Farming in Amazement

Ewes Grazing Cover Crops

Farming never ceases to amaze me! This time last year we were gripped in the clutches of the 'Beast from the East' and this year, (at the moment) it feels like the 20th April not the 20th February. Soil conditions are lovely and the first doses of fertiliser are being applied on smooth dry fields. Under the surface the soil has benefited form the dry summer and dry winter, with increasingly good structure being observed every time we dig a hole. The ewes in mid pregnancy now are jumping about like spring lambs every time they are moved from cover crop to cover crop field.

Soil Structure After Sheep Grazing

The pressure is on the grazing girls to eat fast as spring crops need to be planted soon. With dry weather forecast hopefully we will start planting next week, almost 2 months earlier than last year and 3 weeks earlier than normal. First on the planting list will be spring barley, followed by the peas in a few weeks time.
The sheep have a done a great job grazing off the rye and vetch on the hill and soon they will be split up into their grazing groups ready for lambing and its back onto the grassland then. The use of cover crops has some many wider benefits as well as reducing costs in the farming system system. Under this stone on the headland I discovered a fantastic population of Carabid (Ground) Beetles all waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting prey. There are over 350 species in the UK, does anyone know what these ones are? The adults and larvae will feed on other invertebrates, slugs, snails and carrion. Some smaller species will also feed on aphids, so they could be a very helpful ally in the season ahead.

Carabid Beetles In Cover Crops

One slight worry that I have is that we are too dry. There is no water in the ditches and the springs are low as well. Could this be another very dry, drought year on the back of 2018? Time will tell but if we can get our crops established now into good conditions to allow roots to grow, develop and explore as much of the soil as possible we stand the best chance of making the most of the weather ahead.

Amazing Mother Nature

There has always been a saying-'You can't fight Mother Nature', and it is so true.  From the heavy snow we had at the beginning of March; through to the very wet Easter weekend, the weather never ceases to amaze me. March saw a record rainfall and snow melt of 95mm (almost 4") and then followed the very wet Easter weekend where we saw another 48mm of rain arrive to sit firmly on the top of our already cold and damp soil.  Soil temperatures at the start of April were only 4.2 degrees and nothing was really growing.  No daffodils, a few hardy snowdrops but the farm crops refused to grow.
Fast forward to the 16th April and after a couple of sunny days, with some brisk winds, the soil dried enough to get planting spring barley, into some pretty good conditions.  All of the fields destined for spring cropping had a cover crop growing on them over the winter.  Some were grazed and others were not.

Planting Spring Barley 16th April 2018

This was the first field that we planted. The cover crop was a mixture of vetch and oats which the sheep grazed before Christmas.  The top was nice and dry but conditions under the surface were a little damp, but we had to get going.  Derek made a start and before long the fields were planted (2 days) and we moved on to plant other crops.  I had a look on Friday morning to see if the seeds had germinated (started to grow) and to my astonishment-not only had they germinated  but there were small shoots appearing.  I measured the soil temperature at 14 degrees, and with plenty of moisture the seeds were off to a flying start.

Barley Seeds Germinating After 4 days

I called into the field today to see how things were progressing only to be met with small green shoots bursting up from the clutches of the soil.  Incredibly after 6 days, almost to the hour ,we had some crop emergence.  I have never known such a short period from planting to emergence as I have witnessed this year with the barley.

Barley Plants Emerging

To me this really is amazing because only a few weeks before we were sitting looking at wet, cold fields with little prospect of planting anything this spring.  The crop has a long way to go before it will hopefully be harvested.  It will be attacked by pests and disease, which we will have to regularly check for. It might be hot or cold, dry or wet from now on, but for now, the little plants are on their way!

