Winning the inaugural Taranaki Ballance Farm Environment Award supreme prize is not a bad way to ring in a 10-year anniversary.
For Tikorangi 50:50 sharemilkers Tony and Loie Penwarden, the culmination of a decade on the property owned by the Faull family gave their farming team cause for celebration. On awards night the entire team put on tuxes and fancy frocks. As everyone puts the hard yards in onfarm they were all on-hand to bask in the glow of success.
The involvement and engagement of the entire team at the awards function hints at one of the Penwarden’s prime business focuses – people. Four full-time staff – herd managers Ron Hough and Heath Hirini, tractor driver Kaine Hales, and maintenance man Ian McDonald – work with six permanent part-time milkers in the 60-bail automated rotary dairy. Tony and Loie lead and manage the team and are both actively involved with day-to-day farm duties.
Over calving an additional fixed term staff member is hired to handle calving checks at night. He’s based in a caravan in the calving paddock and checks the cows every two hours. The system has dual benefits – neither staff members nor Tony is tied to the property after hours over the busy spring period and cow welfare over calving is maximised.
“The numbers are up there but the system we have got where nobody has to do the same thing every day, and start early every day, seems to be acceptable and hasn’t burnt anybody out,” Tony says.
Low staff turnover tends to support that theory.
Communication is critical to the success of the 1150-cow operation.
“Everybody is in the know. The worst thing you can have is to not know what’s going on – not knowing what you are going to be doing tomorrow, or standing around twiddling your thumbs,” Loie says.
The well-appointed staffroom at the dairy is the hub. Any maintenance needs observed by the wider team are noted on a whiteboard and ticked off when fixed. Any potential hazards are recorded on another whiteboard and the appropriate action taken. Rosters for the next seven to10 days are displayed on the notice board.
That focus on communication also applies to the relationship between the Penwardens and the Faull family. With regular phone and email contact between the Penwardens and Oliver and Gavin Faull and the adoption of “cloud” computing platforms such as Xero (accounting) and AgHub (farm management information), the flow of information between the two businesses is at an all-time high.
Information is the lifeblood of the business. The automated Dairymaster dairy collects individual cow milk yields with liveweights collected weekly. A recently purchased Farmworks Feed Reader uploads weekly pasture drives into AgHub, with the aim of generating feed wedges along with helping to identify underperforming paddocks.
A weather station capable of automatically recording rainfall, wind speed and direction, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture levels has been installed onfarm. Ultimately, among other uses, that information will form the basis of scheduling effluent irrigation.
Effluent is irrigated though sprinklers by two Larall smart hydrants over 136ha. The system allows low application rates of a few millimetres minimising potential run-off.
For the last few years all paddocks have been soil tested, not just a sample.
“That’s a fairly stiff upfront cost but it gives you a good handle on the fertility status of each paddock,” Tony says.
With blocks of land being brought into the milking platform over time, paddock fertility was a mish-mash – sampling a handful of paddocks was not giving an accurate picture.
“We have been able to tailor the fertiliser programme without too much bother to bring the lower fertility paddocks up to a maintenance level or in line with the others.”
In that building up phase there were three fertiliser management blocks, now they are down to two – effluent and non-effluent.
As well as winning the supreme award, the Faulls and Penwardens took out the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Soil Management Award, the LIC Dairy Farm Award, the Massey University Innovation Award, and the PGG Wrightson Land and Life Award.
Judges commented on the operation’s excellent per cow and per hectare production levels relative to the region, the long-term approach to mitigating the farm’s environmental impact, the commitment shown to staff and their families. Technology integration as also commended and judges also identified the Faulls’ and Penwardens’ community focus, in terms of both time and support.
KEY POINTS
Farm owners: Faull family – managing director Gavin Faull
Sharemilkers: Tony and Loie Penwarden
Number of cows: 1150, 850 spring-calving and 300 autumn-calving
Land: 260ha milking platform, 89ha support blocks
Production: 469kg milksolids (MS)/cow, 2074kg MS/ha.
Supplements: 1365t drymatter (DM) maize silage, 950t palm kernel; in-dairy – 150t seasonal mixes of canola, cotton seed meal, tapioca, soya bean hull; 120t molasses
