Nitrogen targets in spotlight
Farmer cutting emissions with innovative supplement
For 29-year-old Mitchell Coombe, farming runs through his veins.
Based in Morrinsville, Coombe has been farming full-time for the past 10 years and is now CEO of his own farm management company, TCG, which contract milk, share milk and leases eight farms.
‘‘I was brought up in a hybrid farming family . . . I spent alot of time on my grandparents’ farm growing up,’’ Coombe said.
‘‘I enjoy the flexibility of life and not having a 9-to-5, I guess . . . nice, wide open spaces.’’
But Coombe is taking his knowledge and experience out on the paddock a step further by pushing to lower nitrogen use and take a greener approach to agriculture.
The product he has been putting to the test is Donaghys N-Boost, a nitrogen booster that can cut nitrogen use by 50%.
He tested the product on his Morrinsville farm among 650 cows and was satisfied with the results.
‘‘Basically, it’s a product that enhances the nitrogen uptake of using standard nitrogen . . . it doubles the response from the nitrogen itself, meaning that you can lower your nitrogen usage.
‘‘I was looking for an option that could lower our nitrogen use while looking at ways to maintain our production. We are trying this on one of our farms, and it has been very successful.
‘‘Within 3-4 days of N-Boost going on you can see a definite change in the pastures,’’ Coombe said.
Donaghys general manager of crop protection and export Tim O’Sullivan had been monitoring five different farms in the Waikato, Cantebury and OtagoSouthland regions that were using N-Boost, to gauge what impact it was having on farm systems and financials.
‘‘The aim is to demonstrate how N-Boost is working on highperforming dairy farms, as well as understand practical tips from farmers so other dairy farmers can seriously consider this as an option when putting together next season’s fertiliser plan,’’ O’Sullivan said.
For Coombe, it was essential that N-Boost would provide both an environmental and financial benefit.
He said the agriculture industry was seeking to have realistic environmental targets, but would still be impactful.
‘‘These are environmental targets and achievements that we’re committed as farmers to meeting and doing our fair share on, but trying to make sure that we can do that in an economical way while we’re in a sort of costincreasing and profit-reducing environment.
‘‘Nitrogen is one of the big driving reductions factors to meet our 2030 and 2050 emissions targets . . . it can be a negative environmental influence, so having a product that allows us to reduce our nitrogen usage while saving money at the same time is important.
‘‘Compliance, certainly ... around getting things right environmentally and hitting those targets and working with industry and government to make sure we’re working towards those [is] definitely right at the forefront with a lot of decision-making on farms’’ Coombe said.
The farming community was focused on meeting emissions targets he said, but as also increasingly under strain because of drought.
‘‘We’ve had a really dry summer in the Waikato, we haven’t had a lot of rain but N-Boost allowed us to grow really good grass, quality pasture through the spring while having really high commodity nitrogen prices inflating over the year.
‘‘We had an improved economic benefit from using N-Boost . . . growing the same amount of grass with less input – more grass and better quality of it,’’ he said.
Seeing a nationwide use of products like N-Boost was something Coombe supported.
He was motivated to keep working with agriculture groups to continue to drive environmental efforts.
‘‘There’s a lot of things that farmers can do that don’t have a huge impact.
‘‘If it was widely adopted, we would be a long way towards meeting our nitrogen reduction targets,’’ Coombe said.
‘‘Within 3-4 days of N-Boost going on you can see a definite change in the pastures. ’’
Mitchell Coombe