Days 19 and 20 - Weekend in Athol

After a slightly delayed start to the day Steve and I headed out to have a look around the home farm in Athol.  We started off catching up with some fencing contractors putting deer fence in around one of the paddocks before setting off to have a look at a new pivot irrigator.  It was a remarkably simple to operate with the pump on a variable speed drive, automatically switching on and off depending on the load required.  The pivot was irrigating spring barley.  Soil moisture probes are used to assess the deficit in the soil before deciding when to irrigate and with how much water.  Theses are quite integrated systems with probes located between 100mm and 450mm and a second one between 450mm and 800mm. The barley looked a stunning crop with great yield potential.

The next part of the trip round Steve took me to see the Red Deer side of the business, which is quite diverse.  Deer are kept for a number of reasons, for breeding stags, for velvet and for venison; most of which ends up in Eastern Europe and Germany.  Here Steve has some deer velvet being stored in the freezer.  It is quite valuable but is slow to grow and difficult to harvest.  Only licensed operators are qualified to remove the velvet, after anaesthetic is administered to the deer.  I was fascinated to hear about the production systems and rounding the deer up form the hill using helicopters!

After lunch we headed down to Balfour to have a look at some arable crops, the first couple of fields being a direct comparison of direct drilling and traditionally ploughed and cultivated.  The direct drilling looked a lot thinner but better bigger ear numbers whereas the ploughed looked to have much more biomass in the bottom and smaller ears.  It will be interesting to see what the combine yield monitor says, in February!

We stopped at the main farm yard where Steve and family run another business, processing and selling grain to dairy farmers.  The barley and wheat are rolled, and if necessary minerals are added before being shipped out on one of the farms trucks.  This has turned the Southland area into a net importer of grain.  Before this plant was running wheat traded at a $50 discount to wheat in Canterbury because of the haulage.  Now all the wheat is being used locally, wheat is being pulled down from Canterbury, creating a shortfall in this area resulting in a price increase.

I headed East on Sunday morning after saying goodbye to Steve and Heather, but not before calling in to the Veg Shed to pick up some supplies for the journey, knowing how long it took me to get here!  A huge thanks to Steve and Heather for providing a base to take a breather, just what was needed!  I left Athol and retraced y steps back up towards Queenstown and Cromwell before turning south East towards Alexandra.  The scenery heading over the Knobby Range was stunning.  Large rocky outcrops with clear water lakes and sheep dotted on the escarpments.  Proper Lord of the Rings territory.

I stopped and detoured over a bridge across the river Clutha to show the crystal clear water carving it's way through the steep sided gorges. This was taken at Millers Flat and the colour of the water was almost luminous.

All along the river on the flat alluvial soils where water was available there were fruit farms, irrigating merrily in the hot afternoon sun.  This area of Central Otago is known for its top fruit of cherries, apricots, wines, peaches, pears, plums, nectarines and apples.  There were lovely little market garden stalls open along the roadside selling very local and very fresh produce.

I pushed on through Lawrence and Milton, where I stopped to take a picture of a classic tractor collection, totalling at least 12 vintage tractors, trucks and crawlers.  All were immaculately restored and maintained.  For any passing Ford fans it's definitely worth a visit.  I headed on into Mosgiel, on the outskirts of Dunedin to find a fellow Nuffield Scholar who has kindly offered to put me up for the night ahead of meetings tomorrow morning in Dunedin itself.

Nuffield Trip Day 10 - 2 Exceptional Operators

Thursday the 5th of December and Tom and I first headed down around Ashburton to visit the first of two first class farmers operating Cross Slot drills.  First up was David Ward who has been using the Cross Slot System since 1995.  The farm is a silt farm over gravel/shingle with irrigation. The farm soils are only able to hold 80mm of stored water and when the heat comes on with North Westerly winds and hot temperatures evapo-transpiration can be as high as 8mm/day, so the irrigators need to get around the farm once a week.  David farms about 950 acres, with help from three employees, growing rye grass seed, clover seed, oilseed rape (hybrid - seed), vining peas, radish seed, spring barley, winter wheat and spring wheat.  The farm also carries and finishes 20,000 fat lambs through the winter on ryegrass and oat based cover crops and also takes weaned deer through to market weights.  The production numbers were staggering, with yields around 12T/ha of winter wheat and 11t/ha of spring barley.  I was starting to ask myself why bother with winter crops when lambs can be fattened off cover/grass crops adding to the margin/ha of a short season crop?  Might this work well in a black grass situation?  I need to think outside the conventional box when I get home!

