Milking on despite the dry

That’s the message from AgFirst chief executive James Allen in regards to the dry weather in NZ’s largest dairy region – the Waikato.

He says the Waikato is the driest it’s been for several years and there is every indication that it will be quite a dry summer. He says there has been virtually no rain since before Christmas, except for a few very isolated thunderstorms in the region resulting in a few farmers getting lucky.

“Generally, it is quite dry. Pasture covers are certainly low, and growth rates have declined and there is a fair amount of supplement being fed out at the moment,” he says.

Allen says because there is so much supplement around, production is holding up, but if the dry weather continues over the coming weeks the impact will become more pronounced. He says the maize harvesters are now on the road, so the first of the maize will be harvested and welcomed by some people.

“At this stage there is good reserves of supplement, and we are still planning to use a fair bit of supplement to milk on, but not to sacrifice next season, which is course is the critical point,” he says.

Allen says at this stage there is spare maize silage and grass silage around and the price of PKE is reasonable. He says farmers should set targets for what pasture covers should look like on June 1 and work back from there.

As for the rest of the country, Allen says the top of Northland got some good rain, but the lower half didn’t and is still quite dry.

“Taranaki is also reasonably dry, while the Tairawhiti and Hawke’s Bay have had rain and Canterbury is also looking pretty good,” he says.

But as he said earlier, time will tell.