People and pastures are the cornerstones of Rhys Roberts and Kiri Phillips’ farm management strategy.
Both factors are absolutely key to what they’re trying to achieve in terms of financial returns, their personal goals and their and their partners’ business goals.
That’s because they know that utilising high-quality pasture every day of the season is the best way to keep costs down and production up and they know that’s only going to happen if the whole team is on board.
The young couple are brimming with enthusiasm about the industry and thoroughly enjoying their second season on the 1120-cow Mid-Canterbury farm, Align Clareview.
‘We’ve got a rule here – don’t ride down the races, ride through the paddocks and look around, check out what’s going on.’
It’s their second season but their first as equity managers on the property they’re pretty determined to one day own outright.
Last year they managed the farm, with Rhys, Kiri and the farm’s owners taking the time to test the waters and check each other out.
“An equity partnership is a marriage but it’s not a Las Vegas marriage. We had to get to know each other a bit first,” Rhys says with a smile.
They’re happy to share the fact the farm’s shareholders have helped them get into a position where they can take a meaningful equity percentage.
“It’s a win-win situation for both,” Align Farm Partners managing director Steve Reed says.
“We’re all about bringing people into the business who are aligned with our goals, people we can form long-term relationships with, people who can meet the performance-related targets we set so that investors are getting a return they’re comfortable with but at the same time creating a farming business a family enjoys working in and owning,” he says.
The Clareview farm is one of five Mid-Canterbury farms owned by the company, four of which are dairy farms and one a large-scale support block near Mt Somers. They’ve all been bought in the last three years. A major investor and partner in the business is ex-pat Kiwi John Buchanan, who lives in Bermuda but still spends significant time in New Zealand.
The aim is to have all the farms run by equity managers who want to grow their stake, releasing capital for Align to then repeat the model.
They’re clear about the preferred farm systems, with everyone onfarm having a significant focus on pasture utilisation.
The aim is for Rhys and Kiri and the other farms to produce about 1700kg milksolids (MS)/hectare with less than 600kg drymatter (DM)/cow of supplement and a cost structure that can achieve farm working expenses of less than $3.50/kg MS.
Last year, with rising two-year-olds not included in the farm accounts until December because it was the farm’s first season, costs came in at $2.98/kg MS with production of 1660kg MS/ha.
Steve says the strategy is to do the development work upfront, as soon as they settle a farm, so the farm team has all the tools they need to reach the farm’s key performance indicator targets – tools that include even-sized paddocks, good pastures, good lanes, good fertility, efficient irrigation, a well set up farm dairy and good buildings.
Rhys says the farm was almost re-converted with most of the fences pulled out and paddocks resized.
He’s happy to admit he’s obsessive when it comes to pasture utilisation and having the farm set up well with even-sized paddocks, posts spaced evenly and troughs in the same place in every paddock makes it simpler for the team to get it right.
Accuracy is important and simplicity helps achieve that, as does routine, he says.
“It’s repeatable and it is repeated,” he says.
Getting the opening cover for spring right with a good-shaped wedge rather than paddocks all at similar average covers is essential to start the season off right.
He goes into calving with an average cover of 2300-2500kg DM/ha and follows the spring rotation planner to the letter, daily assigning a growing area on a square metre basis as cows calve.
The first round is timed to finish about September 25.
Barley is fed in the farm dairy to minimise wastage, and is used in spring to help manage the round length. Up to a maximum of 250kg DM/cow is fed with the aim to not feed any silage in spring.
Rhys Roberts, left and herd manager Patrick Breij – monitoring pastures twice a week through the season.
From late September-early October through to mid-February the round will be anywhere from 18 to 25 days depending on growth rates and covers.
The stocking rate of 3.8 cows/ha is set so it’s at the “sweet spot”.
It’s where they’re not farming on a knife edge but are close enough to be putting most of the pasture through cows to make milk directly rather than having to harvest surpluses one week, put pasture through the mower and baler at a cost, and then have to feed it right back out the next week.
Maintaining high-quality pasture every day of the season requires vigilance and attention to detail but on an 1100-cow farm and, with Rhys also running the 530ha dryland support block at Mt Somers, that diligent approach has to be shared by the other team members too.
Covers are assessed every week through the season using a C-Dax tow-behind pasture meter and during the peak they’re assessed twice a week.
Rhys has a farm manager and herd manager who collect the information but he joins them in analysing it.
That process has been carried out using Pasture Coach software in the past although they’re now moving to Minda Land and Feed.
He likes to sit back and let them come up with the decisions but he’s there on the sideline as a coach and guide and is ever watchful.
‘They don’t look at the negatives as much then; they understand why the fences are down or the stock water’s being shifted.’
Soil temperature and weather forecasts are taken into consideration when planning ahead.
Pre-grazing covers should be 2800kg DM/ha and residuals 1500kg DM/ha if quality is going to be maintained.
Successful dairying is about the time you spend planning so routines can be put into place but it’s also about monitoring and acting on information, Rhys and Kiri say.
Observation is important – imperative even for good pasture management but also across other facets of the job.
