Saturday, March 30, 2024

Jack of all trades

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Farmers are renowned for being a ‘jack of all trades’ – wearing many hats from vet to agronomist to accountant. In the case of Craig Lahmert this couldn’t be more true. He tells Cheyenne Stein about why it’s important for him to be on top of his pasture management and how he does it all as a one-man band.
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Craig Lahmert and his wife Louise have been on their Tokomaru property for 16 years, and with no staff, everything from the day-to-day activities through to the farm books is left to Craig.

Although it’s home to stunning views of Manawatu, the property isn’t without its issues. The heavy silt loam soils mean the property goes from bone-dry in summer where nothing grows to “a right duck-pond” in winter when pugging becomes an issue.

“The soils really just mean that pasture management always has to be front of mind. If you get it wrong, you could be in trouble for the rest of the season.”

He keeps his system simple and traditional with a ryegrass and clover mix and some short-rotation grasses. Fourteen per cent of the farm is turned over into crop each year as part of the pasture renewal programme. His crop of choice for the past four years has been chicory but is considering switching back to turnips.

“The last few years I’ve gone with chicory because you can get a few grazings in before winter. Before that I was using turnips but I would have to work the paddock a bit more and because of the soft soil you lose those first grazings because when it gets too wet you can’t graze it, whereas the chicory is more compacted.”

Although his pastures are doing well now, they haven’t always been that way. When they first took over the property was covered in Yorkshire fog grass, and they soon discovered that once it was grazed off, nothing else grew back. Having priced up the cost of getting a contractor in to over-sow his paddocks, Craig realised he would be better off getting his own equipment and doing it himself.

“I thought to myself, why am I paying someone $10,000 when I could go and buy my own gear and do it myself? So I went and brought my own drill and tractor and now I do all my own contract work myself. I don’t have to rely on contractors being available so when I need something done, I just go and do it.”

Paddocks that once produced about 75,000kg milksolids (MS) a year are now producing 91,000kg MS, which Craig credits mostly to the improvement in his pasture and his weekly pasture walks.

“You just have to roll with what you have and keep trying to make improvements. I have been measuring grass for 15 years, it’s all about being able to know when you’re a step ahead and when you might need to put urea on to keep ahead of the game, it’s the key that keeps everything ticking along on the farm.”

Being a solo act, Craig has turned from pasture walks to pasture drives with the help of his feed reader attached to his quad bike.

“When I first came here I just used the old platemeter and walked the farm and it took me two hours. I did it every week in spring time, but because I’m on my own and had other jobs that probably took priority I needed to be a bit more efficient with my time but because of the type of farm I’ve got, I couldn’t afford not to do it.”

The feed reader means his weekly pasture drives only take an hour to measure all the paddocks. He measures weekly during spring and every second week in winter when he’s full-swing into calving.

Data from the feed reader is downloaded to the computer and emailed back to Craig’s phone and put into the app Grass Mate which creates feed wedges and provides all the information he needs and the push of a button.

“Grass Mate automatically puts the paddocks in the order in which they need to be grazed, which is handy. Often you can tell what order they will be by looking at them, but being able to quantify it means I can manage what I have better, particularly over summer when the place dries out because I can then allocate x-amount of supplement to fill the gap if I need.”

Grass silage is fed in summer to fill any gaps, and a palm kernel and maize blend is normally fed from calving through summer to give the cows a bit of an extra boost, but Craig says this year’s budget doesn’t accommodate it.

“We pulled the pin on supplement at Christmas time and whether I feed it or not this season is the $1000 question really. I’ve done a budget for the next year and I probably won’t. It’s a bit of a juggling act right now and means I will really have to be on top of my pasture management because I will be relying it more heavily than normal.

“The biggest thing this year was the El Nino that was meant to happen, so come spring last year I didn’t do any topping because everyone was saying it’s going to be dry, so I sort of fell over a bit there and lost quality because I didn’t top.”

Managing the summer dry is somewhat easier than managing the boggy wet conditions in winter. Pugging is a major issue for Craig, who says it’s just something he has to cope with.

“Pugging is just something that happens and can’t really be avoided. All of the paddocks are set up where they have to come in and out the same gate sothey do tend to get a bit of a thrashing.”

Craig has a stand-off pad that he can use when conditions are bad and utilises on-off grazing to save what pasture hecan, but logistically it can be tricky, all of which makes pasture renewal and management that much more important.

“September is usually our wettest month and around that time I normally have about five different herds going between the colostrums, milkers and dries – there’s only me and as it is I’m stretched out to shift them all within the milking time frames so using the stand-off pad becomes somewhat of a logistic nightmare some days.”

In past years Craig has had a winter kale crop but gave that a miss this season and says it will lighten the load a little bit not having to shift the break fences and feed-out hay, which can add two hours on to his already busy day.

“I need to be utilising my time efficiency whilst still getting everything done and making sure the cows are reaching their targets.”

This year Craig has added an extra 40ha to his property by buying a block at the back of their place, 10ha of which will be added to the milking platform with the remainder being home to his young stock that he hopes will ease the burden a bit during winter.

“The heifers will all come home instead of being grazed out which eliminates that cost, instead of paying for a grazier and transport we are just paying for the block of land.”

Craig says when it comes to his pasture he is always learning something new and says working with agronomists and industry professionals is key to best utilising the hand you’re dealt.

“There’s no cutting corners when it comes to your pasture either. You have to do it right because that’s your investment for the next 10 or so seasons. A prime example was a guy recently who was like “Oh you have to replant as cheap as possible while the payouts’ down’, but you can’t afford to do that in the long run, your affecting your quality and longevity of that pasture and will end up spending more in the long run.”

Farm facts:

Location: Tokomaru, Manawatu
Owner: Craig and Louise Lahmert
Area: 90ha
Cows: 230 Friesian cross
Production: 91,000kg MS
Pasture grown: 12-13 tonnes

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