NZ Dairy Summer 2020

| 59 nz dairy STEVENS ON &TAYLO R LTD info@sntltd.co.nz 2294 Takapau Road, W aipukurau,Hawke’s Bay stevensonandtay lor.co.nz STEVENSON & TAYLOR LTD 2294 T akapau Road ,Waipukurau. www.stevensonandtaylor.co.nz PH: (06) 858 6041 • E : info@sntltd.co.nz Proud to support Plantation Road Dairy Proud to support Plantation Road Dairies Servicing Hawke's Bay with locations in Waipukurau and Hastings 068588983 & 068783289 For all your dairy livestock requirements contact Brownie: Phone: 027 271 4722 Email: sandfly@xtra.co.nz Proud to be providing industry-leading maize silage hybrids to the Butterworth family Pioneer ® brand products ON FARM » Plantation Road Dairies/Rex Butterworth the summer because the cows were too hot and stopped eating. When you take those huge variants out of their lives you don’t get weight loss during the summer, water intake went up and feed ef- ficiency went way up as well.” On top of that he says profitability and productiv- ity has improved. “We have noticed a huge change in profitability and productivity. It’s been massive. Just taking the stress off the cows. “The farm average used to sit at 155,000kg/MS average, the variances were really high between seasons too, the best we had done was 171,000kg/ MS and the worst was 143,000kg/MS. The years preceding the herd homes, production stays very constant because we aren’t so dependent on the weather. We can’t control the weather but we can control the effect it has on the cows now.” The farm average now sits at 235,000kg/MS from their herd of 490, predominantly friesian, cows. “Animal welfare is first and foremost and if you get that right in my opinion everything else falls into place. They’ve got to be treated like top performing athletes and if you don’t treat them as such you compromise their abilities - that’s how we look at it anyway.” “Animal welfare is first and foremost and if you get that right in my opinion everything else falls into place.” • from page 58 Profitability, productivity goes up with happy cows Biological fertiliser project a no brainer Natalia Rietveld K evin Davidson, of Plantation Road Dairies in Ongaonga, knew something needed to change when he wasn’t getting the growth he knew he could get from his pastures despite the property being 95% irrigated. “We had moved to this farm from Waikato and I couldn’t get the same growth here.” His dissatisfaction and knocking on a lot of doors, led him down the biological path. “I thought I would have a bit of play with it. I got a few things wrong but I also got a few results with soil changes that I couldn’t deny. The soils began opening, not being as condensed and I wouldn’t have believed it had I not done extensive testing prior to changing my methods.” By loosening the soil it more readily diffuses nitrogen from the air and transfers it to the plants via microorganisms in the soil. It’s now been twelve years since Kevin started using the biological approach to fertiliser and he is only applying a third of the nitrogen that he used to, yet harvests more than 2000 more tonnes of dry matter per hectare than he did using conventional methods. “We have to change our ways of farming and get better at what we are doing and I believe this is one of the answers.” Kevin says the biological approach works by using both male and female fertilisers. He says the male fertiliser allows you to manipulate the seeding of the plant. “You can stall the heading of a plant by using a little bit of calcium nitrate which is a huge advantage and while you’re doing that you can lift the sugar content of the grasses, measured in BRIX, by 400% without too much trouble.” He says being able to lift the sugar content and hold it can take a few years but it is possible and that is what will enhance your cows’ production. “I’ve had a number of friends in the industry do the same and they’ve had similar results.” While Kevin’s work is testament to the success of farming biologically, he says unfortunately the research isn’t being done here on it by the large fertiliser companies. There has been a lot of research done overseas which is where Kevin originally drew inspiration from but now he has a recipe of his own that is working well. “In order to get the average farmer to adopt this sort of technique we need research stations to get involved and run some trials and that is where the problem lies. There are plenty of leading edge farm- ers getting into it and seeing great results we just have to wait for everyone else to catch on.” The end result of creating a nutrient-dense and flourishing pasture is of course what the cows pro- duce and Kevin believes his cows produce milk that is cut above the rest and consumers tend to agree. Plantation Road Dairies supplies mainly to Fonterra but their biological approach has led to them also supplying a small local boutique dairy company, Origin Earth, who have won a number of awards for their cheeses. “They also make pasteur- ised milk with our milk, so you can have fresh milk within a couple of hours from our shed, they also provide 20 litre canisters of our milk to local cafes. The cafes love our milk and say it froths a lot better and has a nice flavour. Seeing our product used and enjoyed like that, it’s just a really nice ending to the story.” Plantation Road Dairies Ltd is owned by both the Davidson and the Shepherd families. The company has a 450 hectare milking platform, milking 1200- 1900 cows year-round, and a 590ha support block. Kevin Davidson says biological fertiliser is the way forward and hopes to see some research being done on it in NZ.