“We’ve got a rule here – don’t ride down the races, ride through the paddocks and look around, check out what’s going on,” Rhys says.
They test pasture quality when cows are at peak milk and this season it was sitting at 12.5 megajoules of metabolisable energy (MJME)/kg DM.
“That was higher than the barley that was still going in then,” he says.
They reassessed their feed budget in terms of energy and pulled the barley out.
“It’s not just about grass in the guts it’s about the guts in the grass.”
Rhys says he get’s pretty hung up about residuals because it’s something they can really control as opposed to growth rates or soil temperature, so making an honest assessment as cows come out is critical.
From mid-February he starts pushing the round out to build a wedge of feed in front, using silage that’s come from the support block.
He manages that farm in exactly the same way as the dairy farm when it comes to grazing which means the more than million tonnes of silage taken off it is also of high quality.
“We buy it at a commercial rate of 26c/kg DM and this season we took 1.1m tonnes off it in September that came in at 12.8 ME,” Rhys says.
About 150ha of the support block is sown in fodder beet to winter all four farms’ cows and replacements on. Last year it yielded 25t DM/ha which they were happy with given it was on dryland and at altitude.
Cows are allocated 12kg DM/cow fodder beet and 2kg of straw through the winter although this winter they’ll change that to 2kg DM/cow of silage, partly because they think cows will do better on it and partly because they can grow it themselves rather than having to buy it in.
Back on the dairy farm Rhys and Kiri also use fodder beet as a means to save autumn pasture and transition cows slowly so they’re ready to go straight onto higher allocations at wintering.
The crop yields 29t DM/ha under irrigation and cows are fastidiously “micro-managed” during transition to avoid acidosis, allocated just 1kg DM/cow/day on the first day, lifting that by another kilogram every second day.
The aim is to milk into the first week of June although cows are dried off based on condition score before that if necessary.
The farm has a mix of light and heavy soils and Rhys is adamant pugging has to be avoided at all costs.
That may mean standing cows off in lanes after short grazing bursts but they expect extra drainage carried out this season should help limit issues with wet ground.
Getting the whole team on board with pasture management objectives and having them actively thinking about how to achieve farm budget goals means sharing information with them.
By giving them the big picture as well as the detail in the plan on how they’re going to achieve major goals they understand how what they do every day makes a difference, Kiri says.
‘An equity partnership is a marriage but it’s not a Las Vegas marriage. We had to get to know each other a bit first.’
While the farm has still been going through development, knowing why and how things are happening makes staff a lot more accepting of situations that affect them.
“They don’t look at the negatives as much then; they understand why the fences are down or the stock water’s being shifted. It means they’re sharing in the vision and they feel involved,” she says.
Rhys and Kiri share most of the budget with staff and how they’re tracking month by month through the season.
They’ve found staff then become a lot more active at looking for solutions to problems and ingenious ways to fix issues so that money is saved and they stay within budget targets.
The couple have used short gestation semen this year to help tighten up the calving pattern further. It follows four weeks artificial insemination and four weeks with the bull.
The short gestation semen should bring weeks nine and 10 of mating back into weeks seven and eight and expectations are for a 7% empty rate after eight weeks mating.
This last calving they managed to bring the calving mid-point back to August 12 when it had been August 25 in the first season.
As soon as cows calved they were tail painted, with paint changed every 10 days allowing them to easily identify calving groups and then pre-mating heats.
Making any changes to reproductive performance takes attention to detail and again the whole team has to be on board with what you’re trying to achieve, Rhys says.
This year any non-cyclers by planned start of mating were run with bulls. Of the 123 in the group, 114 had cycled within 21 days.
Steve says there’s a level of expectation when it comes to performance from everyone involved in the company – an expectation he extends to himself in ensuring the farms’ infrastructure is set up so farm teams can achieve their targets.
It also extends to those doing business with each farm whether they are contractors or rural professionals.
They use an agronomist and expect to get a high standard of advice on pasture cultivar selection for specific areas of each farm as well as tailored agronomic advice for crops and pasture establishment.
Even earthmoving contractors or any contractor doing work on the farm knows why the job is important to the overall scheme of operations on the farm and why it has to be completed in a particular time frame.
Align Farm Partners employs its own environmental officer to help with not only the consenting process and compliance but also a range of issues such as a significant wetland that’s being built to ensure surface water leaving the farm is in a better state than when it flowed into it.
Staying abreast of rapidly developing nutrient limit rules is also important for each farming business and the whole enterprise.
Rhys is already looking at breeding options to increase the size of individual cows in anticipation that stocking rates might have to be reduced. Having animals that can produce more milk per cow on the predominantly grass diet they want to continue feeding will help shore up the operation against any profitability risk new regulations might bring.
Key points
Location: Westerfield, Mid-Canterbury
Area: 294 hectares effective
Cows: 1120 crossbreed
Production: 1700kg milksolids (MS)/ha
Supplement: up to 250kg drymatter (DM)/cow silage, up to 250kg DM/cow barley, 100kg DM/cow homegrown fodder beet.
Dairy: 80-bail rotary.
Irrigation: Centre pivot and sprinklers in corners.
Farm working expenses: $3.50/kg MS
