and Neville have travelled The barn can house 900 animals with They can double their weight in 12 widely and have seen for themselves the wide lanes layered in deep sawdust for months and kill out at about 800kg opportunities for New Zealand produce. bedding. liveweight at 28-30 months, Craig says. They’re not fazed by plant-based meats Like the dairy cows much of their feed is “The heaviest animal so far has been or milks and believe there will always be a grown onfarm with Wayne managing the 960kg at just over three years old.” market for high quality food. cropping side of the business as well as an Of the last group of animals to be “That’s the beauty of what we’re doing apple orchard diversification that includes processed, 80% had a marbling score (MS) here. We’ve got control over most of the 47,000 trees. of 7+. feed going in by growing our own crops, The animals spend their earlier months The score ranges from 3 to 12 and we’re breeding and rearing our own outside but are then brought into the barn indicates the amount of intramuscular fat animals and we can use technology to to be fed for 420 days on a TMR diet. that creates the buttery flavour and texture make sure the quality is always right up Dairy 2020is-a80x230mm-5mmbleed-PRINT.pdf 8:18 AM ItsExporter precise Nov recipe secret supplied by of 1the 23/10/20 meat when cooked. there,” Craig says.
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HERBAL DIGESTIVE DRENCH
Dairy Exporter |faecal www.nzfarmlife.co.nz Novemberhealth 2020 Supports a healthy egg count for| intestinal
HOMEOPATHIC FARM SERVICES
@HomeopathicFarmServices 67
STOCK SEXED SEMEN
on luggage with couriers on flights from Hamilton and Auckland airports while sexed semen for naturally cycling cows went as freight with standard conventional liquid semen deliveries in the afternoon and early evening. “With freight, we have to have it at the airport more than an hour before the flight and that’s at every airport on the route. “As carry-on luggage with someone, it’s 20 minutes and as we only have the mornings to get it there for animals to be mated that afternoon, it works really well. “If we need to, if it’s a large synchro, the courier can also assist the technician with the inseminations.” All sexed semen for synchro inseminations was used in the afternoon of the delivery, he said. “With naturally cycling matings, which uses semen collected from bulls in the afternoon, it’s used in the morning as part of the daily scheduled AB run with the aim they are all done before lunchtime.” The tight timelines ensure the sexed semen is as viable as possible. Liquid sexed semen has a similar conception rate to non-sexed (conventional) liquid or frozen semen if used within 24 hours of processing. However, frozen sexed semen conception rates were about 13% less hence the importance of the liquid product.
Precious cargo Fresh liquid sexed semen is now a major part of artificial breeding. Story and photos by Karen Trebilcock.
I
t’s early afternoon on Tuesday, October 20, and LIC Artificial Breeding (AB) technician assistant Chrissy Taylor-Claude is waiting at Dunedin Airport for flight NZ5749 from Christchurch. On it are 34 straws of liquid (fresh) sexed semen from bull Bagworth DM League, 34 straws of Lightburn Free Range and 33 straws of Busy Brook Convict. The semen was collected from the three Friesian bulls in the morning the day before at the LIC Newstead bull farm, delivered to Sexing Technologies next to Hamilton Airport at 1.30pm where it was spun and sorted, finishing in the early hours of the morning. It was back at Newstead by 4am to be put 68
into the straws and sealed and not much later on Tuesday morning the 101 straws were at the loading bay ready to be picked up by a LIC courier who carried it as hand luggage on to the flight from Hamilton to Christchurch and then onto Dunedin where Chrissy was waiting. By 4pm that day it was inseminated into 101 of Taurima Farms’ yearlings on the Taieri which had been synchronised. LIC national AB manager Dave Hale said it was a busy season this year with liquid sexed semen collections now a big part of the LIC AB product mix. Sexed semen collections started on September 20 and will finish on November 30. Sexed semen for synchronised yearlings and cows went out each morning as carry-
“Farmers have become acutely aware that if they are unable to milk more cows, they need to milk better ones. “ Rates of pregnancy and resulting days in milk are critical elements of farm profitability making the ‘fresh sexed advantage’ a game changer for New Zealand dairy farmers, LIC general manager NZ markets Malcolm Ellis said. LIC is the only provider of liquid sexed semen in New Zealand and this year sales of the product are triple that of last year. “With farmers proactively looking at
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
ways to mitigate consumer, environmental and animal welfare concerns relating to bobby calves, sexed semen is a useful tool to have in their tool box,” he said. “Clearly the additional opportunity for farmers to accelerate the rate of genetic gain on farm by targeting heifer calves as replacement stock out of the herd’s most superior cows was also driving demand for fresh sexed semen. “Over recent years the New Zealand dairy sector has very much reset with the capital gain model that thrived running out its course and regulatory and environmental considerations instead front of mind and putting pressure on cow numbers. “Farmers have become acutely aware that if they are unable to milk more cows, they need to milk better ones. “This means that increasing genetic gain through breeding the best quality heifer calves has become an even more valued aspect of dairy farmers’ seasonal focus.” Ellis said the increase in sexed semen demand had seen LIC invest in its widest distribution of the product to date across New Zealand including, for the first season, the inclusion of all three major dairy breeds with Jersey added to last year’s offering. Taurima Farms owner Robert Scurr said he had had little idea of the logistics involved when he decided on a liquid sexed semen plan. He’s used it for contract matings of his cows for the export heifer market about
Left: Robert Scurr is keen to see the results at scanning of how his liquid sexed semen CIDR yearling synchro went on the Taieri. Above: IC AB technician assistant Chrissy TaylorClaude carries the liquid sexed semen in a chilli bin from Dunedin Airport.
