21 Plant stops leaching Vol 16 No 37, September 25, 2017
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Back in business Tim Fulton tim.fulton@nzx.com
I
T WAS dry for so long Iain Wright started to forget the feel of mud at his feet. But a “fantastic” amount of rain since autumn has turned his family’s fortunes after three years of Canterbury drought. “It’s nice to know you can actually grow stuff. “For so long you couldn’t grow anything,” the sheep and beef farmer said. Wright “grew up with drought” on his 480ha family farm at Hawarden but the latest dry spell in North Canterbury shook him to the core. Some farmers who normally ran 20,000 stock units dropped to about 2000 during the worst of it. The Wrights’ operation usually mated 3000 ewes but they did 200 fewer when the clouds dried up. Hoggets went off for grazing before the second winter, freeing up a handful of crucial paddocks for ewes and lambs. Farming in partnership with wife Jac and parents Mary and Lew, Iain dug deep into feed reserves, buying just 60 bales of balage. Some of the hay stored in a shed was nine years old. The health of his returning hoggets taught him the value of off-loading stock early in future. “They came home just smoking. They looked amazing.” To the east, between Amberley and Cheviot, Nick and Megan Hamilton were also feeling the upside of regular rain. Their 400ha at Omihi, farmed alongside Nick’s parents Ian and Robyn, was so parched in mid-
RELIEVED: Nick Hamilton, left, of Waipara and Iain Wright of Hawarden both farm in drought-prone areas but are enjoying the reprieve rain has brought them. Photo: Johnny Houston
2016 that Nick and Ian off-loaded all their sheep and cattle and worked in nearby vineyards. The Hamiltons’ traditional approach had been to “hang on” in tight conditions for as long as possible but Nick was now more open to de-stocking. It cost them $2.40 a head to
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feed out before they off-loaded animals, whereas a grazing contract was $1.50/head. Most their sheep and cattle, minus some dairy heifers, were now back home. They were lambing 1950 ewes and 430 hoggets, finishing 600 lambs and running 100 cattle.
This year’s scanning was a record 164% and simply having stock back was a morale-booster, Nick said. “It felt like we were back in control, having sheep back.” The drought’s impact would linger as they rebuilt their genetics. They bought 600 old
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ewes from central Otago, mated with a black-face terminal sire. They still had a “whole year’s rain to catch up” but reserves were coming back strongly and the rain kept coming. The last burst was 150mm or six inches. It was especially welcome around Omihi, which had weathered one thing after another lately. The area lost its community hall and rugby clubrooms in a fire and the pub down the road at Waipara burnt not long before. Earthquakes put the historic Glenmark church out of commission in 2010. “Lost our pub, our church and our rugby clubrooms. Don’t know which order (of importance) you put them in,” Ian said. The Hamiltons and Wrights were part of a drought group that set up regular farm field days, workshops and social gatherings with help from Federated Farmers, Rural Support Trust, central and local government funding and agribusinesses. Some of the cash went to schools and local community events. Recognising that people needed time off farm, the Wrights last year organised a bus trip to a Crusaders rugby match in Christchurch. The only disappointment was a Hurricanes victory. Looking back, the drought brought the community together, Iain said.
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Down south 3 More rain 4 Mating 5 Planting 5
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