NZ  farmers will have less to sell than usual this autumn as several regions slide into drought, creating a “weak tail” to the main primary production season, says a leading rural bank. “Seasonal conditions have pulled the end of the season forward for North Island suppliers, as soils dried out in March,” Rabobank says in its Agribusiness report.

“South Island producers have continued to fare better, with drier East Coast conditions offset by the availability of irrigation water, and favourable conditions.” The north and east of the North Island, and parts of Canterbury and Otago were extremely dry in March, with Auckland experiencing a record low rainfall for the month. It was also dry over the remainder of the North Island and Nelson, but Fiordland and parts of Southland received around 120 percent of their normal rainfall.

(more…)

Yellow bristle grass, a highly invasive pasture weed with no effective controls and a major financial impact, is appearing in Taranaki dairy paddocks. It’s a pest plant horror story and so far there’s little anyone can do about it, other than try intensive pasture renovation over three seasons reports the Taranaki Daily.

Farmers in the Waikato, where YBG is now rampant, say it’s costing them $1100 a hectare in lost production and it just keeps getting worse. Setaria pumila is a common roadside grass that has jumped the fence and gone berserk. It may also have come in with imported hay, silage, or balage. It’s widespread in Northland and the Bay of Plenty. Now Taranaki farmers are seeing it in their pastures. Some finding it on their farms are scared to talk about it because they are worried it will discourage potential sharemilkers.

(more…)

Not surprisingly, at 69, Sir Brian Lochore is not the man he once was, not physically – a few extra kilograms have been added around the girth and characterful chiselled planes and deep creases are taking over the familiar features reports The Dom Post. But there is still an imposing presence and a steely determination behind the ready smile and you get the impression that if the call came again – as it did once after his retirement – he would love nothing more than to don the black jersey and run out to do battle again.

It is not rugby that occupies his thoughts on this day, but farming. He and his wife Pam have put their three farms into a family trust and farm in partnership with son David and his wife Virginia, at Porangahau, and daughter Joanne and her husband Mark Mossman, at Blairlogie. “The last three years of drought have been the most difficult I’ve ever experienced in a lifetime farming,” he says.

(more…)

Beef and Lamb NZ, wants to use the farm, and half a dozen like it, for its demonstration farm programme. Richard Wakelin, general manager of the organisation’s farm section, said the new programme would sit alongside the existing monitor farm programme. Mr Wakelin said he hoped the new programme would be in place by October 1 after the Beef & Lamb NZboard had decided what should be included reports Stuff. The board would be asking “what are the key big hits that we need to strategy look at?”.

Mr Wakelin said he didn’t want to wait until October 1 if there were options worth immediately exploring. “If there was something already running and could be brought to the board sooner we need to be looking at that,” he said. Dr Gavin Sheath, AgResearch’s commercial team leader for agriculture and the environment at the Ruakura campus in Hamilton, told a dozen farmers attending a rare field day at Whatawhata in November that the laboratory-equipped station was under-utilised.

(more…)

If  you think the Emissions Trading Scheme doesn’t apply to farming until 2015, think again, says ACT MP John Boscawen. From July 1 costs on most farms will rise by thousands of dollars due to an ETS induced 4c/litre rise in fuel prices, and a 5% hike in electricity charges.

New Zealand now stands alone in implementing such a scheme and he says he would like to see farmers and the public protesting in the streets to persuade Government to ditch it. “Why are we penalising our farmers? Our farmers have enough problems competing internationally without this,” he told Rural News.

(more…)

The great bunny hunt in Alexandra recorded its second-highest kill but it is unlikely to have made a dent in the overall rabbit population in Central Otago reports Stuff. The highest number of rabbits killed in the competion was in 1997 – 23,948. At the weekend, for the 19th competition, 23,064 rabbits were killed.

Event organiser Dave Ramsay said one hunter returned to a block that yielded a high number of kills during the shoot, only to find rabbits still in abundance the morning after. “We’ve made a good dent in numbers, and rabbits are coming into a dormant breeding season, but there’s no doubt we’ll have plenty again next year,” Mr Ramsay said.

(more…)

AgResearch is urging North Island farmers to continue ensuring that their cattle are protected against facial eczema and to monitor their herds for the serious animal health and welfare problem. Facial eczema costs the dairy industry anywhere between $9.6M and $95.2M per year, depending on outbreaks and weather, and the impact on income and animals can be limited by using zinc protection.

“Even with some weather changes now, farmers still need to take facial eczema particularly seriously,” said AgResearch Senior Scientist Dr Chris Morris who is part of a team operating a MAF Sustainable Farming Fund project to monitor zinc protection. “Zinc sulphate is a water-trough treatment which should be effective and easily applied. Facial eczema risk can vary greatly from herd to herd, and even from paddock to paddock, so it is good to be prepared even when the risk in a region appears to be low.”

(more…)

Otago farmers are nervously eyeing the approach of winter, with autumn feed stocks depleted by a dry, windy summer reports The ODT. Most of Otago is drier than normal for this time of year, with the hardest-hit areas including North Otago, East Otago, Strath Taieri, Maniototo and Central Otago. “It’s certainly going to be a difficult winter for a lot of people,” Hawea farmer Richard Burdon said.

North Otago Federated Farmers president Ross Ewing agreed, saying while farmers would welcome any rain, cool nights and wind meant it was getting late for vegetation growth to recover. “It’s getting serious. The trouble is, winter is coming and nothing is happening.” Oturehua farmer Ken Gillespie said just 190mm of rain had fallen on his farm since last May, making it one of the driest years he could remember. The long-term annual average was 520mm.

(more…)

Lincoln University soil scientist Professor Keith Cameron and new Crusaders prop, Canterbury representative, Lincoln University graduate and Ravensdown account manager Andrew Olorenshaw  have gone the ‘hole’ nine yards to prepare for an open day at the Lincoln University Dairy Farm on Sunday 28 March.

The Lincoln University Dairy Farm – one of the highest performing dairy farms in New Zealand – is taking part in the national Federated Farmers’ farm day programme. “Farm days are a chance for people to find out more about farming  –  and we’ve pulled out all the stops  –  and some soil  –  so people can really get down to earth about farming,” says Professor Cameron.

(more…)

Papawai Ltd directors Dallas Lucas and Peter Donnelly are using tiger worms to deal with their cow effluent, the first farm-based operation of its kind in New Zealand. Mr Lucas told visitors to his farm from the NZ Large Herds conference last week they had inherited an effluent system that was unsustainable in the long term. They had explored many options while researching a replacement effluent system but were unconvinced about holding ponds, he said.

They did not want to install a 3.6 million-litre pond to meet the requirements of having 90 days’ storage – a 2m-deep pond with a surface area of 1500m2 would have been needed – and wanted a simpler, more slimlined option, Mr Lucas said. They milk 550 cows on 213ha but are keen to expand to 750 reports The Southland Times.

(more…)