Light brush from Cyclone Dovi – Graham Smith

Every season is different and so farming is always a moving feast of jobs and planning. It never fails to keep me interested and motivated to anticipate the next required moves. With three cuts of silage in the pit, followed by some baleage before it got too dry, I feel reasonably secure against the vagaries of the seasons.

The cows are in good condition and still putting out a kilo a day. Supplementation is in the form of silage at 7 kg/cow/day and 3 kg PKE/soy hull blend. The PKE will be tapered off a bit as the effects of the last rains get the grass growing again. After only 11.5 mm for January and some extreme heat, the rains from the 7^th February have been very welcome. Already this month we have had 89 mm, spread from the 7^th to the 19^th February. All grasses have responded well, in particular the shaded paddocks that never truly dried right out. Seedling ryegrass is already 100 mm high, and any further rain will guarantee its survival. The long round into the summer that I always do has paid off this year with all the grasses seeding and a very good strike. This bodes well for the winter and next spring with all pastures thickened up.

Scanning is always a stressful time as it affects all future decisions for the coming new season. My empty rate of 13% was 4% higher than last season but was not unexpected due to spring conditions. Fortunately, I only lost one good cow and even she was getting on in years. I hear that most farms are running higher empty rates so even OAD doesn’t save you from nature’s effects.

I have been working with this herd since 1977 so I was pleasantly surprised to be contacted by LIC saying they want to contract mate one of my heifers. She comes from a reliably good family, and I am sure she will produce a good bull should she have one. Part of me wants a heifer calf to further boost herd quality but I am also proud to contribute to the national herd if the bull should prove to be good.

Cyclone Dovi left its mark through the country, and I was worried about its potential to wreak havoc here. We have a big hill to the north of the farm, and it forced the worst of the wind around us and so only about 50 branches came down. I could hear it whistling overhead and will take my luck whilst it is running. I hope all those damaged farms are getting things sorted Ok.

In recent weeks I took the opportunity to set up another Paulownia nursery on the farm. Demand for saplings has been increasing and I feel this will intensify as farms need quick shade and shelter for their stock. As it is, I have fully sold my saplings for this season, which is a first, and they all went to one buyer. Timber sales have been good, but this red light has slowed things down, or is it the money the government threw out earlier on now starting to run out? I think they have been off the mark in dealing with the anarchists in Wellington, but I guess any decision made would have been wrong in someone’s eyes!

Older Paulownias have the habit of putting out long lateral roots. Normally they are tap rooted but as they get older, they want to reproduce, and this is one way they can make identical clones of themselves. The lateral root runs between half and one metre under the grass and I have found them 50 metres from the nearest tree. From this lateral they send up shoots, which would become trees but for my cows finding them very tasty. Each year there are more and more of them and in a drought when the grass is dead, they are good green feed for the cows. I use these if I want more nursery roots to multiply my trees.

More research has been carried out on my trees and their effects and I will have further to say on that in another blog.

Events I had been planning to attend through late summer and autumn have been cancelled for fear of Omicron, so Tess and I will have a break at Kawhia instead and annoy the fish.

Kind summer – John van der Goes

The summer has been very kind to us. Regular rain and warm days created spring like conditions. At one stage we had a rotation length of 24 days and five paddocks shut up for silage. We cut three to get 64 bales of silage. We baled a bit early, so it was not quite dry enough, but the weather was threatening. The quality was a bit unknown because it was mainly summer grass, but we are feeding it out now and it doesn’t seem too bad.

Production has almost flat-lined and we have made inroads on the deficit on last year’s production. In the last couple of weeks we have fallen behind again which is mainly due to cow numbers. This year a neighbour asked to buy our old, quiet, empty cows to rear calves on. They are paying good money so it seems worthwhile. Also gives some good old cows a longer life.

I have now slowed the round down, started feeding more fodder beet and started grass silage to keep feed levels the same for the cows. This is to make up for the paddocks affected by undersowing and regrassing.

I have spent quite a bit of time killing weeds, mainly Californian thistle, but also some pennyroyal. The good growth has allowed me to boom spray these weeds in an attempt to improve our pastures. Also spent a fair amount of time on the tractor planting grass seed. Both new grass and undersowing into older pasture. This year I have switched to using a tine drill for undersowing as it seems to make a better seed bed and opens up to allow more seed to germinate. I’m planting when the grass is longer and then grazing when the seedlings are young to open up and allow them more light to grow.

