Rainfall tops annual average
With three months left in the year, parts of Taranaki have already received their average annual rainfall.
At Dairy Trust Taranaki’s Gibson farm outside Hawera, rainfall topped the annual average of 1114 millimetres on September 9.
Taranaki Regional Council monitoring showed another 51mm had fallen in the area the following week.
DTT oversees four farms in the region – the Gibson and Kavanagh properties near Fonterra’s Whareroa site as well as demonstration farms at Stratford and Waimate West, near Kapuni.
In August, 204mm of rain fell at the Gibson site, the highest total for the month since records began in 1978.
Operations manager Debbie McCallum said the rain had created hard work for staff at all four sites and feed utilisation was becoming tricky.
‘‘We’ve got supplement in reserve so things are tight but not desperate,’’ she said. ’’All four properties are OK at the moment but if it doesn’t come right soon, it could impact mating.’’
Wet and cloudy weather affected the ability of plants to produce sugar and carbohydrates, which in turn reduced the energy available from pasture.
Lower energy could have serious effects on conception rates and drive cows into a non-cycling status.
‘‘But the biggest impact is on morale, farmers are just sick of it,’’ McCallum said.
TRC statistics showed several other sites around the region were approaching average annual rainfall at the end of August.
Patea and Cape Egmont had both recorded 98 per cent of their annual total while Mangaehu and Motunui had recorded 97 per cent. In the first half of September, more than 100mm had fallen at each of those sites, taking totals to more than the annual average.
As well as the potential impact on herd reproduction, the prolonged drenching had pushed soil moisture levels towards 50 per cent at sites in the south and east of the region.
At a DairyNZ discussion group in Mimi, Agriseeds Taranaki/ Manawatu area manager Bruce Paterson said pasture damage was a problem on the majority of farms in the region but there was no one size fits all solution.
‘‘Generally, what people do when they’re looking at undersowing is go in and ask for cheap seed and use it everywhere,’’ he said.
‘‘You’re better to look at each paddock individually, think about how you use it and make a decision based on that.’’
Paterson recommended going into a paddock two or three days after grazing and evaluating the damage up close before taking any action.
‘‘Don’t just look from a distance – walk through your paddocks, look down and register how much bare land is actually showing.
‘‘When you’re trying to remedy pugging, it’s very easy to go from consolidation to compaction. Give your paddocks a light harrow and go from there, rather than trying to make it look perfect.’’
After two wet springs in a row, farmers now had to ask themselves which pasture on their property would withstand a third, Paterson said.
‘‘Make an informed decision. If it’s a paddock where you calve every year and it’s higher country and tends to stay a bit drier, you could put a medium or short term grass in there when you undersow it because next year, it’s probably going to happen again.
‘‘Then you may have part of your farm that you don’t put any pressure on over the late winter and spring period and that could well be the wet areas,’’ he said.
‘‘That’s where your longer term grasses could go because chances are you won’t come back and redrill that again next year.’’