five years ago so knew the product but this season decided to use it for his yearlings. “We usually do a 10-day PG synchro with our yearlings with nominated semen and we’ve always had good results with that and I was thinking of this year ordering two or three sexed straws to use over our top cows each day with the natural cycling matings. “But then I thought that was going to be so much hassle for everyone to identify those cows and find them each morning.” Instead he’s used the same amount of sexed semen but for 50% of his highest BW yearlings using a CIDR programme to line them up on the one day. The other 50% were inseminated the next day to nominated, non-sexed semen. “Last year we did the bottom 10% BW
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
cows with beef straws and this year, with using the sexed semen, we’re going to do 15% because we should get all of our replacements easily. “It’s still probably a bit conservative.” The aim is to bobby less calves from the 820 cows milking, selling the beef animals to rearers, as well as making the most of his top genetics to produce replacements. “We’ll see at scanning how good conception was with the sexed semen and in nine months how many heifers we get. “If I had thought about all the things that could have gone wrong, especially with the Covid lockdowns, I probably would have worried a lot more although we did have frozen nominated semen as backup just in case. “But it went really, really smoothly.”
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STOCK VETS VOICE
A healthy cow drinks up to 50l/session, and sick cows also need hydration, but how do you make them drink? Make sure you have an oral fluid pump and have been trained how to use it.
Toxic mastitis – saving cows takes time Be prepared to act quickly and give focused attention to sick cows, advises Lisa Whitfield.
M
ost people who have owned mastitis causing her illness you need to cattle will have seen a cow make a decision – do I have the time sick with toxic mastitis. available over the next few days to treat This is the cow which is sad, this cow properly? If the answer is no, then slow and “moribund”, with one or more ending her suffering immediately is the quarters severely affected by clinical humane choice. mastitis. What is proper treatment and If you are lucky, you will how much time does it take? find them before they are Toxic mastitis cases are down cows – look out for the usually caused by one of two cow that is not maintaining common bacteria – E coli or her position in the herd, Staph aureus. Other mastitisparticularly when they are being causing bacteria can cause a cow shifted. Lisa Whitfield to become sick, but the profoundly Many toxic mastitis cows are sick cows are usually either of the already down when they are first noticed. above mentioned two. Leaving these cows to see if they survive is Differentiating the two bacteria by not an option. Get some help – call your looking at the cow is challenging – they vet! often present with the same clinical As soon as you know that it is toxic symptoms in the early stages of the disease. 70
Severe dehydration, elevated or depressed temperature, off feed and off milk – all of these are common symptoms with either bacteria.
Considering all of the requirements in therapy, you need to be prepared to spend at least 30 minutes, twice a day, caring for a toxic mastitis cow. When it comes down to it, when you first discover that it is mastitis that is causing the cow to be gravely sick, it
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
doesn’t actually matter which bacteria is causing it. It is, however, useful in helping make a decision about whether to persevere with therapy or not – Staph aureus is much harder to cure, is able to be spread to other cows, and in the particular case of black mastitis, animal welfare should be thoughtfully considered. An aseptically collected milk sample should be cultured to identify the causative bacteria. In order to save a toxic mastitis cow, the symptoms she is presenting with need to be addressed rapidly.
SEVERE DEHYDRATION Severe dehydration usually results in a cow having sunken eyes. Toxic mastitis causes profound dehydration, which is ongoing over a number of days. Therefore addressing dehydration is not just a one-off task but should be performed as often as required. In my experience this is often two or three times in the first 24 hours, then one or two times a day until the cow is back to health – often three days later. Addressing profound dehydration does not just mean keeping a bucket of water with the cow. Most cows do not want to drink. Instead we must administer fluids to her, which in cattle is done most easily using a stomach pump. Every dairy farm should have this lifesaving piece of equipment on hand and have training in how to use it properly. The volume of fluids required depends on the size of the cow and the level of dehydration – for a 350kg Jersey cow you would expect to administer 30 litres per session. For a 700kg Friesian cow it is likely to be 45 to 50l each time she is being hydrated. Additives to oral fluids should include quality adult cow electrolytes (not calf electrolytes) and may include a daily dose of calcium and magnesium, and propylene glycol.
HIGH OR LOW TEMPERATURE A cow with a fever will usually not feel like eating, so addressing fever is important in order for a cow to feel like feeding. Use non-steroidal anti-inflammatories to
bring down a fever, and remember that the toxemia will often last for a few days so more than one dose may be required. Low body temperature is addressed with a cow cover or blanket, hay to eat, shelter and warm fluids.
OFF FEED First address any underlying fever and ensure dehydration is fully addressed over the course of the illness. Provide whatever good quality feed she will eat, bearing in mind not to overdo it on concentrates. Consider how much a cow needs to eat in order to maintain herself and her lactation – few cows will meet this while they are toxic, but if fever and dehydration are fully addressed a cow will be feeling as good as she can and is more likely to want to eat in the first place.
ANTIBIOTICS
Sunken eyes in an adult cow usually indicates severe dehydration.
There is a lot of controversy around antibiotics use and which one to use in these cases. Needless to say, your veterinarian will provide you with what they feel is the best drug for the job. Veterinarians are advised to review the literature if they wish to gain further insight into this subject.
LIFTING Having addressed dehydration and fever first, a toxic cow may need to be supported to stand. This is likely to be required more often than just once. Toxic cows that are down may need to be lifted twice or more per day; however, an assessment should be made to see whether she is even capable of this to start with. For a cow that can stand, the longer she can stand on her own the less chance of her experiencing secondary problems from being down for too long. With a cow that is unable to stand despite all efforts being made to address her symptoms, consideration should be given to her welfare.
