On June 1 they drove their herd the few kilometres from their old farm in the deep valley that carves through the top of the south to the larger, 162ha farm where they are milking 300 cows.
It’s a move that will allow them to increase numbers by 75 cows, but more importantly winter their stock so they can manage the animals as well as feed costs.
They were one of three winners in the national competition run by the Pasture Renewal Charitable Trust (PRCT).
They enlisted Nick Appelman, from Seed Force, to help them plan their cropping and regrassing programme.
“It’s our first season here, so we won’t be doing anything dramatic,” Nick said.
“We’ll go up 10-15 cows next season and see how we go, but we want to keep it pretty simple, so that’s grass, fed with some palm kernel ad lib when it’s needed.”
About 130ha of the farm is milking platform on the valley floor, with the remainder in steeper hillsides that rise to the plantation forests above. About 90ha of the milking platform is irrigated with K-line or sprinklers, so 10.8ha of Envy summer turnips will be planted over several weeks from mid-October as an insurance against the drop in pasture growth and quality if it’s a dry season.
Decide
They have yet to decide pasture species to follow the turnips as they assess the soils, the use of the paddocks, and the best options for their effluent-disposal paddocks.
On a non-irrigated river flat with lighter soils they sowed 2.4ha of Coronet forage and Bolta balansa oats in mid-September, which will be used for oat balage.
The oats were leftover seed that needed to be used and the paddock wasn’t their first pick for pasture renewal. But when the neighbouring forestry block was harvested on a particularly steep hill above the paddock, a large bulldozer was needed at the base to anchor the cables to haul logs.
By the time the bulldozer had moved to different sites around the paddock it was an obvious choice for regrassing.
It’s also a paddock prone to flash flooding, so once the grass had been sprayed, Appelman advised them to direct drill the oats rather than risk cultivating the soil.
Oats will be followed by permanent pasture using grasses that tolerate drier soil in the drought-prone area, such as Stellar AR1 and the fescue Finesse Q.
“I am reluctant to just go in and start a full-on pasture renewal programme without having seen first how the various paddocks are performing,” Nick Appelman said.
“We could be spraying out their most productive paddocks instead of the worst-performing.”
The plan includes a comprehensive spray programme to deal with a large range of unwanted weeds in the paddocks. Appelman said he will be reassessing the farm through the van der Speks’ first season to decide the best paddocks for regrassing.
It’s another steep learning curve for the van der Speks, who bought their first dairy farm in the valley three years ago after careers in building, teaching, and with the Department of Conservation.
After a big learning curve in pasture management on that farm they employed farm managers Warren and Carolyn Billingsley, who moved with them to the new farm.
The move also got the van der Speks out of their bus, which had been home on and off through the years, and into a comparatively spacious two-bedroom cottage.
Magic
It has been a good year to move farms, with a mild winter and a magic start to spring boding well for the season.
Apart from hiccups with the computer system in the dairy, spring has flung few problems their way as they learn about new paddocks, new soil, and the best grass species for each.
On their previous property they sowed the high-sugar AberMagic and AberDart, which impressed them with its growth and appeal to the cows.
“The cows milk well on it and they love it,” Pene said.
“If the cows were going into those paddocks they couldn’t get there fast enough.”
The van der Speks hope to be able to cut their own supplements from surplus growth this year, but they have to see how the paddocks perform with their herd and whether a drought takes its toll on growth.
“The reason we came here was to be self-sufficient and be able to make some feed, as well as graze our animals at home,” Pene said.
The competition attracted 345 entries from around the country and prizes went to three winners, including two sheep-and-beef farmers in the North Island.
