Farming in the wettest year on record
‘‘It got to the point where you look forward to the dry spells rather than worry about the wet and its consequences.’’
Wayne Reynolds
Gordonton dairy farmer Wayne Reynolds, 48, wakes up to more rain in the middle of the night and wonders if his cows are safe.
Whole generations of farmers have never seen rain like this.
‘‘It got to the point where you look forward to the dry spells rather than worry about the wet and its consequences.’’
But on this Tuesday afternoon, there’s a warm blustery wind blowing over his 158 hectares.
It’s perfect drying weather, and it’s needed. As at September 22, the year-to-date rainfall at Hamilton Airport was 1271mm, the highest since records began in 1935.
The main trial hasn’t been heavy downpours, Reynolds says, but so few dry days. Usually, the ground would be dry underfoot shortly after a 50mm downpour. This winter, 50mm leaves it soggy for a week.
In a T-shirt and jeans, the fourth-generation dairy farmer is soft-spoken, but grim.
‘‘There’s probably been a whole generation of farmers that have never faced the kind of challenges we have faced,’’ he says.
There are the little things: forever wearing sweaty wet-weather gear, battling to keep vehicles moving through the mud. On Sunday alone, the tractor got stuck four times, he says.
And mud wears down equipment. A wheel fell off the ‘‘calfa-teria’’, a teat-ringed trailer for feeding calves, and the quad truck has a funny noise under the front wheel. There’s no time to check that, though.
Running a farm system is all about maintaining a balance and Reynolds is guided by a philosophy refined in recent years by management speak: people, pastures and planet.
It’s 5.30am starts and upwards of 55-hour weeks for his three staff, and keeping them motivated to do the right thing – the right thing being working harder than usual – is part of that balance.
It’s not just the farmers who have to keep their chin up. The pressure is felt throughout the industry: the Dairy NZ reps, contractors, Fonterra area managers and rural bankers.
‘‘Everyone in a front-facing farmer role has now been trained to detect people who are struggling,’’ Reynolds says.
Farmers – with their socialist penchant for forming cooperatives – are a supportive bunch, and Reynolds says most have someone who will hear the frustration, be it at the kids’ school, a text message to a mate, or on the sidelines of the rugby field.
From fields to pasture, green grass can turn into black mud under the weight of Reynolds’ 515-strong herd. It’s called pugging and gateways to paddocks are particularly prone. They’re high traffic zones and cows tend to camp out there.
Take the cows off the paddock and you preserve the pasture, but they’ll be left uncomfortable on the concrete feeding pad. Knowing this causes the workers some discomfort, too.
Another trade-off sits with the effluent irrigator, spinning and spraying cow poo to feed the grass.
If the soil is sodden the nutrients will run straight through it, but put that off for too long and the effluent pond overflows.
‘‘If you don’t get that right, you waste nutrients, but you also leach nitrates into groundwater.’’
Reynolds wouldn’t usually start irrigating until August, instead focusing on calving from July. He started earlier this year, juggling both, because with the rain comes fewer windows to irrigate.
Fighting at-capacity ponds felt like ‘‘running the gauntlet’’.
A sacrifice paddock is the last resort. He’s avoided keeping the herd on one paddock to preserve the others, which can mean a lengthy recovery process and again, the risk of nitrate leaching. He says a minority of farmers have probably been forced to do this.
Despite the challenges, milk production is up 2 per cent on last season. It took a lot of supplemental feed to keep fat on the cows and milk flowing, though. Reynolds spent $30,000 on an extra six weeks of feed, including some of the maize he was saving for summer.
The cost is roughly 5 per cent of his total expenditure, but it can mean 20 per cent of his profit. As his bank manager says: ‘‘You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.’’
This afternoon, back on a diet of 100 per cent pasture, a cohort of young cows are chewing through a strip of long grass by the silage pond while Reynolds’ staff pick their next destination.
Further down the farm, Reynolds’ spray contractor is killing the grass in a custom built red truck, complete with long GPScontrolled boom arms and thick wire tow cable – just in case.
Once the grass is dead, he will spray 30 hectares with chicory seeds. The herb will feed the cows over ‘‘the summer dry’’.
The operation’s running four weeks behind because of the rain. Chicory has a deep tap root that allows it to plumb deeper moisture in the dry summer, and the longer it has to grow, the deeper the root, the more water it can drink, the more cows have to eat, the more milk they can produce.
The chicory will be reaching moisture, but right now Reynolds wants rid of the water. ‘‘We are through the worst, but we’ve just got to get the soil to dry out.’’
Heading into the afternoon milk, a looming dark cloud threatens a spit. The red spray truck leaves, since rain will wash away its good work. Another spray will cost another $80 per hectare.
Reynolds shrugs his shoulders. He stopped worrying about things you can’t control a long time ago.
‘‘We might have got away with that spray.’’
And then it pours – briefly.