TIME COMMITMENT Considering all of the above requirements in therapy, you need to be prepared to spend at least 30 minutes, twice a day, caring for a toxic mastitis cow. Your time budget is tight at certain times
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Essential equipment includes an oral fluid pump, and good quality adult cow electrolytes.
of the year, so if you cannot see yourself managing this, seriously consider the cow’s welfare. Your vet may have a technician available who can help take some of the ongoing treatment burden off you – it doesn’t hurt to enquire about this option. • Lisa Whitfield – Production Animal Veterinarian, Palmerston North. 71
STOCK CO DIARY
Keeping cows cool over summer Words by: Frank Portegys
WATER
W
One of the first things to consider is your water supply. I have found this is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to reduce cow discomfort. If your cows are rushing to drink after milking, or the trough can’t always keep up, your cows are thirsty.
BOOKS
e are already noticing more hot days as we approach summer and temperatures will only continue to rise across the country in the coming months. During summer, many of us can relate to feeling hot and uncomfortable. Cows are the same, but begin to feel the heat sooner, as they prefer temperatures between 4C and 20C. When cows get uncomfortable in the heat, they do similar things we do – they drink more, become less active and use shade where available. When the temperature gets above 21C, Friesian and crossbred cows also start to reduce their feed intake and produce less milk. Jersey cows cope better with warmer temperatures and do not typically start to produce less milk until the temperature reaches 25C, although factors like high humidity and warmer night temperatures affect this. There are some key strategies you can use to protect your cows from discomfort during summer.
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Trees planted in the right place can provide excellent shade for cows. If you don’t have trees now, consider planting some in preparation for future summers. To reduce this, you should have good water supply both in the paddock and in the race up to the shed, so cows can have a drink on the way to the paddock after milking. You will also need to check you have good flow rates, so troughs never run dry.
Frank Portegys.
MANAGEMENT Altering milking times so cows avoid walking in the heat of the day is another strategy to reduce cow discomfort. This not only benefits the herd but will help your farm staff feel more comfortable too.
COOLING Sprinklers can be used over the dairy yard to wet the cows’ coats and aid evaporative cooling, but you should use enough water
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so that it runs off the cows. This is best used in conjunction with fans to help move humid air away after wetting.
SHADE Using paddocks with shade trees is beneficial to reduce heat stress in livestock. Trees planted in the right place can provide excellent shade for cows. If you don’t have trees now, consider planting some in preparation for future summers. While hotter temperatures can be more stressful for cows, many farmers are successful in keeping their cows as comfortable as possible. With the worst summer temperatures not yet upon us, now is a good time to consider how the past summers have affected your cows. Talk to your team about how you can better approach this summer to reduce heat stress in your herd. More information is available online at dairynz.co.nz/heatstress • Frank Portegys is DairyNZ consulting officer for Morrinsville/Matamata.
Adequate water supply is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to reduce cow discomfort.
Why do we love our cows like they’re family? Because they are family Treating your animals with respect and kindness is vital. To us, it’s how we farm. In fact, we aim to be world leading in animal care. Why? Because we’re dairy farmers and we rise to the challenge. And it’s in these moments we shine.
Riseandshine.nz
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
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By Brad Markham
Rallying to the cause
I
t is 3.15am on a calm spring morning as Dannevirke dairy farmer Tania Cresswell slides on her gumboots and heads outside. The 29-year-old manages her parents’ 55-hectare dairy farm at Papatawa, milking 160 predominately Holstein Friesian cows. Tania jumps on to a two-wheeler motorbike, giving it a kick-start. The engine roars to life, piercing the pre-dawn silence. It is not long before the farm’s 14-aside milking shed starts to fill with cows gently jostling for position and eager to be milked. “An easy-going temperament is one of the main traits I strive for in a cow. I work alone a lot of the time, so having a docile animal is crucial,” she said. “Plus, I also give the cows a mineral drench in the milking shed, things like magnesium and iodine, and quiet cows are easier to drench.” During milking Tania zig-zags her way down the pit, changing clusters and identifying cows to draft for artificial insemination. “At this time of the year it’s a daily race 74
against the clock to get my farm jobs done and be on the road by 7.15am,” she said. Tania works as an artificial insemination (AI) technician with genetics company LIC, a seasonal position she has held for 10 years. “I did my training with LIC in 2011. After a month working as an apprentice, I was given my own AI run,” Tania sxays. The job sees Tania driving between up to 12 local dairy farms each day, inseminating cows on heat. “It’s a really rewarding job. The aspect I enjoy the most is getting out and talking to other farmers,” said Tania. “Mating is one of the busiest times of the year and people can often get stuck in their farm bubbles for long periods.” “If the grass isn’t growing and feed is in short supply, it’s nice to be able to let farmers know others in the district are in a similar situation,” she said. The biggest farm on Tania’s run milks about 700 cows. “When they synchronise a large number of cows to come on heat together, I have to inseminate 120 cows in one visit,” she said.
“It can take up to two hours.” LIC revealed Tania has inseminated 25,611 cows since she started as an AI technician. That is roughly 2561 inseminations a year. It is usually 11am at the earliest before Tania returns home. After a quick bite to eat, she heads back out on the farm. Tania is the third generation of her family to farm the property, which has 10ha of flats, the remainder of the land is hilly. “We tend to say we have mountain cows rather than just plain dairy cows,” laughed Tania. Her grandparents Bob and Gladys Cresswell bought the farm in 1950 and Tania manages it for her parents Keith and Gayle. The farm produced 52,000kg of milksolids (kg MS) in the 2019-20 season, about 10,000kg MS less than normal, and the best production has been 65,000kg MS. “The prolonged drought had a big impact on grass growth and milk production last season,” she said. Tania had to dry off on May 6 this year, three weeks earlier than usual. “I ended up switching to once-a-day milking
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Main photo: Tania is co-driver for Ashburton dry-stock farmer Wayne Muckle. Tania and Wayne and reach speeds of up to 230km/h in the rally car. Left: Tania and one of her Holstein Friesian heifers. Above: Tania and the rally car.