The soil we dug up in every field was in fantastic condition, a sweet smell, lots of little worms and plenty of nodulation on the pea roots.  The crop; yes it was watered, looked stunning.  It had an even germination and was rocketing through the growth stages in the warm weather.  It was clean, even, and full of yield potential.  Still a long way to go!  We moved on to another draw dropping crop, this time of spring barley.  David put the potential yield at 11t/Ha and I would not doubt that.  The crop was planted after a winter break crop, direct drilled, and it has not looked back.  The leaves and stems were clean, disease free and stiff.  The heads were billiard table flat and not a weed in sight.

On the other side of the road we stopped to look at an organic farm that David has been asked to farm conventionally for  couple of years to 'sort it out'.  We dug some soil up which had recently been cultivated and left fallow ready to plant.  The tilth was very fine and had no structure.  If there was any kind of heavy rain event it would have slumped and capped, squeezing the air and the life out of the soil.  If the wind started blowing from the West, then a layer of topsoil would send up in the sea, through wind erosion.  I have to say it wasn't the best advert for organic farming.

The organic matter on David's soils have been increased from 2.8% 20 years ago to over 4% now.  This is helping store more valuable water in the soil, but it is not a particularly quick process and needs a mixed rotation and livestock putting some organic matter back into the soil.  The crop below is of hybrid oilseed rape seed production and will receive about 240mm of irrigation water through the growing season, which is staggering, but these farms are kitted out with high cost centre pivots or walking irrigators.  But the returns are worth the capital cost many times over with high value crops, good yields and good prices.  You have to ask how environmentally sustainable is this constant extraction of water from the underground aquifers? Can this practise continue at this pace for the next 10, 20 or 50 years?  The politicians are starting to look at extraction quantities, the environmental impact, and the potential election of the Green Party may force changes in production systems in the Canterbury area.  This could have an impact on UK seed supply as many of the varieties we grow are sourced from New Zealand seed stocks.  Less water use could see a reduction in output and therefore less seed and what seed will be produced could be exported to other countries or we'd end up pay more more for our seed.

After the flat land and soils,which reminded me of the silt soils of Lincolnshire only shallower and over shingle, we headed south of Timaru to St Andrews to meet Mike Porter.  Mike has a dry land farm, annually receiving only 22 inches of water just off the East coast in the rain shadow of the Western Mountains.  Mike harvests around 400 Ha on his farm and runs a flock of breeding ewes around on some permanent pasture.  Like many New Zealand farmers Mike stubbled during the late 1980'sduring the de-regulation, when subsidies were cut over night and the dollar was devalued by 20%, to make the country more export competitive.  This, coupled with interest rates of 20% and the worst drought in 40 years (88/89), broke many farmers and almost took out Mike as well.  Since then he has developed a great farming system revolving around the cross slot drill, reducing cost and also increasing return per hectare.  Don't forget it's all about profit per hectare rather than out and out yield!

Mike's farm reminded me of my time in Idaho with rolling hills and slopes of around 26%.  Mike farms feed wheat (8t/Ha) and barley (6,5T/Ha), oilseed (3.5T/Ha) and rye grass with a small area of vining peas seed (3T/Ha).  The system is very integrated with the lambs being fattened on ryegrass stubbles or green feed oats, through the winter and forage rape in the summer.  The crops are established by just spraying off the previous crop and direct drilling into the stubble or residue.  Mike does roll everything to reduce the threat from slugs and also uses, usually one, dose of slug pellets.  This is an interesting shot looking up a bank where the tractor has had a higher level of wheel slip, the forage rape seems to be more forward.  I think, and I'm not sure, that this is due to mineralisation of soil carbon due to soil movement under the tyres releasing nitrogen which the crops picking up.  In a couple of weeks the difference would have disappeared as the crop evens up.

