Redo pastures, and do them well

New pastures are worth doing well if they’re worth doing at all on dairy conversions, according to Tony Weber, an equity partner in a big new development at Ongaonga in Central Hawkes Bay.

“You can’t hoof and tooth your way through old sheep pastures,” he said. “You’ve just got to grit your teeth and get into new grass as fast as you can. And you’ve got to do it properly. Once you’ve spent all that money on a conversion, it needs to produce as much as possible.”

He and his wife Delle, along with David Mildon and Paula Jones, and another farming couple from the Central Plateau, had just a few months to get 470ha effective ready for 1,050 cows earlier this year.
It was a hectic start to what the partners say will eventually be an 1800-cow unit, supported by the Webers’ own 289ha drystock property just 5km down the road.

Tony admits he’d always loved the idea of a big farm, developed from scratch, but that wasn’t part of the plan when they and their four children moved from Dannevirke, where they had two dairy farms, to Ongaonga in 2001.
They sold their dairy farms in 2004 to concentrate on drystock farming and a less hectic lifestyle. But when the conversion and equity partnership opportunity came up it was simply too good to miss.

Since March this year, the partnership has completely redesigned the flat to rolling former sheep and beef farm in the Springhill Valley. Budgeted milk production next season is 490,000kg of milksolids (MS) from 1400 cows.
This season, the goal is 350,000kg from 1050 cows. With 90ha of feed barley and summer turnips now in the ground, the herd has effectively milked on 380ha through spring and early summer.

Ryegrass, clover

Part of the multi-million development budget has been spent on 250ha of new grass and clover, including 200ha of Bealey tetraploid perennial ryegrass with staggers safe NEA2 endophyte. On the advice of their seed supplier Dennis Nieuwkoop, the Webers had already used 30ha of Bealey on their drystock farm.

As well as looking for high dry matter (DM) yield, palatability and metabolisable energy (ME), the partnership’s choice of grass for the conversion was influenced by the property’s kind growing conditions through autumn,
winter and spring.

Winter soil temperatures rarely drop below 8 deg C, and while it is often “a long time between drinks” in summer, growth response to rain is very fast.

The partners plan to winter milk up to 600 cows by 2010, with the balance on summer milk. This season they’ll feed 400t of grass silage, 260t maize silage, 120t palm kernel, 60t tapioca and 45ha of turnips. A range of minerals to balance the diet and correct a blood phosphorus deficiency has also been included.

Supplements for summer include 45ha turnips, and possibly half the spring-sown barley, depending on how the season pans out. The 90ha cropped this summer will go back into permanent pasture as soon as it’s grazed or harvested in February.

Average rainfall of 1,150mm means the farm can be described as “summer moist” although lack of decent rain through September, October and most of November has been a cause for concern.
Early growth from the new pastures was explosive, thanks in part to adding Tabu Italian ryegrass to the mix via roller-drill over 120ha. They started drilling the new grass on 1 April, and carried through to 10 May.

Drystock used

“We used drystock to eat the existing paddocks out, then sprayed out, and ploughed most of the paddocks,” Tony said.

“Some of the hillsides were disced. Then we limed at 2.5t/ha and applied 400kg/ha of superphosphate before sowing, then put 200kg/ha Cropmaster 20 down the spout with the seed.”

After a 100 percent strike, the partners applied liquid fertiliser and Baton herbicide by helicopter to the new paddocks from mid-June to mid-July “and they just took off”.

The Weber farm will act as a support unit for the new dairy platform, carrying all young and drystock, including the 450 heifer and bull calves. Earlier this year it wintered 1036 cows before the dairy unit began milking as there was “heaps of feed” available.

There’s four permanent staff, including David Mildon as operations manager, and two university students over the holidays.

Tony is maintenance man and all-round dogsbody while Delle manages calf-rearing and business administration.

Published courtesy of Dairy Exporter - February 2009