Farm facts Owners: Keith and Gayle Cresswell. Managed by: Tania Cresswell Location: Dannevirke, central Hawke’s Bay Farm size: 55 hectares (total effective area 144ha across three blocks, fully self-contained) Cows: 160 cows Production: 52,000kg MS 2019-20 season Stud name: Whariti Holsteins
at the start of March, which isn’t something we have done before,” she said. “The farm was the driest it’s been in living memory. Going once-a-day helped the cows hold some of their condition.” Milk production on the property usually averages 380-400kg MS per cow. “We don’t do any summer cropping. We rely on pasture and feed out grass silage harvested from a nearby 60-hectare runoff,” she said. Cows have access to up to two kilograms a day each of palm kernel (PKE) and molasses during the spring, fed in trailers. The farm sits 170-220 metres above sea level, meaning calving does not start until 5 August. The herd is wintered on a neighbouring 42-hectare block, which was purchased in 2009. The farm sources its genetics from LIC’s premier sires Holstein Friesian bull team during mating. “Fairmont Mint-Edition, San Ray FM Beamer-ET S2F and Morrows Super Hero-ET
S2F have all left some really good daughters for us,” she said. The Cresswells even had one of their own bulls, 2011-born Whariti EO Hillbury S3F, make the LIC bull team. He sired 2188 daughters in 664 herds. “He was the great grandson of 2000-born cow, Heidi, who was the second calf I had as a pet as a child,” she says. Heidi, who was unregistered, lived until she was 18 and had nine daughters. Tania is still milking some of her descendants. “We like a sound, reliable cow that can handle the hills and gets in calf every year,” said Tania. “You know those cows who reach the age of 10 or 12 and they’ve just got on with the job and not had any issues.”
‘Mating is one of the busiest
times of the year and people
can often get stuck in their farm bubbles for long periods.’
Tania has been a member of Holstein Friesian NZ since 2012 and is an active member of the association’s Hawke’s Bay Branch. “We have little get-togethers every couple of months. We’ll often visit the herd of another branch member,” she said. “It’s great to just talk about cows for a few hours. I really enjoy it.”
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Talking cows and genetics is not Tania’s only hobby. The thrill seeker can often be found in the front seat of a rally car hurtling down a gravel road at speeds of more than 200 kilometres an hour. She is a co-driver for Ashburton drystock farmer Wayne Muckle in the New Zealand Rally Championship. “We used to have a hill climb on the public road that goes past our support block. I’d go and watch, and thought it looked fun,” she said. “One year I got to go for a ride in one of the cars and as they say, the rest is history.” Tania plays a crucial role, acting as a navigator and an extra set of eyes for Wayne. “I organise where we have to be for each rally. I’ll also go over the course, analyse video footage and check our pace notes,” she said. “I’ll read those while we’re racing. I’ll tell Wayne what’s ahead, where to go and make sure he listens.” The car is a Mitsubishi Evo 3, which is fitted with a roll cage and other safety features, and can reach speeds of up to 230km/h. “We crashed last year and ended up upside down over a bank. That’s why I prefer to stick to being a co-driver. It’s a cheap way to enjoy the sport. I don’t have to pay for the car, or the repair bill,” she laughs. This year the pair were due to compete in the NZ Rally Championship in category one with a new Mitsubishi Evo 10, the same category as Ben Hunt and Hayden Paddon. But the championship was shelved due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 75
WELLBEING TRAUMA
Do you
DEDIKATE
time to you?
Prioritising health and wellbeing is key to managing chaos in life writes Harriet Bremner. Harriet Bremner and Poppy.
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W
hen life gets chaotic the first thing we tend to do is increase our caffeine intake, eat more carb-based foods, sleep less and drop the exercise off the list because we don’t believe we have time. When we do this, we make everything seem like it is less achievable because we are running on little sleep, adrenals and food that is quick and easy, which traditionally isn’t helpful in giving us long lasting energy. This impacts our ability to make good decisions daily and function at a high level, which is really important when dealing with people, animals, machinery and the daily stresses of farming life. Being ‘time poor’ is something that I hear often, especially from those who have families and businesses to run. There are so many things to fit into a day and prioritising what should come first can be really, really hard. I am not a mother but I, in my own way, have lived in chaos for several years now and I make it manageable through ensuring that I prioritise my health and wellbeing on a daily basis. I am more able to make decisions that are better for me and the people around me and I sleep much, much better on the days I exercise. When I am working out regularly, I crave foods that are good for me and that nourish and fuel my body. A few years ago after my life came to a sudden standstill I found myself in the rut of all ruts. I couldn’t eat or sleep and the motivation to exercise was nil to none. Why would I bother? Nothing I did felt important anymore while the grief in my everyday life consumed me and I was merely surviving. I had every single excuse under the sun. I can’t be bothered, I am too tired, I haven’t slept, I am too far away from a gym, I have no one to exercise with me or keep me accountable and
the list went on. I didn’t feel like me anymore. I had always loved exercising but having such a massive trauma in my life brought everything to a screaming halt overnight and I did not know how to move forward until I discovered Kate Ivey Fitness and her online fitness programme, Dedikate. Kate’s online fitness programme got me back on track physically and emotionally. It did not allow me to have excuses because 20 minutes a day is a very achievable amount of time to spend on yourself. The words that Kate uses have stuck with me and on days I don’t feel like exercising I tell myself that the hardest part will be putting my shoes on and starting – it is so true, once the two-minute warmup is started I am away! I love the fact that I can select the workout that I want to do on the app off my phone or laptop, push play and then Kate does all the explaining. If you are new to exercise she has a variety of levels available and always shows you how to do each exercise so you know what you are doing! I have been with Kate Ivey Fitness for three and a half years now and still love it – my favourites are the resistance band workouts and the Sculpt sessions with weights. Kate now offers yoga, Pilates, post-natal workouts, low-impact workouts, power sessions using body weight, a nutritionist and more, alongside wonderful recipes that the kids also love! I also changed my mindset from exercise being about losing weight to it being about making me feel better physically and mentally while being more able to cope with life generally. I also eat when I am hungry - about every three hours. I have learnt that we should not starve our bodies just because the time on the clock says it’s not ‘eating’ time but feed and fuel them when they need it.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
I also changed my mindset from exercise being about losing weight to it being about making me feel better physically and mentally while being more able to cope with life generally. As soon as this was my focus I was successful. This is about lifestyle changes, not short term results. I am in it for the right reasons and I believe this is why I am still going all these years later! I enjoyed chatting to Kate the other week to hear some tips and tricks to staying healthy and looking after yourself. Below are her wise words from one mum and business owner to another!
