Part of Te Maunga was already a dairy farm when Andrew Hardie and Helen Long arrived in the late 1990s, though it was a shadow of the current operation. It was peak milking 220 cows through a 24-bail rotary, with the hills dedicated to sheep and beef farming enterprises.
Andrew says, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that the land was “very economical” to buy. The challenge has been developing a profitable system that is sustainable from environmental, animal, and human perspectives.
The first order of business was building a new dairy, which Andrew and Helen largely managed themselves to keep the costs down. The 50-bail rotary was a couple of weeks late being commissioned, so the first 80 or so cows were milked through the old rotary, with the couple’s kids pushing the old platform around.
“It was a rough start,” Helen remembers.
Through investment in re-grassing, drainage, fencing and other farm infrastructure, and the incorporation of a leased run-off into the system, Andrew and Helen were soon peak milking 800 cows on the property.
With average annual rainfall fluctuating between 750 and 1000mm, mitigating seasonal variation was a priority. Imported supplementary feed was essential to keep the system ticking over.
“We did 265,000 kilograms of milksolids (MS), but it was just too expensive,” Andrew says.
Seven years ago they made the decision to scale down in size but scale up the profitability. They surrendered the run-off and sold 100 hectares of the home block, leaving them with 429ha in total, of which 320ha is effective – the balance is in river sidings and forestry.
‘Let’s face it – if you want to farm here, you’ve got to work within the rules.’
The milking platform is now 240ha, with 45ha irrigated by a centre pivot and 75ha through long laterals. The young stock is run on the remainder. Peak milk is now achieved with 690 cows, from 715-720 cows over-wintered.
Changing to once-a-day (OAD) milking was a decision made to reduce pressure on animals, people and infrastructure.
“One of the main reasons we went to OAD was profit – lower farm working expenses, increased profit, and sustainability in terms of cows and staff. We have a much lower turnover of staff and the herd has increased conception rates,” Andrew says.
Results so far seem to back up that decision. In terms of staffing, contract milker Norman Conway has been involved with the farm for seven years.
In terms of the herd, improvements have also been significant.
“The best year we’ve had under OAD we’ve had 3% empty, and the worst might have been 8%. I think we got up to 13% when we were twice-a-day, and with lame cows – you start to think you’re running quite a high cost structure,” Andrew says.
The key performance targets relate to days-in-milk (DIM) and cost of production/kg MS.
After an experiment using sexed semen over mating resulted in a declining conception rate, the heat has gone back on compacting the calving spread to reclaim lost DIM.
Generally, average per cow production peaks at 1.9-2kg MS/day and last season the farm achieved 1022kg MS/ha or 355kg MS/cow. To provide some context, the New Zealand Dairy Statistics for 2012-13 – the most recent available – put average production for all Hawke’s Bay dairy farms at 312kg MS/cow and 996kg MS/ha.
Not just for flat ground – the centre pivot travels up and over slopes of 19 degrees.
Under irrigation and new pastures, Andrew estimates they would grow 13-14 tonnes of drymatter (DM), including the application of 120-150kg/ha of nitrogen.
The aim is for the farm to be self-contained, although in an “average” season they buy in about 300t of palm kernel, fed in-dairy and in trailers, and contract in 240t DM of maize silage, fed in the paddock, from a local grower. It is not set in stone and they try to be responsive to opportunities that present themselves.
For example, last year was a dry season but with the high payout on offer they decided to buy in more feed, spending about $256/cow or the equivalent of $0.75/kg MS on feed.
Having half of the milking platform irrigated is a strength, but in the normal course of a season the non-irrigated land is effectively out of production once it dries out.
“The dryland here grows nothing in a dry summer. You put it out on a 40-day round and they go in there and they just have a vacation, eat a bit of the dry stuff and a bit of maize.”
An area of turnips is planted, depending on the season, but yields can be hit-and-miss outside the irrigated ground.
Fodder beet is a key wintering tool. In the past they have achieved yields ranging from 25 to 35t DM/ha. This season they will plant 14ha, and they are considering lifting the crop this winter rather than graze it to minimise the risk of mastitis.
‘When we started we just had our herd – a twice-a-day herd that we were just milking OAD.’
Mastitis has proved to be an issue, which is unusual in an established OAD system. They have been slowly making progress but it is still a significant problem. Animal health costs sit at a respectable $48-$56/cow, but Andrew says the mastitis issue has an impact on that.
“It’s quite a cost to the business and it’s a headache.”
The central farming philosophy is to grow more grass then work on eating every blade of it. All development – drainage, re-grassing (about 24ha/year), irrigation – is focused on growing more grass.
As a low-cost, mostly self-contained, system they try to keep farm working expenses to less than $3/kg MS. Last season they crept up to $3.14/kg MS as they took advantage of the high milk payout in a dry year but still clocked up about 245,000kg MS.