Mike supplies Canterbury Meat Packers who are a dedicated supplier of New Zealand Lamb into Waitrose  of which Mike is obviously very proud.  The oats can grow about 3-4,000 Kg of dry matter in the autumn which can be stocked at around 12 stock units per hectare.  The lambs feeding on the forage rape are growing at around 300-350g/day which is very acceptable, and are stocked at around 70/Ha with back fencing which allows some regrowth and a secondary grazing.  In comparison to David's soil, Mike's deep clay soils can hold up to 220mm.  Interestingly starter fertiliser is used to establish the fodder rape making Potash available to the new seedling as soon as it germinates.  Something that the Cross Slot is able to do at ease.

This pivot irrigator is irrigating grassland for a diary conversion on a neighbouring farm and is probably the only one in the southern hemisphere working on such steep banks.  At the moment Mike is in a red zone for irrigation, i.e there are no local plans in extend the area available to irrigate.  A huge thank you to David and Mike for giving up their time to show us around their farms.  Although very different farms;  attention to deal, passion, hard work and the love of farming and growing were evidently common place in these excellent farmers.

FAR - A Long Long Way to Roam

Yet again I find myself lost with the right words to describe the day at Arable Research in Action, organised by FAR, (Foundation For Arable Research).  The annual event is held near Chertsey in the Ashburton District on the Canterbury Plain's and provides levy paying farmers with a fantastic opportunity to look at the research currenty being undertaken by FAR.  The weather was fantastic, not an annual occurrence and the turnout was in excess of 300 farmers.  The event was organised very well with a total of 12 different half hour slots with growers able to choose 8, 4 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon.

Not all were relevant to my Nuffield topic but never the less very interesting for an insight into where research is going.  I started off looking at Nutrient budgets.  Interestingly there is a program called 'Overseer' which calculated estimated Nitrogen leaching per hectare over the rotation of the farm.  Different rotations varied, leaching between 4 and 46Kg/N/Ha/year, calculated over 22 farms in the Ashburton district. N leaching increased dramatically where cows are involved, especially in their urine patches!  The next session was on Glyphosate resistance when spraying field boundaries.  Resistance is starting to become a problem in rye grasses on the field boundaries and there is concern about them spreading into the main paddock.

At 12.00 I listened to Lise Nistrup Jørgensen from the Aarthus University, Denmark, talking about managing disease resistant to fungicides.  A problem we are facing in the UK to a certain degree, especially with Septoria.  Part of the resistance strategy should be to mix up different active ingredients but legislation in the UK is limiting our choices so the chance of building resistance in increasing thanks to European Legislation.  How's that for forward thinking when we have more people to feed in the world and we're trying to do it with one hand potentially behind our backs.  The next slot was really interesting looking at early sowing to achieve the right populations to achieve higher yields.  Populations and cultivars (varieties) are the key to this, as is the type of wheat grown.  Feed wheat due to its unusually slower growth habit has a better chance of not being too forward and disease susceptible, so a higher chance of the right spring population.

After lunch there was a very interesting talk on stubble burning and the case was being made that New Zealand farmers are a special case!  I have a few doubt about this argument coming from a climate where we can grow as much, if not more, wetter straw and still manage to establish crops in that residue.  There are arguments about weed seed control, like blackgrass and the ever present slugs, but the value to the soil is greater as humus than ash.  Where the situation varies is when trying to plant clover seeds under minimal cultivation.  However cultivation or match dropping, is only done in this situation because the current drills will not cope with the crop residue.  There is a cure for this developed in the North Island.

