Business Rural North Summer 2021

| 13 Fresh water rules hit hill country farmers hard The Ohorea Station team. Ohorea is owned by the Atihau Whanganui Incorporation which has six hill-country farms within 20 minutes of each other. Excellent feed growth (below). Hugh de Lacy RURAL PEOPLE » Ohorea Station T he Government’s recent fresh-water regulations which put some restrictions on feed-cropping on sloping country is hitting the Whanganui hill country hard, with Ohorea Sta- tion, 17km south of Raetihi, among those forced to look at alternative options, including reducing stock numbers, to get through the winter. Ohorea is owned by the Atihau Whanganui Incor- poration which has six hill-country farms within 20 minutes of each other on the Parapara Road linking Raetihi with Whanganui. It also runs two fattening units and a dairy farm. Up until this year, Ohorea Station put in around 200ha of crop, usually choumoellier and swedes, to winter stock on. That’s been the practice for at least the last decade but Ohorea and the other Atihau hill-country blocks are working on various alternatives to get through the winter without crops. “At the start of winter I sold 800 in-lamb ewes and 500 hoggets just to give us room, and we were still very tight this winter,” station manager Rex Martin says. Overall the cost in stock numbers to Ohorea is likely to be around 1000 ewes, 500 hoggets and 400 calves. Ohorea Station comprises 4072 effective hec- tares, plus 351ha of bush and scrub that’s home to nuisance-level populations of deer and goats. Unlike much Whanganui hill country, Ohorea is not entirely steep-to-overhanging, with the 300 cropped hectares comprising surprisingly easy rolling land. Thirty kilometres from the Mt Ruapehu snowline as the crow flies, Ohorea presently carries 900 Angus cows, 17,000 Romney ewes and 4500 – previously 5000 – hoggets, 1400 of them in lamb. A third of the ewe mob are put to Suftex rams and lambed earlier than the main flock to get them off the farm before Christmas, with 30% killed and 70% going to Atihau’s fattening units. Along with the 900 cows, Ohorea tries to get 120 of the yearling heifers in calf, though those numbers are likewise being cut back by the new cropping rules. “In the winter we used the crop to feed the stock, and once the crop was finished we’d spread them out to control spring growth and manage pasture round the farm,” Rex says. “We can’t do that now and I’m not sure how we’re going to handle the situation in future. “We are currently looking at options which include increased nitrogen use, increasing sup- plementary feeds made off-farm, off-farm grazing and changes in stocking rates.” Another possibility is going on the open market to buy stock to control spring growth, though that’s a road Rex would prefer not to go down, given the potential for price volatility at that time of the year. He expects Atihau will approach the problem at the group level, somehow spreading the load over the hill-country and fattening block, but overall production will drop. Up until five years ago, Ohorea used to chip away at the scrub on the undeveloped land, but that changed with the Manuka honey boom. Now it’s left standing and Atihau has its own apiary team to collect and market the honey. DA WINDLE LTD Raetihi for all your livestock transport needs phone kerry on 027 222 3431 David Hildreth - 027 468 0281 Marcus Hildreth - 027 353 0405 www.hildrethromneys.co.nz Guaranteed Quality & Performance HILDRETH ROMNEYS