“It’s all about economics, isn’t it? We’re here to make a profit. We farm to make a profit. But it’s sustainable for our family and our staff and our cows, and that makes us all happy. It means we will be on the land for longer,” Andrew says.
Better feeding, better breeding
A nine-week mating period for the herd is used to drive days-in-milk by Andrew and Helen.
With 5.5-6 weeks of artificial breeding followed by three weeks of tail-up bulls, a compact calving is a crucial foundation for the system.
Helen is an experienced artificial insemination (AI) technician, and handles the job for Te Maunga.
Seeking a medium-framed cross-bred herd, they put Friesian-dominant cows to Jersey semen and Jersey-dominant cows to either Friesian or Kiwicross semen. Andrew says the Jerseys tend to have a high ranking in LIC’s OAD index.
They run a 400-cow elite herd from which they keep replacements, and a “B” herd they put to short-gestation sires.
The elite herd is selected on lactation and production worth, somatic cell count and physical traits like feet and udder conformation.
“We’re producing OAD cows now. When we started we just had our herd – a twice-a-day herd that we were just milking OAD,” Andrew says.
With a planned start of calving of August 3 for the mixed-age cows, the mean calving date sits around August 15. It’s a tight start to calving although Andrew says the tail can drag on as they do not induce.
“It’s quite hard on the feed demand, but we are aiming for days in milk.”
Heifers are mated to bulls, joined 3-4 days before the planned start of mating for the elite herd. The “B” herd, going to short-gestation semen, starts mating 6-8 days after the elite herd.
Andrew is not afraid to try out new technology, and they recently tried three seasons of using sexed semen over the elite herd for the first three weeks of AI.
“The first year we had a conception rate of 62%, then the next year it went down to 56%, and then the last year it was a fraction under 50% – and Helen regularly gets 78% (conception rate from AI) easy. It just wasn’t viable,” Andrew says.
“No doubt they will get their technology right, but we’re just getting past that at the moment. For three years we didn’t have enough replacements.”
Working towards a win-win
The team at Te Maunga Farm are facing up to the challenges put in front of them as they look to the future, farming under the Manawatu-Wanganui (Horizons) Regional Council One Plan.
Under the One Plan, farmers in priority catchments are required to meet nitrogen leaching limits, as modelled by Overseer nutrient budgeting, which reduce over a 20-year time frame. Lower land use capability (LUC) classes associated with more “productive” land have higher nitrogen allocations, with allocations declining as the LUC class increases. In Year 1, maximum nitrogen leaching ranges from 30kg/ha for LUC I to 2kg/ha for LUC VIII. In Year 20, maximum nitrogen leaching ranges from 25kg/ha for LUC I back down to 2kg/ha for LUC VIII. A whole farm “limit” is calculated through a weighted average of the LUC mapped on the farm.
Te Maunga Farm sits in the Upper Manawatu priority catchment. They are staged to come under the One Plan limits from July 1, 2016.
Andrew and Helen are pragmatic in the face of the changing rules.
“Let’s face it – if you want to farm here, you’ve got to work within the rules.”
They are taking a proactive approach and have built a good relationship with council representatives. Although their catchment does not come into the new regime until 2016, they are making sure the investment decisions they are making now are future-proofing their operation.
For example, to reduce winter and spring nitrogen leaching they built a fully contained wood-chip standoff pad earlier in the year. Depending on the payout scenario this season, they might also build a concrete feedpad.
‘One of the main reasons we went to OAD was profit – lower farm working expenses, increased profit, and sustainability in terms of cows and staff.’
While both of these options reduce nitrogen leaching risk, they also add to the farm’s bottom line.
“The One Plan conditions are making it so you have to be on your game. We’re targeting a higher production per cow and an increased production overall – but the main thing we’re after is a bigger (financial) surplus,” Andrew says.
They are also in the process of investigating effluent management options, wanting to be certain that whatever investment they make will meet any future requirements.
Not all the changes required have been win-win. Under new consent conditions, their irrigation take from the Mangatewainui River has been reduced by 22%. If they altered their infrastructure to take from the Manawatu River instead, they could continue at their existing level but such a change would require a significant investment in infrastructure.
Key points
Farm owners: Andrew Hardie and Helen Long (75% equity holders)
Contract milker: Norman Conway
Location: Ormondville, southern Hawke’s Bay
Area: 320 hectares effective; 240ha milking platform
Cows: 690 cows (peak milk)
Breed: Friesian-Jersey
Production: 2012-13 245,000kg milksolids (MS)
Farm working expenses: $3.18/kg MS (2012-13)
Dairy: 50-bail rotary
Supplements: 300 tonnes palm kernel, 240t drymatter (DM) maize silage, 40t DM hay.