The next two sessions were on disease control in barley and then the use of low rate fungicides which were very useful.  I talked afterwards to a few farmers about growth regulation in spring barley and a lot of modus and terpal is used to keep the plants standing and to reduce brackling.  Something we might need to look at back at home, where this year there were too many ears on or near the ground that the combine missed them.  I was also interested to hear more about a trial being conducted here in New Zealand at at home in the UK with NIABTAG.  They are looking at high yielding wheat crops with identical treatments in both countries to see how the crops respond and yield to the same treatments in different climates.  The results of that would be fascinating.

During the event I had a good look at some establishment trials in wheat.  There was about 6 different methods of establishment d=form two direct drilling options, to a couple of topdown and drill options and finally a plough based system.  It would be really interested in seeing the final yield results of this trial as there was very little ego choose between all of the systems.  But it doesn't just come down to yield it should be margin of all inputs and establishment costs.  That is the key to profitability.  If you happen to be passing the trial site next year then I can highly recommend dropping in for a look around and introducing yourself to the very friendly team.

Nuffield in New Zealand Day 5 - A Story of Two Brothers

After a hearty breakfast we loaded up and headed from Fielding through Palmerston North before driving nearly 2 hours South towards Masterton.  Our next host provided a great lunch; Nathan and Kate Williams.  The farm is about 200 Ha with some extra seeding done on contract with the Cross Slot drill.  In total the drill plants around 400Ha/year.  The farm grows spring barley and spring peas, which take about 100 days to grow through the spring and summer.  These fields are then planted with Italian Rye Grass, which carry in the region of 7,000 lambs from 30Kg liveweight to their prime weight of about 42Kg.  The lambs achieve this liveweight gain in around 6 weeks

Red clover and Italian Rye grass seed is also grown as seed crops and sold to local markets, or in the case of the IRG some is replanted on the farm reducing the seed cost of winter animal feed considerably.  Nathan's father Jim was telling us about the traditional method of crop establishment which was full inversion with the plough and then power harrowing several times.  The Cross slot drill has been used to establish all of the crops on the farm since 1998, increasing organic matter in the paddocks and increasing crop yield.  Fertiliser is always applied at planning to spring crops with the seed, which is traditional with the farmers here in New Zealand.

Jim told us that the farm is actually more intensively managed now using no-till as more management time is spent looking at the crops rather than sitting on a tractor seat.  The speedy turn around between crops also adds to the yield of the winter grass crops, allowing increased carrying capacity of lambs on the farm, increasing the return.  Is this potentially more management time to get to 20T/Ha of wheat?  Nathan has just started looking at winter wheat again, this is Einstein grown on river silt land, looking very well.  The crop is planted at 88Kg/Ha, receives three fungicides, 2 plant growth regulators and about 400Kg of urea.  Septoria and rusts are the main diseases so a fairly similar program to us in the UK.

After a short drive through even more stunning countryside we met up with Nathan’s brother Mick and his wife Karen who were the 2013 Wellington Ballance Farm Environment Award winners.  Mick and Karen farm in the crook of the Ruamahanga river in Central Wairarapa.  The farm is predominantly spring planted with arable crops; barley and peas, with redclover, and Italian ryegrass grown for seed.  Here are some peas that have been drilled with the Cross Slot drill straight into sprayed off IRG.

Short term IRG leys are planted after peas and barley in the autumn and used to fatten lambs on through the winter period.  The farm carries in the region of 6,000 lambs through the winter grazing on the IRG.  Soil temperatures rarely get below 5 degrees in this area so the grass grows all winter; which is a great advantage. Mick uses a 3m Cross Slot drill for the crop establishment except for 4 Ha of onions grown for seed.  Both of the farms we visited today were fantastically run, with great passion for doing the best job possible whilst being innovative and positive.

We left Mick and Karen’s and headed on to visit Roger and Barbara Barton, near Greytown.  Roger is a 1995 Nuffield Scholar and Barbara is the secretary of New Zealand Nuffield.  We had great company for the evening and a fantastically well cooked homely meal for supper (thanks to bambi)and a couple of Tui’s.  Just the ticket!