Without the advent of Central Plains Water (CPW) the neighbouring sheep farm would forever have been just that for Paul and Mandy Burrows.
Mandy talks to farm managers Adonis Yasana and Fernando Vidal about keeping records for the audit of their farm environment plans.
CPW water arrives under a minimum of 3Bar pressure (43 psi) thanks to the down gradient of the plains and narrowing of pipes as they get closer to the farm.
The pipe supplying their farm also has to descend an old river terrace just before entering the Burrows’ property on their western boundary giving enough pressure to drive the pivots.
The standard shareholding gets them enough water to apply 5.18mm/ha/day. Mandy and Paul have committed to 850m3/ha of stored water from Lake Coleridge to give them reliability for their irrigation.
That costs them an extra 8.2c/m3 but allows them to then order up to 2550m3/ha of stored water in a season.
“We need to commit to a third of the total stored water we’re likely to want and pay for that on a monthly basis whether we use it or not, but anything above that third we pay for as we go,” Paul says.
The technology at the turn-out valves where water goes from the CPW pipes to the farm’s infrastructure allows the water volume directed to the farm to be controlled automatically.
The water’s not cheaper than the ground water they currently pump for about $400-$500/ha each season – in fact it’s almost double at about $820/ha all-up including likely stored water.
“But for the new farm there’s no other option and for this farm it gives us increased reliability,” Paul says.
A condition of using CPW water has been to complete a farm environment plan.
Mandy says it was a relatively painless process and there wasn’t anything onerous about complying with good management practice.
They already use Aquaflex soil moisture monitoring on the home farm and will put it on the conversion farm as well even though it has the same soil types.
Soils are more variable on South Two Chain so they’ve installed variable rate irrigation on the main centre pivot, something that’s classed as beyond good management.
Paul’s learnt how to do a bucket test to check the application rates across the spray width of the Rotorainer irrigators and will be doing that at the beginning of the irrigation season.
It’s noted in the farm environment plan and is one of the things they need to record as occurring so they have proof when it comes to audit time next year.
Mandy says she’s had to think ahead as to how best to keep records for the audit so it doesn’t become a huge task.
Invoices, digital photos that can be taken on a smartphone or even links to cloud-based records such as fertiliser placement, can all be kept in a folder on the computer, although it’s important to make sure that folder’s backed up.
Paul and Mandy have used MyMilk as a way to supply Fonterra and share up over time for the new conversion.
They’ve gone with a 44-aside herringbone on South Two Chain, which is set out similarly to the same sized dairy at the home farm Kilvarock.
The new dairy didn’t need to come into action until mid-August because they’ve set the farms up so cows can easily be moved from one to the other and all the cows were calved through Kilvarock.
Once numbers had risen enough, the in-milk cows were moved to the conversion property.
They have five staff across both farms and apart from the managers, Adonis Yasana and Fernando Vidal, staff will move between farms as needed.
As the season got under way this year cows also had to be shifted around to manage new grass and cope with the slow growing season.
Both farms are self-contained in that cows are wintered on.
The home farm has a dedicated wintering and support area within its boundaries but the wintering area on the conversion farm will move around.
Although there was a long wait to see it come to fruition, Paul and Mandy are right behind CPW and in particular the concept of storage-backed irrigation.
