It’s been a remarkable turnaround compared to 12 months ago, where severe drought had written off feed crops and farmers around the North Island were burning through their feed reserves to keep their stock healthy.
DairyNZ general manager of farm performance Sharon Morrell says while it has been a good year for many, regions such as Northland was getting dry and areas of the Hauraki Plains also had declining pasture growth rates.
Others such as Bay of Plenty are operating on a par compared to last season from a production perspective.
In Waikato, Paeroa dairy farmer Bart van der Ven says he would typically struggle to grow a 21-tonne maize crop on the 171ha farm he sharemilks, but this year he believes it will yield at least 22t.
“For us, that’s phenomenal. It got the rain at the right time as well, and we’ve just grown a bumper crop,” Van der Ven said.
He delayed his planting this season by three weeks, from early to late October, after experiencing establishment issues in the past.
This year the crop was out of the ground five days after sowing in late October and the combination of warmth and good rain saw it take off. He recently checked the cobs on some of the crop, which were 40 kibbles long by 16 kibbles around.
“Everything just fell into place,” he said.
Once harvested in early March, some of the maize will be fed out straight away while the rest will be stored until required.
The extra feed will mean a longer milking season and he predicts he will be easily milking into May.
“I’m growing the most maize I’ve ever had. Last year I grew 4.5ha, this year 7.5ha. Last year I had to buy an extra 3ha of maize in and I still couldn’t milk into May,” he said.
He says pastures are still growing strong with the feed quality holding up well.
“Looking at the grass situation at the moment, we could have six weeks of a drought and still milk into May. I’ve never been so stoked in the summer, the mental health’s doing really well,” he said.
His herd is halfway through its second grazing on his 19ha chicory crop, which was also looking superb, getting 2.5kg of drymatter per cow off it.
At Te Poi, south of Matamata, sharemilker Matthew Zonderop says the farm had so much grass for his 400 cows that it was posing a dilemma with his 12.5t/ha turnip crop close to being ready.
The crop had to be eaten, while at the same time trying to maintain the pasture quality as best he could.
He also has 10.5ha of maize in the ground, which typically yields around 25t/ha. He believes it will be well above that when it is harvested in six to eight weeks’ time.
“I’ve never seen our maize as big as it is right now. Even if it dries out now the maize will still be through the roof,” Zonderop said.
Further south in hill country Manawatu, sheep and beef farmer Conor Hopkins says the region has had an excellent summer so far.
The family farm he works on has plenty of grass available and summer feed crops of lucerne, chicory, raphno and pasja, were looking good.
The farm also had 380 bales that are a mix of hay, grass silage and oats.
“Everything is growing really well,” Hopkins said.
He says it had been a remarkable turnaround from last year which had been fraught with issues around drought and tight space at the meat processor.
The rain also relieved concerns in North Otago, where dry weather pre-Christmas had threatened to derail the farming season.
Federated Farmers North Otago president Jared Ross says it had been a remarkable turnaround after the region received 150-200mm of rain at Christmas.
“The dry concerns (are) long gone,” he said.
At the bottom of the country in Southland, Nick Templer says it has been a great season so far for farmers in his part of the country.
“We’ve got grass everywhere and silage shut off, it’s been really good so far,” Templar said.
It was looking dry on the farm he sharemilks near Balfour in December before timely rain over Christmas and early January set him up.
“Everyone’s pretty happy at the moment,” he said.
“But the feed reserves are quite good. People have got a bank of feed, which bodes well and pastures are still growing by and large. Hopefully summer production will hold for longer than it did last year.”
