Business Rural North Autumn 2021

14 | A seasonal game of snakes and ladders Hawke’s Bay farmers Adrian Arnold checks a mob of Romney ewes. Kelly Deeks T his season has taken away from the Arnold family’s Hawke’s Bay sheep and beef farm with an autumn drought creating a shortage of feed, then it has given back with a mild winter and spring putting the business back in a good position. “We had a kind spring like most of the coast,” says Adrian Arnold. “We grew a good amount of feed enabling us to sell 50% more lambs than usual prime at our weaning draft. This has been followed up with 19kg picks so far this season . We’ve ended up ahead of the eight ball and the season has played a part in that.” Pasture covers continued to diminish through au- tumn and Adrian knew he wasn’t going to have the feed he needed. Because he doesn’t own a tractor, and he can’t make hay anywhere on the 425ha effective property, Adrian turned to the barn full of hay he had stored for such a situation. “We had grazed our long acre, hot wired and chewed off any remaining native pasture on the steeper areas, and cleaned up our pampas block and it still wasn’t going to be enough. So we were forced to look at set stocking all classes of stock, rather than our normal winter rotation of ewe lambs and weaners traveling ahead of the ewes and followed up by the cows.” With Covid in its early days, Adrian could see potential allocated space restrictions at the meat works and the ramifications of a hiccup in the supply chain process. He consequently got his lambs away early, retaining enough colour in the grass to mate his Romney ewe lambs. “That may not have been the case if we hadn’t bailed out of our finishing lambs early,” he says. Late winter, Adrian decided to put his whole fertiliser expenditure solely into nitrogen. “We had RURAL PEOPLE » Adrian Arnold For all your Aerial Agriculture Certi ed and AirCare Accredi Contact: John Chittick 027 2 3300482 For all your Aerial Agriculture and Horticultural Services. SMS Certi ed and AirCare Accreditated. Contact: John Chittick - 027 2249039 Matt Wilson - 027 3300482 Laddie Puna & Wikitoria Staples 027 541 0711 / 027 541 0716 laddiepuna@gmail.com FREEPHONE: 0508 743 274 a reasonable scanning, which later translated into docking 155%, and also in our favour was a mild winter. The ground temperatures in late July were conducive to putting on nitrogen a month earlier than usual for us.” After 90 years of Arnold family ownership, Adrian is still able to push production by tweaking his system. Two years ago he was focused on future proofing and considering breeding his own replace- ments to make the farm more self-contained. On reflection, he is now buying in in-calf R3 Angus heifers, so the farm has the ‘adult mouths’ it needs to groom the native browntop and Yorkshire fog pasture that takes a lot of controlling. “We would rather have reasonable numbers of cows that can work in rotation with the sheep to tidy up the pastures leading into the spring.” The fifth generation of Arnolds, Adrian’s son Jamie, 22, is following in dad’s footsteps and taking opportunities away from home to learn everything he can before returning to the family farm one day. He has spent two years at Smedley Station and Cadet Training Farm, then moved to a shepherding position on a local station for a year and a half, and is now continuing his journey at a Romney stud. “He’s on his journey,” Adrian says. “We’ve just been to watch him compete at the Te Pohue sheep- dog trials, he’s doing well with his dogs.” “We had a kind spring like most of the coast. We’ve ended up ahead of the eight ball and the season has played a part in that.”