We seem to be flat out at this time of the year with everything on the farm and trying to fit in things we want to do. So far it seems like only the farm things are getting done. At least our timing is better this year and seed is getting planted on time. We are hoping to avoid last year’s mistakes and have all our paddocks able to be grazed this winter.

We have nearly finished the bathroom renovation. Just some trims to paint and put in and the bath to paint and lights which still need to be chosen. Since the floor needed to be redone we thought that we would do the living area and kitchen at the same time. Looks stunning. I hope to have it finished in the next two weeks and then on to the next house project.

I need to start setting aside time for biking again as I have not been able to get on it for the last two months. The body is starting to show the effects of lack of exercise. Fishing is just a distant dream at this stage but hopefully will be put to rights in April as it is usually a good time for fishing. It hasn’t been helped by my decision to go back on stage. I always forget the time involved in rehearsals etc.

Hope all is well with you guys.

Looking back at the season – John van der Goes

It seems like only yesterday that I sat down to write my last blog. Maybe it was, as I took a long time to get it down.

Since then it feels like not much has happened however I think it may be time for a bit of reflection on what has happened so far this season and what worked for us and what didn’t. This will give me an idea of what to do next season.

As we used fodder beet this season I found that we didn’t need the amount of silage each day that we used to. This has meant that we had to close the silage pit down because we weren’t getting through the face fast enough so it would turn mouldy. I brought home round bales from the runoff to use instead. This has made me decide to bale all my silage next season so I can have more options. It also means that I can cut when the grass is at the right stage rather than having to wait to have enough for the loader wagons. Hopefully this will mean better quality silage. It also will remove the need to replace our aging feed out wagon – a cost that we don’t need at this time. Also bales will be easier to allocate feed and easier for our relief staff to use.

As part of the Matamata-Piako Dairy Push we have had our first meeting with our consultant. This is concentrating on strategic planning and not cows and grass. Dairy Push has three points of focus: People, Profit and Planet. It tries to get farmers to improve their performance in these areas which means better returns for the farmer and a better environment for everyone to enjoy. As part of this we also have joined DairyBase. This has given us the ability to compare our results with others and highlight areas where we can improve. Having had our first consult I can already see areas we need to improve on and which should be quite easy to change and get good results from. Hopefully this will keep us focused on the right things to do for the rest of this season and next. The process has already given me a lift and a drive to get on and improve.

I have been looking back at the previous year’s average pasture cover graphs to see how this year has compared with the rest – I thought I would add them in for interest sake, also to show off my newly acquired computer skills.

As we are just about to leave to go on holiday the last week or so have been busy getting things ready for our relief staff to take over. Hope you all are getting the nice rain we have been getting the last couple of days.

Time to go fishing – Brian Frost

The last few months have been busy, with lots of things to get done on the farm, but finally AB has finished – the bulls are out, crops are in and Frostie can go fishing – well when the weather plays ball and the wind dies down!

We finished six weeks of AB on Monday. This year we changed how we would tackle the mating season yet again and chose to do no intervention for the cows, as we will milk those that are not in calf through the winter. The stats were down because of this, but we have still ended up with 95% of the herd inseminated in six weeks.

We are still slightly ahead of last year in production. We are on a 20 day round, with our cover at 2200, not really what we would like to have at this stage, but the cover is still rising.

On the milking platform the turnips are planted and up. This year we have sown 13.5 ha turnips, compared to the usual 10.5 ha. The increase in area is due to redoing fescue paddocks planted two years ago because of poor results (caused by Poa annua problems).

On the runoff we have planted 16 ha of maize, which is also up and growing at a great rate. This is the first time we have grown our own maize so many hours were spent going through different options to decide which would suit us best.

We have been able to make 67 bales of baleage on the runoff too – the fescue paddocks we put in on this block have done really well so we have been able to take a cut off them and others.

Our manager’s wife had time back in South Africa visiting her sick father, so Frostie has been working full time milking and looking after the runoff for the last 3+ weeks, including while the rugby was on, so we are very thankful for the MySky recordings. The house is a lot quieter in the mornings without the 20 or so people here for the rugby and breakfast. Frostie is now ready to take the boat out fishing, but not before he has taken our lot, and all their friends, water skiing a few times. The cold water of the lake doesn’t seem to stop them from wanting to go out. Nothing like fish and chips at the lake in the sun – Mrs. Frostie just wishes the wind would go away or it would get warmer!