Sunf lowers breathe new life into farm
When David Cole’s great-grandfather won a block of Northland farmland in a World War I ballot, the property was ‘‘tea trees as far as the eye could see’’.
More than a century later, the dairy farm is a sea of green paddocks, some dotted with sunflowers, peas winding themselves up stems of sorghum, fava beans and buckwheat.
‘‘I’m a big fan of the idea that different plants can do different things to your soil without having to get into a tractor and burn diesel,’’ Cole said.
He has been ‘‘dipping his toes’’ in regenerative farming practices over the past two seasons on the family’s 220-hectare farm and 40ha run-off south of Dargaville.
‘‘We experimented last year with a paddock that we call the duck pond, for obvious reasons. We had tried everything with it.
‘‘I had done a lot of reading on sunflowers and millet, and their ability to break up tight soil, so we planted that mix in the paddock and the results were amazing.’’
The sunflowers and millet broke up the soil, and the paddock is now one of the best on the farm.
The resulting crop was mixed with molasses and a bit of baleage for their holstein friesian herd, which thrived on the highprotein mix.
‘‘The product that we took off to feed the cows was incredible. If you were growing that you would never grow maize to feed to your cows again.’’
Hot, dry summers in recent years made Cole and his wife, Karen, realise the yield from their maize was too low and it was proving too expensive.
Now, they make up to 1000 bales of baleage from traditional pasture and the paddocks they are regenerating.
This season, they added peas to their regenerating paddocks to increase nitrogen in the ground and sorghum because the peas yield better with something to climb.
Buckwheat was added to release acids into the soil and free up phosphate to also help with growing better crops.
‘‘It’s not a fully regenerative system because the cows aren’t feeding directly off it. We cut the crop then let the paddock go back to grass once the other plants have done their job to restore and rejuvenate the soils.’’
Cole has been on the property for 32 years alongside Karen, whom he met in 1996. They have four children. Cole’s greatgrandfather, Herbert, won the original 78ha farm block in the ballot and moved his wife, Marian, and their six children from Nelson to Northland in 1915.
The fourth-generation of his family to run the farm, Cole is able to trace most of the herd’s generics back to Pukeroro, near Cambridge.
Cole describes them as cows that ‘‘know how to milk’’ and over the generations he and Karen have managed to breed out their tendency to kick in the shed.
While they also used to dabble in raising beef, the Coles now sell off any excess calves and use the land to make their crops. ‘‘You have to accept it for what it is up here. It’s not an easy environment to farm in.’’
Today, the home farm straddles a gully and rolls down on to peat flats. There is still a significant amount of marginal wetland, but where previous generations would have dug them out, Cole said they are replanting them again in tea tree, flax and cabbage trees.
‘‘They are more use to us as a wetland than as a paddock that won’t really produce. I think the pendulum has swung one way for a few years, and I’d like to think we’re bringing it more back into the middle again.
‘‘I think each generation of our family have pushed different things a little bit.
‘‘We’re just the latest version of that.’’