Friday, March 29, 2024

Grass drives

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A Manawatu family is firmly focused on optimising product returns from its farms which are treated as “stock food factories” driven by high quality grass. Sam Strahan, and his children, Richard, Ian and Anna own a large finishing farm at Kiwitea in northern Manawatu.
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In addition they have a dairy farm in southern Manawatu and a small runoff on the banks of the Rangitikei River, northwest of Feilding.

Ian is the overall manager and Sam assists him.

KEY POINTS

Try to grow as much high-quality grass as cheaply as possible

Maximise the profit on grass with best combination of livestock

Finish 800-900 cattle, trade 18,000 lambs and dairy grazing

Maintain a high standard of animal health and minimise stock losses

Concessions made for weather, soil type, stock availability

 Fallowing 20% of the Kiwitea block helps flatten out pasture growth curve peaks

 Regular regrassing maintains pasture quality, vigour and palatability.

“We grow as much high-quality grass as possible, then sort out the most profitable animals to harvest as much of it as we can,” Ian says.

When finishing animals they try to grow them as fast as possible to slaughter.

This minimises the cost of maintaining the animal in relation to its growth rate.

“As a finisher you don’t get paid for maintenance but you do get paid for weight gain.”

Sam, a legendary All Black of the late 1960s-1970s, says too many finishers hold on to their stock too long.

“As soon as an animal’s growth starts to decline significantly we get rid of it and replace it with an animal that will give us a better return,” Sam says.

Ian explains that it is not as easy as it sounds because there are always limitations in farming.

One of their more significant ones on the Kiwitea block is soil type. They were going to convert the block to dairying, but decided the soils were a bit too heavy to winter large numbers of big cattle. So they bought a stony runoff and a dairy farm in the lower Manawatu.

“Now we can hold our big steers on the runoff until the spring and bring them on to the Kiwitea block when it is not as wet. We are very conscious that farming must be environmentally sustainable and that damaging soil structure leads to significantly reduced pasture production.”

The Kiwitea farm, a former Beef + Lamb New Zealand Monitor Farm, runs an interesting mix of stock species and classes. They are skilfully integrated to optimise profitability and to cope with annual variations in pasture production, along the way minimising certain animal health issues.

A five-year revolving pasture renewal programme helps to remove the peak in the spring flush and maintain pasture quality.

Old pastures are sprayed late in November when quality begins to decline and are fallowed until February, when they are direct-drilled.

“It’s amazing how fallowed paddocks retain their moisture,” Ian says.

“By April these young grass paddocks are really firing and ready for lamb grazing.”

Fallowing effectively takes 20% of the farm out of pasture production at a time when pasture quality is at its worst.

They can then concentrate on maintaining quality over the rest of the farm. Because this summer has been so moist they have been struggling with quality and have had to top most of the farm twice.

“A wet February is a curse for us.”

Preferred grasses

At one point the Strahans contemplated converting their Kiwitea block to dairying.

Lack of water was going to be an issue even though they were members of the Kiwitea Rural Water Scheme.

After researching the geology of the area the decision was made to bring in a drilling rig and chance their arm. Fortune was on their side; at 289m a reliable aquifer of high-quality artesian water was struck after drilling through a seam of papa. The level of the water now sits at 150m.

The conversion to dairying never occurred so most of the water became surplus to requirements.

Negotiations were held with the Kiwitea Water Scheme committee to release 700 units of water a day for use in their scheme. This has enabled some large dairy farms in the area to develop beyond a size not possible before the water was found.

A large 700 cubic metre tank now stands on the well site. Water is pumped out at 13l/sec during the night to reduce electricity charges.

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