Sustainability keeps everyone happy

Not quite perfume

One of the factors that has to be considered when putting effluent through the pivot on its own is the odour that can be created when the effluent is atomised.

“The liquid becomes a spray and when it’s atomised like that you can tend to smell it.”

Dave’s nearest neighbour gets a whiff of it if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction and Dave lets him make the call on whether they can irrigate the effluent or not. 

“I get a call in the morning and he lets me know if the wind is in the right direction or not. We wait for the all-clear.”  

It keeps the peace and makes for a more harmonious relationship with the neighbour, who Dave and the team call the effluent manager.

They don’t stir the ponds and aren’t planning to because they’re unsure what impact it might have on blocking nozzles.

Easy operation

As well as pivots Medbury’s dairy platform has about 280 long-lateral sprinklers.

Moving them can be time-consuming, taking up to six hours each day. But Dave Hislop has modified a system originally designed for the front of an ATV and fitted it to the front of their small four-wheel-drive farm vehicle.

It’s basically a hydraulic arm that is operated from inside the farm vehicle with a simple up-and-down control.

As the staff member drives up to the sprinkler unit they drop the arm down and as the vehicle approaches the arm slips under the metalwork supporting the sprinkler. The staff member lifts it hydraulically and then drives it to its new position.

Each sprinkler has eight positions in the paddock that have been GPS’d and, with the help of the screen fitted in the farm vehicle, the staff member can identify which sprinkler is to be moved and exactly where the next position is.

The accuracy of the system means the sprinklers are much more efficiently and effectively applying water to exactly where it’s needed than if they were moved without the GPS.

The hydraulic arm makes the device easy to manipulate and having it fitted to the farm vehicle rather than an ATV makes moving the heavy lines easier, faster and more comfortable.

“You get pretty wet moving them on a bike – this way you don’t have to shut down the irrigation.”

Crop calculations

Medbury Dairy Farm makes the most of its effluent with solids spread on areas likely to be cropped and crops such as fodder beet are used to recycle nutrients quickly again through cows.

All the mixed-age cows are wintered on and this winter they’ll again be grazing fodder beet and kale.

Unlike some, who have opted to graze both each day, they graze cows on one or the other.

Eric says they were happy with the 26t DM/ha crop they got last year, their first growing it, and yields are forecast to be similar this season. 

At the end of this season they relinquish all but 16ha of their 190ha lease land but have bought a new 80ha block. 

It’s not fully irrigated yet and they’ve sown 50ha of ryecorn as well as stitched in greenfeed oats to any runout paddocks in an effort to increase winter drymatter production in what’s been a drought-hit season.

Engaging staff

Great environmental practice requires attention to detail and a high level of diligence when it comes to operating effluent and irrigation systems correctly.

Even operations such as Medbury’s new effluent system, which is virtually labour-free, still require observation by staff and attention to make sure pond levels are where they should be and pumps and irrigators are working without any issues. 

Like almost everything on the farm it comes back to the people and how engaged they are in what they’re doing, Dave Hislop says.

“And in most cases that comes back to how we treat them,” he says.

Dave has two Kiwi staff and four are from the Philippines. He hires on attitude as much as skill but says his Filipino staff have been highly qualified with degrees. It means that while they might not initially have the onfarm, practical knowledge they’ve been keen learners and he loves to see them progress and grow.

He’s encouraged one of his Filipino staff members into a DairyNZ Biz Start group and encourages them all to integrate into the community.

Dave doesn’t think many New Zealand farmers use their qualified migrant workers well enough.

“Do farmers know what university their staff went to and what degrees they have? And do migrant staff get the chance to show their skills and demonstrate their capacity to learn and adapt?”

During their travels Dave and wife Brenda visited two of their staff members’ families in their home country and the university two of their staff graduated from.