North Canty the grass capital
After three years of drought, North Canterbury is now the ‘‘grass capital of New Zealand’’ says a farmer from Motunau.
Bill Byrch said he was having his best season in years and had an abundance of feed, despite receiving little rain during last week’s southerly.
‘‘It’s normally dry at this time of the year, but there is good grass growth and lambs are doing really well,’’ Byrch said.
Ethelton Valley farmer Emmy Maxwell said they had received moderate rain, not heavy, and their crops could be expected to ‘‘take off’’.
‘‘We are pretty green here. We are still getting growth. We have a lot more cover than we have had the past few years.
Maxwell said they were ‘‘chipping away’’ at sending lambs off the farm. We have sent a few lambs off but not as many early on as we hoped because it was drying off before we got that rain [in early January]. We sent away more stores than we thought.
‘‘We thought we would send more [finished lambs to the freezing works], but it did harden off a bit before Christmas.’’
South Canterbury Federated Farmers president Mark Adams received 75 millimetres of rain from last Thursday night’s downpour.
‘‘This sets February up nicely,’’ he said. ‘‘We are in good shape. It was getting dry. With the consistent 30 degree [Celsius] highs, the evapotranspiration was extreme.
‘‘But because of the rain [in early January], we had good covers, and while it was wilting, the pastures were holding.
‘‘The foothills are in good shape.’’
Adams said he had plenty of feed and would hold off on sending his lambs to processing companies.
He suspected other farmers would do the same, holding onto their lambs while there was feed around to put more weight on them.
There had been an ‘‘almost panic’’ store market operating, he said.
‘‘A lot of drought lambs [were] coming up out of Southland.
‘‘With the amount of feed that’s going to grow from this rain, the store market will lift.
Federated Farmers meat and fibre president Miles Anderson, who farmed in South Canterbury, said the summer had been ‘‘pretty good.’’
‘‘There is a reasonable amount of cover on most of the pastures in the district, despite the heat this summer.
‘‘The winter feed got that rain before Christmas which got it up and going, and of course the fine weather has assisted the arable farmers.’’
Barbara Boyd of Haldon Station in the Mackenzie Country said the property had received 70mm of rain in recent days.
‘‘We were getting pretty dry but doing okay because we had no wind up until this last week.
‘‘Then it was going to change drastically if we hadn’t had this rain.’’
Recent temperatures peaked at 40C on the station, she said.
‘‘We’ve been starting at 5.30am to get the bulk of the work done before the heat arrives.’’
‘‘We sent a load of lambs away this week.
‘‘But we were surprised we didn’t send as many as we thought we would and it could have something to do with the heat.
‘‘The lambs have been camping out in the shade and not eating the same.’’
In the seven days to last Friday Lees Valley collected 29mm of rainfall, Kaituna 36mm, Mt Hutt 106mm, Hinds Plains 42mm, and Twizel 83mm.
NIWA weather predictions for Canterbury for February and March were for temperatures to be above average; rainfall totals to be normal to above normal; soil moisture levels to be in the near normal range, and river flows to be below normal.