AgFirst director James Allen says that lack of soil moisture meant good pasture management will be even more critical this season.
Southland aside, most other parts of the country have had great growing conditions with plenty of silage being made and summer feed crops being sown.
But concerns remained at the lack of moisture at a subsoil level, a lingering effect of last season’s drought.
“We were out on a farm yesterday (last week) and it’s dry, and this was out at Morrinsville. Everyone was commenting on how hard the soils were and the lack of soil moisture,” he said.
Allen has been appointed by MPI to keep a watching brief over national rainfall, pasture growth and feed supplies after the dire outcome of this year’s drought in Hawke’s Bay.
The lack of moisture was highlighted in the company’s latest bulletin where AgFirst consultant Dave Miller wrote that the Waikato was 400mm below average for the long-term rainfall for the 2019 calendar year (850mm compared to average 1270mm).
For the period January 1 to the end of August, it was 260mm behind the long-term average with every month this year below average so far.
Miller says soil moisture conditions in the region are currently at field capacity but the low river levels suggest soil moisture at depth is below normal.
He says it’s imperative to plan early and aim to have summer forage crops in by early October, and to consider an earlier maturing maize hybrid that has a better chance of flowering before a summer dry hit.
“It seems a long way off, but what is the consequence of picking up the phone and booking in space at the works for culls in January/February now? We saw the impact of overloaded meatworks last summer,” he said.
Allen says it was still very much a case of “wait and see” when it came to what the trigger point could be when farmers have to start feeding out supplements.
“At this stage, it’s a watching brief. It comes down to really good feed planning and budgeting and making sure you know what reserves you have got on hand,” he said.
Compounding the issue was that farmers had gone into the season with much lower levels of supplementary feed stored than usual after depleting their reserves through autumn.
“The cupboard is more empty than this time last year,” he said.
Allen says as far as he was aware, there has been no issues for contractors being able to get to and complete jobs out on farms so far.
He says the long spells of fine weather over the past few weeks throughout much of the North Island meant many contractors would have been able to plant summer crops or get silage cut uninterrupted.
Waikato Federated Farmers arable chair John Hodge also confirmed that staffing did not appear to be a problem with the contractors he had spoken to, saying the issues around staffing had largely resolved themselves.
Allen says anecdotally, he had heard an extra 10-15% summer forage crops and maize silage was being planted this season, but it was still too early in the season to be more precise.
Waikato Federated Farmers arable chair John Hodge believed the area planted in feed will be about the same, if not more, this season.
Adding some farmers may switch to more dry-tolerant crops such as lucerne.
