South’s drought eases on fringes

 Those meagre falls have kept most dairy pastures green even where irrigation has run out, and winter feed crops are hanging on for when the drought breaker comes, but it can’t arrive soon enough.

“Best case is we might get an extra 3-4t/ha of kale from now,” Federated Farmers South Canterbury Dairy chairman Ryan O’Sullivan told Dairy News.

“It just depends on what’s there now and the health of the crop. There’s quite a range around the district with some quite bad insect damage. A really sick crop’s not going to do that 3-4t/ha but a healthy crop will.”

In his own case, he’s now budgeting on kale off heavy land doing just 7-9t/ha, and light land 5-6t/ha. Fodder beet’s fared better and while bulbs are still small, in most cases it will do 15t/ha or more, he reckons. “If we can get 15-20t/ha in a year like this we’ve got to be pretty happy.”

A few dryland farmers in the area have dried off completely but most who had irrigation earlier in the season are still milking the cows they’re keeping, albeit with considerable supplement use and/or reduced milking frequency.

O’Sullivan has dried off one herd from the 1250 cows they normally milk and expects season production 20% below budget. Those who’ve stopped all milking will likely be 25% down, but for most in the area 5-10% below expectation is more likely, he says.

“In most cases there’s been considerable extra cost for supplement to produce the milk too.”

Last week’s GDT result was “a big disappointment”, putting the already low payout forecast at risk, he adds. “It’s going to be a pretty tough autumn and the first six months of next season are going to be very tough.”

A positive locally is generally good mating results despite taking bulls out earlier.

“We had a fantastic dry spring, which meant the cows were under a lot less stress. Unfortunately it turned into a dry summer too!”

Extreme winter weather aside, as yet he doesn’t believe the drought should impact next year’s mating results and in turn, production in 2016-17. “You’ve only got yourself to blame if you get to next spring and you’ve still got skinny cows.”

Dairy NZ’s regional leader Canterbury/North Otago Virginia Serra, says mating results across the region are more mixed, as is the feed situation. “We have farms with very good covers, 24-, 26-, even 28-hundred but at the other end of the scale there are some at 16- or 18-hundred. It all depends how the farm’s been affected by water restrictions.”

Serra says winter feed remains the main concern and detailed feed and cashflow budgets through to at least balance date next spring need to be done regularly to keep abreast of the situation. “Some farmers have been very proactive… but unfortunately we’re still seeing quite a few who are not.”

Federated Farmers North Canterbury Dairy chairman Vaughan Beazer says “put your hand up and ask for help” if unsure what action to take. “Don’t make emotional decisions.”

Thanks to the adverse event declaration a call to the Rural Support Trust means a consultant to help with those budgets is probably available at no cost to the farm, he points out.

“The people at the Rural Support Trust are all farmers or ex-farmers who’ve been through this sort of thing before so they will understand your situation and be able to put you in touch with the right people.”

Pam’s helping hand

Overall Cyclone Pam turned out to be a significant help to the Northland dairy sector, says DairyNZ regional leader Chris Neill.

Northland got varying amounts of rain as the ex-tropical Cyclone Pam passed east of the region, he told Dairy News.

Rainfall ranged from around 10ml in the Far North to 60ml or more in the wider Whangarei part of the region.  

“A large part of the extended Bay of Islands, Kaikohe and Dargaville areas look to have received 30-40ml – very welcome to stimulate pasture growth and allowing farmers to take advantage of their expenditure to keep cows in production and milk through to May,” Neill says.

“While there have been some severe winds from the storm we haven’t heard of major damage.  The sun is shining again and farmers are enjoying that overall Cyclone Pam has been a significant help rather than a hindrance to our Northland dairy sector.”

Federated Farmers Northland Dairy spokesman Ash Cullen says rather than a force of fury, Cyclone Pam’s mainly nice and gentle rain was welcome. His farm in Maungaturoto had 30mm overnight during the rapidly passing cyclone.

“I have not had any reports of any damage,” he says.