KATE:
“Looking after yourself both physically and mentally is important, so you can be at your best more often, so you can make good decisions and so you can continue to thrive even when things are chaotic. So often women think of exercise and healthy eating as something they only do if they want to lose weight. Losing this mentality is important to ensure weight balance over time, yes, but also to enable you to carry out your day-to-day tasks with ease and as mentioned above to be at your best and to thrive. When life gets busy, exercise and nourishing our bodies can drop on the priority list, but it is then that we need it most of all. Here are my top tips on looking after yourself, even when you don’t feel like you have time: • Quick but effective workouts, 20 minutes will do the trick both physically and mentally. • Remind yourself that exercise and healthy eating are mental health tools and you need to prioritise them. • Think of your exercise, healthy eating, rest etc as time-saving tools! You’ll be more productive. • Quick easy meals, that fuel you well. Try these overnight oats! • Take food with you when out on the farm, and try and listen to your body when it needs fuel. • Take water with you, hydration is so important for energy levels. • If you feeling exhausted from physical work try yoga, Pilates or low impact workouts. It’s also really important to not be hard on yourself and learn as you go. Yet at the same time, try and live in the moment and don’t put your health off to ‘when it’s not so busy’”. Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Dedikating time for fitness.
Recipe Carrot Cake Overnight Oats So delicious and you can make it the night before so you can eat it before you head out in the mornings. Extra good on those busy mornings! Ingredients: Step 1 • 1/2 cup oats • 1/2 cup milk • 1/4 cup grated carrot • 2 tablespoons natural Yoghurt • 1 tablespoon raisins Step 2 • 1 tablespoon 100% pure maple syrup • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon • 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg • 1 tablespoon chopped pecans Directions Add the ingredients from Step 1 to a jar in the order listed. Combine the ingredients from Step 2, EXCEPT the pecans, and add to the jar. Top with pecans. Refrigerate overnight and be super pumped with yourself the next morning for being so organised the night before!
So if you are ready to make health and fitness your priority head to https:// kateiveyfitness.co.nz/ and get your first two weeks free. You can add the option contact with Kate for extra accountability which I highly recommend to keep you on track at the start and join the Dedikate online community on Facebook to hear other women’s journey’s, tribulations and successes making you feel not so alone wherever in the world you are! I applaud you and everyone else for taking the first step towards being the best possible version of yourself. 77
DAIRY 101 SOIL MOISTURE
When the sky stays stubbornly blue.
Pasture management hacks for dry weather Story and photos by: Karen Trebilcock
J
ournalists know as soon as we start writing about dry conditions or droughts it’s sure to rain, usually before publication date. So for any region of the country that is currently a bit on the dry side, fingers crossed, I hope this works for you. Knowing how to deal with dry periods is becoming more and more important as climate change occurs. However, we’ve had dry periods in the past as well. If you have been reading the ”50 Years Ago” in the Dairy Exporter each month you will know that at the start of 1970, drought affected the whole of the country causing many farmers to dry cows off early. Milk production was halved for the first few months of the year compared with the same time the year before. Imagine production taking a hit like that today. Now we have ways to mitigate dry periods that they didn’t have back then – pivot irrigation, balage, and the importation of cheap feeds such as palm 78
kernel – keep our cows fully fed and milking when the sky stays stubbornly blue. Decades ago we dried off cows and our income took a hit; now it’s the expense side of the balance sheet that shows the effect. Rain is free but unfortunately it never falls in regular amounts throughout the year. A nice 20mm soaking every Friday night would be great and make farming a breeze. But it’s not rainfall that necessarily keeps droughts at bay. Soil moisture is the more important measure because rain can be quickly evaporated away by sun and wind. There are some expensive gadgets out there that measure soil moisture but there is nothing wrong with a spade. Dig a hole in a paddock, away from fences and water troughs, and see how much moisture there is. At the same time, look at your soil structure and see how far the roots of your pasture go down. Knowing what you have to work with under your cows’ hooves can make sure
you ask the right questions to find the solutions. When it does rain, the soil stores the moisture but some types of soil, especially those high in organic matter, store moisture better than others and some plants can access that moisture better than others too. But it is also how you look after those soils. Whatever you think of regenerative farming, its principle of keeping covers high and pasture in a growing state as much as possible is hard to argue with. Plants shade soil from the sun and lessen moisture loss from the wind. They keep the moisture where it should be – trapped in their root zone, which is exactly where they need it. High covers also help to prevent soil compaction since animals are less likely to pug or compress the ground beneath them. All soils have pores that hold the water between the different aggregates. Compressing these pores lowers the soil’s moisture holding potential. A cushion of
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
