Friday, 04 December 2015 10:33

Oasis in dairy paddocks

Written by 
The Ngai Tāhu Farming project shows there are "means and ways" to restore natural biodiversity into a dairy farming environment. The Ngai Tāhu Farming project shows there are "means and ways" to restore natural biodiversity into a dairy farming environment.

A new study is showing dairy and conservation sites can co-exist, and its findings are contributing to an ongoing project restoring natural biodiversity into a dairy farming environment.

'Persistence of biodiversity in a dryland remnant within an intensified dairy farm landscape', looks at Bankside Scientific Reserve, a small (2.6 ha) remnant in Canterbury surrounded by dairy paddocks.

It still has valuable communities of native species, despite being impacted by nitrate and phosphate encroachment, and habitat fragmentation.

It concludes "it does not appear to be an intractable management issue for the interface between agricultural systems and conservation sites within a dairy landscape mosaic".

One of the study's authors, Professor of Ecology, Nick Dickinson, and other Lincoln scientists have been tasked by Ngāi Tahu Farming and Manawhenua from Tuahuriri Marae, to turn the little triangles of land which irrigators in paddocks cannot reach into an oasis for native plants and animals on Ngāi Tahu's Eyrewell dairy farm.

Professor Dickinson says the study shows there are "means and ways" to restore natural biodiversity into a dairy farming environment, and the Ngai Tāhu Farming project was an example, covering 150ha on 17 reserves, with a similar additional amount of native species being planted on paddock borders and under irrigators.

These create conditions for more than 65 species of plants to regenerate, and also provide corridors for insects and birds between the reserves.

The research hinges on finding the benefits to the farmer of doing this, to encourage more native planting, he says.

More like this

Point of View

Dr Amber Parker was guest speaker at the 2024 Southern Pinot Noir Workshop in Hanmer, sharing insights on potential impacts of climate change on viticulture, along with adaptation opportunities, particularly with regard to Pinot Noir. Amber, who is Lincoln University's Director of the Centre for Viticulture and Oenology, shares some of her learnings.

Featured

Big return on a small investment

Managing director of Woolover Ltd, David Brown, has put a lot of effort into verifying what seems intuitive, that keeping newborn stock's core temperature stable pays dividends by helping them realise their full genetic potential.

Editorial: Sensible move

OPINION: The Government's decision to rule out changes to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that would cost every farmer thousands of dollars annually, is sensible.

National

Machinery & Products

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Cuddling cows

OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its…

Bikinis in cowshed

OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter