SYSTEMS ALTERNATIVE PASTURES
An
alternative pasture solution
Tall fescue and cocksfoot are proving a game changer for Northland farmers as climate change impacts their pastures. Delwyn Dickey reports.
A
s more Northland farmers watch their ryegrass pastures wither under the increasingly hotter and drier summers and autumns, many are weighing up their options with alternative pastures. After using alternative pastures for around 10 years, Murray Jagger has no doubts about their effectiveness. Having watched their own ryegrass pastures struggle over 40 years, even after changes to various modern cultivars and their associated endophytes, he and wife Helen changed their game plan and moved to mixes using new cultivars of tall fescue and cocksfoot. This alongside learning to live with, and get the most out of, that bane of northland pasture – kikuyu. It probably helps that Murray’s family have farmed the same area for 150 years and have a 52
long-term understanding of the seasonal cycles of the land. The willingness to try new things may also be rooted in his family history. They were among a group who left the western highlands of Scotland in the early 1800’s for what is now Nova Scotia in Canada, and became boat builders. A generation later many sailed on to New Zealand in the 1850’s, some in boats they had built. While some families stayed with boat building, others became farmers.
SUMMER STRUGGLES Dry summers have always been an issue for ryegrass pasture in the north, Murray says, and the ubiquitous kikuyu wasn’t seen as a viable economic option back in the 1980’s. This saw Murray and Helen start to experiment Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | August 2021