While you keep your covers up on your best paddocks to keep them growing, stack the cows on your poorer areas and feed supplement there. plant material helps to stop it. But those plants could use the water available to them a bit more economically. Of all the water they take up, they use less than 1% in producing dry matter. The rest is lost through their leaves as water vapour, which is called transpiration. Transpiration is important for plants to cool themselves in hot conditions and also it’s part of their photosynthesis process. Some plants, such as cacti that live in very dry climates, have figured out transpiration is not a great idea. Unfortunately they will never make it onto New Zealand’s Forage Value Index (FVI). But there are other solutions such as deep rooted grasses, herbs with long taproots, and sub clovers. White clover doesn’t handle the dry well as its root system is usually near or at the surface of the soil. Subterranean (sub) clover (Trifolium subterraneum) is an annual clover but sets large amounts of seed in early summer that germinate at lower air temperatures (10C to 15C) compared with perennial legumes (20C to 25C), so in late winter and early spring it’s there when you need it. But you mustn’t let the cows eat it as it is seeding in summer or there will be no plants next year. Another alternative is red clover, which has a long tap root so can access soil moisture deep down. Also replace ryegrass with tall fescue, which can handle the heat better and its roots reach down much further seeking moisture. Sow it with cocksfoot, another deep-rooted dryland grass, prairie grass and phalaris from across the ditch. Many Australian dryland farmers grow phalaris, which has good winter growth. Then of course there is lucerne, also known as alfalfa in Europe and North America, a favourite of Kiwi sheep farmers. Chicory is classed as a herb and can be sown either on its own or in a pasture mix. With its long tap root it gives high yields of palatable feed from spring through to autumn, even in the heat and the dry. All of these alternatives to ryegrass and white clover have different management and grazing strategies to keep them persisting, and some, such as phalaris, can cause animal health issues if grazed at the wrong time so make sure you do your research before planting them. On dry, sun- and wind-exposed parts of your farm they might make the difference between having to buy in feed or not so you can keep your cows milking. But they need to be established before it gets dry – it is no use getting into summer and thinking about them then. And if the weather doesn’t turn dry, many of them don’t like wet feet. Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Forget about keeping a rainfall chart, instead look at your soil moisture.
Besides looking after soils and growing the right type of pasture, managing your farm under dry conditions will make a difference too. Just like in very wet conditions, sacrifice paddocks are also necessary in the dry. While you keep your covers up on your best paddocks to keep them growing, stack the cows on your poorer areas and feed supplement there. Not only are you looking after your good pasture, you’ll be improving the organic matter of the sacrifice paddocks – which are the ones that probably need it. And when it does finally rain, don’t sigh with relief and go back to life as normal. Let the grass grow to the three tiller stage before you let your cattle eat it. Plants need to build up their carbohydrate reserves to regrow well. Grazing the first “green pick” can kill a pasture.
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79
SOLUTIONS What’s NEW? MILK COOLING
Cool and compliant with aquaCHILL
A
s milk cooling regulations continue to get tougher, and with warmer summer months upon us, dairy farmers are looking to alleviate the worry associated with compliance. With strict milk cooling regulations imposed by dairy processors, farmers are becoming increasingly interested in upgrading or replacing their systems to position themselves well ahead in terms of compliance. GEA Farm Technologies is helping farmers keep up with the changes with the GEA aquaCHILL, a future-proofed cooling system that can snap chill milk to 4C and has the invaluable ability to be tailored to meet future standards – easily. Current cooling standards require milk to be held at 6C, and for Southland dairy farmers Ferdinand Vries and Stacey Young, upgrading to the aquaCHILL meant they
no longer had to worry about meeting compliance standards. “The main benefit is absolute peace of mind. When the shed is turned off, the milk is down to temperature – there’s no worrying about whether the plate cooler was working or if the well water was cold enough. When we finish milking the milk
is chilled, and they can pick it up any time they want,” Ferdinand says. “The best insurance policy was putting in the snap chiller. We were never not making it, but it was always a struggle! Now with the GEA aquaCHILL it’s no worry at all, the milk is always under 6C, no matter what.” Running in tandem with the vat, the aquaCHILL is a simple “plug and play” solution that can be retrofitted to any system. Designed to run only during milking, no additional power is required between milkings to offset losses from systems using thermal storage. It also includes unique energy saving features, helping to lower the overall current draw of the unit to reduce power consumption and monthly costs. • For more information on GEA’s aquaCHILL, contact 0800 GEA FARM.
LIC flies fresh semen to South Island
D
emand for LIC’s fresh liquid bull semen is flying out the door as demand rockets. The co-operative chartered a plane through Mainland Air to airfreight more than 70,000 straws of semen (its biggest inter-island shipment) from Hamilton to Nelson, Christchurch, Invercargill and Dunedin departing on October 31. The shipment was just one of many LIC will make as its team works to impregnate four million cows over the coming months. The 12cm long straws flying out of Hamilton tomorrow will be stored in secure chilly bins as cargo during the flight with care and speed of delivery critical to maintaining the semen’s integrity. It’s the first time in LIC’s history it has chartered a plane for its semen delivery to the South Island and demonstrates the lengths it’s going to ensure there is no interruption to its supply chain during the pandemic. It also supports other 80
LIC fresh liquid bull semen straws being prepared for shipment to the South Island.
traditional air and land transport options the co-operative is using to transport fresh semen quickly. Once on the ground, straws are quickly distributed by LIC’s artificial breeding logistics teams to artificial breeding technicians who will be onfarm within days to inseminate cows for dairy farmers as part of their mating plans. The process then starts again with LIC’s artificial breeding technicians inseminating cows across the country resulting in around $300 million in genetic gain.
A similar volume of 2019 inseminations is expected for 2020 as cow efficiency and production increases but herd numbers remain stable. LIC’s general manager NZ Markets, Malcolm Ellis, says the shipment marks an exciting milestone as it’s the biggest individual consignment to date to the South Island by LIC. “We’re seeing strong demand across our AB product options this year. Our delivery of fresh semen via our powerful Premier Sires teams continues to be a defining contributor of genetic merit to the national herd. “This year we are particularly experiencing phenomenal growth in the area of fresh sexed semen which delivers a 90% chance of producing a heifer calf enabling farmers to target valuable heifer replacements from their most productive cows ensuring the rate of genetic gain within their dairy herds is optimised.”
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
SOLUTIONS What’s NEW? HEAT MILK REPLACER
Sprayfo CMR closest alternative
N
ew Sprayfo Delta Energised Calf Milk from AgriVantage provides New Zealand farmers with a highly digestible curding milk replacer inspired by whole milk. It is designed to support rapid early growth rates and optimal organ development. “This means that farmers who prefer to feed whole milk to their calves can feed Sprayfo Delta and get all the benefits they expect from whole milk, with the added consistency that comes with a manufactured product,” Animal Nutrition Consultant to AgriVantage Natalie Chrystal says. “Because whole milk feeding can include transition milk, waste milk, saleable milk from the vat, or a combination thereof, there can be a big variance in composition and quality. And, unless milk is pasteurised prior to feeding, there’s always the risk of pathogen transmission. “For these reasons, we recommend that farmers who are looking to optimise calf health and performance consider the
benefits of a quality milk replacer to achieve consistently good results.” Sprayfo milk replacers are distributed locally by 100% NZ-owned animal nutrition business AgriVantage, offering premium solutions for calf, lamb and goat kid rearing. The manufacturing technologies used in the production of Sprayfo products are a big factor in the success of these products onfarm. New Sprayfo Delta incorporates the latest research into a highly digestible, high-fat milk replacer ideally suited to rearing heifers for a productive lifetime. At 24% fat, the product boasts a higher fat content than other CMRs on the NZ market, providing calves with a high level of energy to support rapid early growth rates. “Sprayfo’s unique spray dry
manufacturing technologies ensure that the small, homogenised fat molecules in these milk replacers are highly digestible,” Natalie says. “In fact, Sprayfo Delta has a proven digestibility of more than 95%. High digestibility means that calves are able to utilise more of the nutrients present in the milk replacer. From a practical point of view, this means farmers will see greater growth rates. It also means that less indigestible nutrients pass into the intestine, reducing the risk of diarrhoea or other gut issues.” Sprayfo Delta Energised Calf Milk gives farmers the option to sell more milk, knowing their calves are still getting the best possible start in life. And, at an introductory price of $70/bag (tonne rate), there is no better time to try it. Call AgriVantage on 0800 64 55 76 for details. * When Sprayfo Delta is mixed at the recommended rate, see www.agrivantage.co.nz
Lely unveils futuristic dairy concepts
L
ely has taken another leap into the future introducing two new concepts – a system of harvesting and feeding fresh grass to cows, and a new manure system that utilises more nutrients from the slurry. The Lely Exos concept is the first fully autonomous system for harvesting and feeding fresh grass in the barn during the growing season and in conjunction with grazing, if need be. The main goal is to harvest fresh grass in fields up to 1km away from the farm to increase the nutritional value of the roughage in the cows’ diet more efficiently, therefore producing more milk from grass. The Exos is an electrically powered machine using GPS to travel to the fields to autonomously mow, load and dispense grass to the cows in the barns. Exos can
harvest and provide fresh grass to the cows 24 hours a day, saving time and labour for the farmer. Lely Exos. The first prototypes of the Exos are already operational on test farms where as much information as possible about the autonomous harvesting of fresh grass will be generated by extensive daily testing. Lely Sphere system separates manure and urine, converts nitrogen emissions, and creates three valuable types of fertiliser. By making better use of the minerals in manure and converting losses through emission into value, the mineral loop is better closed and less chemical
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
fertiliser needs to be purchased. In the Sphere system, manure and urine are separated from each other with the urine flowing through separation strips to the pit, while the manure remains above. This is the first step to limiting emissions because separating at the source results in less ammonia in the barn. The Lely Sphere N-Capture creates a negative pressure in the pit and extracts manure gases that are created under and just above the barn floor. This also includes the remainder of the ammonia formed on the walking surface and the pit. The filter in the N-Capture captures the ammonia and uses acid to convert it into fertiliser. The Discovery Collector barn cleaning robot regularly sucks up the solid manure, keeps the barn floor clean, and transports this solid fraction to a chosen disposal site. 81
OUR STORY 50 YEARS AGO IN NZ DAIRY EXPORTER
50 years ago in the Dairy Exporter November As NZ Dairy Exporter counts down to its centenary in 2025, we look back at the issues of earlier decades. 50 Years Ago – November 1970.
HIT GRASS GRUB HARD
I
n spite of the ban on DDT, grass grub hasn’t got us beat yet. New products and methods are coming forward, and use can be made of established pasture management techniques to give a measure of control. The dairyfarmer doesn’t have to give up and “learn to live with it” – he can still fight back. The residual effect of DDT as an effective control of grass grub has almost finished. This was evident in the lighter soils of Southern Hawkes Bay and the sandy soils of the Manawatu where grass grub was again becoming a threat to good pasture production last autumn and winter. It must also be an increasing problem in other districts. Let’s try and put a figure on the cost of treating the grub. Fensulfothian costs $8.50 per acre to treat a paddock of grass grub. In terms of butterfat, even at 25 cents a pound, it is the equivalent to 34 lb of butterfat. One grazing at 50 cows per acre per day in April doing 0.8 lb of butterfat per cow per day will give 40 lb of butterfat. So one extra grazing off a paddock in the autumn will more than pay for the use of the insecticide.
CONSULTING OFFICER’S DIARY
At this time of year most farmers’ thoughts will be turned towards conservation of feed. Silage in many farmers’ minds is a dirty word and yet there are few areas in New Zealand where early hay can be 82
satisfactorily made. After last season’s drought the conservation of all surpluses is a “must” but small amounts of silage for instance are difficult to make. Some farmers are looking at the possibility of using nitrogen to increase yields of hay and silage. Whilst it could be agreed that nitrogen will increase the yield of hay, it will also make the pasture more lush and it will take a day or two longer to dry. Up to 30 lb nitrogen (1 ½ cwt sulphate of ammonia) would be the maximum that could be used with safety.
HIGH STANDARD AT NATIONAL JERSEY BULL SHOW AND SALE
With the Show classes judged by Messrs Don McIntosh, Woodville and Hec Morgan, Ngarua, the bulls paraded at this year’s “National Jersey Bull Show and Sale” held in the Claudelands Showgrounds, Hamilton were not only of a high standard of conformation but were in excellent order and condition despite the severe drought conditions experienced last season. With a slight recession of values the averages for the two-day sale were very even, 39 bulls selling each day for an average price around $200. The highest price of the sale, $1150, was realised on the second day by young Masterton breeder C. C. Oliver when he paraded Silverage Chancellor. This aristocrat became the property of R. W. Palmer, Te Awamutu.
The beginnings of stockmanship that has always been and will always be such an important part of farming. This photograph of schoolchildren and their pets on calf club day was taken at Eltham.
Doubly bred to Glenmore Attainment, he is from All Breeds Champion Whariti Choice Clematis VHC. Merit, record to 525 lb. fat.
ELDERS FIRST
There is a lot of sighing and grumbling about our young men and women, our teenagers, but I’m wondering if our generation isn’t largely responsible for how they are. After all they live in a mixed-up society where a sense of values is hard to shape and indifference towards age, property and responsibility has become the pattern. Our generation push make-up and fashion goods by mass media advertising so convincingly that even a twelve-year-old feels she must wear this or that or no man will ever look at her. Can we blame the young folk who have strayed into what we consider undesirable company and have done things we call foolish or bad because they had time and money to spend and there was no-one pointing out their foolishness? • Thanks to the Hocken Library, Dunedin.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
DairyNZ consulting officers
November Events
Upper North Island – Head: Sharon Morrell 027 492 2907 Northland Regional Leader
Tareen Ellis
027 499 9021
Far North
Amy Weston
027 807 9686
Lower Northland
Hamish Matthews
021 242 5719
Whangarei West
Ryan Baxter
021 809 569
Regional Leader
Wilma Foster
021 246 2147
South Auckland
Mike Bramley
027 486 4344
Hauraki Plains/Coromandel
Michael Booth
021 245 8055
Te Aroha/Waihi
Euan Lock
027 293 4401
Cambridge
Lizzy Moore
021 242 2127
Hamilton
Ashley Smith
027 807 3049
Huntly/Tatuanui
Brigitte Ravera
027 288 1244
Matamata/Kereone
Frank Portegys
027 807 9685
Pirongia
Steve Canton
027 475 0918
Otorohanga/King Country
Phil Irvine
027 483 9820
Waipa South
Kirsty Dickens
027 483 2205
Regional Leader
Andrew Reid
027 292 3682
Central Plateau
Colin Grainger-Allen
021 225 8345
South Waikato/Rotorua South
Angela Clarke
027 276 2675
Eastern Bay of Plenty
Ross Bishop
027 563 1785
Central Bay of Plenty
Kevin McKinley
027 288 8238
Waikato
Know your numbers
Bay of Plenty
Steps to a future-fit farm system
Lower North Island – Head: Rob Brazendale 021 683 139
Want to identify opportunities in your business? DairyNZ’s Step
Taranaki
Change events will help provide clarity on your current position and how you can position yourself to adapt for the future. Visit dairynz.co.nz/events.
Regional Leader
Mark Laurence
027 704 5562
South Taranaki
Ashely Primrose
027 304 9823
Central Taranaki
Emma Hawley
021 276 5832
Coastal Taranaki
Caroline Benson
027 210 2137
North Taranaki
Ian Burmeister
027 593 4122
Lower North Island
Have you got a Healthy Udder guide?
Horowhenua/Coastal and Southern Manawatu
Kate Stewart
027 702 3760
Wairarapa/Tararua
Abby Scott
021 244 3428
Keep your udders healthy this holiday period.
Eketahuna
Andrew Hull
027 298 7260
Hawke's Bay
Gray Beagley
021 286 4346
Northern Manawatu/Woodville
Janine Swansson
027 381 2025
Central Manawatu/Rangitikei/Whanganui
Charlotte Grayling
027 355 3764
Order your free guide today at dairynz.co.nz/healthy-udder
South Island – Head: Tony Finch 027 706 6183 Top of South Island/West Coast
What is your 6-week in-calf rate this season?
Nelson/Marlborough
Mark Shadwick
021 287 7057
West Coast
Angela Leslie
021 277 2894
Regional Leader
Rachael Russell
027 261 3250
North Canterbury
Amy Chamberlain
027 243 0943
Central Canterbury
Alice Reilly
027 3798 069
Mid Canterbury
Rachael Russell
027 261 3250
South Canterbury
Rachael Russell
027 261 3250
North Otago
Alana Hall
027 290 5988
Canterbury/North Otago
The InCalf book is designed to help maximise the rate your cows get in calf. Order your free copy today visit dairynz.co.nz/incalf
Southland/South Otago
Dairy farmers Rise and Shine
Regional Leader
Ollie Knowles
027 226 4420
West Otago/Gore
Keely Sullivan
027 524 5890
DairyNZ is telling the story of how Kiwi dairy farmers
South Otago
Guy Michaels
021 302 034
are the world’s most sustainable dairy farmers. To
Northern/Central Southland
Nicole E Hammond
021 240 8529
Eastern Southland
Nathan Nelson
021 225 6931
Western Southland
Leo Pekar
027 211 1389
see great Kiwi dairy farmer stories visit riseandshine.nz
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
Z
0800 4 DairyNZ (0800 4 324 7969) I dairynz.co.nz WITH DAIR
YN
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There's always room for improvement
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
