Sorth Canterbury’s cropping future confronts grasslanders

Press, 9 November 1984, Page 18

Sorth Canterbury’s cropping future confronts grasslanders

Cropping use of class one to three soils in South Canterbury could double in a short period, the Grasslands Conference in Timaru was told last week.

The senior advisory officer for the M.A.F. in Timaru, Mr Brian Parker, said that arable use of class one to three soils in South Canterbury was t only 50,000 ha at present, out of a total of 200,000 ha.

The best soils covered one-fifth of the total farmable area of South Canterbury, of one million hectares.

He said obviously the arable sector had scope to expand if export markets could be found.

By raising the theme of arable potential in his address on export growth opportunities in South Canterbury, Mr Parker began what was to develop into a lively debate at the conference, grasslands or pasture versus cropping. It was to be expected that a conference bringing together several hundred scientific and lay grasslands enthusiasts on the Canterbury plains must eventually tackle the arable opposition, so to speak. Mr Parker provided some of the ammunition for the debate by publishing comparative returns for types of farming enterprise. In dryland conditions sheep were currently returning a gross margin per hectare of $220, he said, with beef $lBO, deer venison $360 and barley $6OO. Under irrigation sheep would return $4OO, beef $320, deer venison $640, dairying $lOOO, barley $lOOO and pipfruit $7OOO, he estimated.

Later in the day “grasslanders” must have winced when the future of the Grasslands Memorial Trust winner, Mr Kerry Swann, on his 520 ha of border-dyked Waimate farm, was describeed as offering a choice of intensive cropping, deer or dairying. But it was the first stop on the field day which really brought the grasslanders face to face with the

alternative lifestylers, in the persons of farm host Mr Rodger Slater and M.A.F. agronomist, Mr Bede McCloy.

After a drive on an excellent farm road through' Mr Slater’s. immaculate 353 ha property, conference goers heard how he had taken traditional clay downland sheep and cattle country and transformed it into a mixed intensive cropping and sheep property with 25km of tile drains and uncountable moles.

Nearly 150 ha of the property is now under cereals and another 80ha under small seed crops and specialist grasses, while the permanent pasture section has shrunk to 125 ha.

With $BO,OOO or more worth of drainage to lighten the soils for continous cropping, a machinery syndicate and a relaxed managerial attitude to his work, Mr Slater said he lacked only a little confidence to go 90 per cent cropping instead of 60 per cent. A near neighbour and friend, Mr Doug Kelman, a runner-up in the Wheat 83 competition, had been urging Mr Slater to go the whole hog on cropping.

“It does seem to me that consistency in cropping is better than one or two highlights every two or three years of livestock raising,” he conceded. After the softening up from the confident 'Mr Slater, grasslanders were laid on the turf by a heretical statemment from Mr McCloy to the effect that pasture phases in traditional mixed farming rotations were probably not necessary at all. What he liked to call a succession of crops, rather than continuous cropping, raised questions of soil fertility, structure and increased risk of disease. He dealt with each of these areas in turn and then contrasted the Slaters’ gross margins of $450 a hectare

with a good Drysdale flock with those from barley at 6 tonnes a ha ($600), wheat at 5 tonnes ($650), white clover at 350 kg ($350) (tama at 1.3 tonnes ($700), maku lotus at 170 kg ($6OO to $700) and Pawera at 320 kg ($BOO to $900). Professor Jim White, from Lincoln College, rose to the challenge and said he would take issue with the gross margin from white clover seed of $3OO. He contended that fixed nitrogen had to be worth another $2OO a ha to cereals which followed. He also talked about the college cropping farm, 60 per cent cereals, where major soil structure and wind erosion problems were being encountered.

“Under continuous cropping on inherently poorly structured soils,” he said, obviously including the downlands clay types, “you are going to run into problems.”

Shaking the dust of the cropping farm from their heeis, the grasslanders moved on to the idyllic surroundings of the ex-All Black, Mr lan Smith’s Peel Forest deer farm. There was pasture aplenty to delight the eye, against a backdrop of native forest. Mr Smith said he felt worse than when facing the Springboks in 1965 and got the ordeal of speaking over pretty smartly. He said he was gradually extending the deer fencing after buying the property in 1980 and now had 73ha out of 263 effective hectares behind the big fences. On this he was running nearly 400

deer, about two-thirds of the unit’s capacity. After extolling the virtues of investor capital, Mr Smith said that the sheep were being used in a complentary way on the unit in the meantime.

Mr Mike Harbord, a farm advisor for the M.A.F. in Invercargill, who specialised in deer, said an ideal deer-sheep ratio had not yet been established.

Over the Rangitata River at Ealing, conference goers really got to grips with grass on the irrigated dairy venture of Mr David Raymond. Almost hidden in the long growth, they listened to a general explanation of border-dyking from the men from Winchmore, Drs Anthony Taylor and Garth Janson. This followed a theme of irrigation and water use begun on the first day of the conference.

Mr Raymond left the Valuation Department eight years ago and now has two dairy units, with two sheds and about 400 cows, incorporating 156 ha of irrigated land and a 66ha run-off. This was the first dairy unit on irrigation in the district but it certainly isn’t alone now. Perhaps it is the 20 per cent annual production increases and the $l3OO a ha gross margin which attracts others.

Last season Mr Raymond’s cows sent away to the Temuka Dairy Co-opera-tive 64,500 kg of milkfat, at 161 kg per cow and 413 kg per ha. They are standing shoulder to shoulder also, on the irrigated block, at 3 per ha. Mr Raymond boostsd the whole production cycle along with 625 kg of superphosphate and 125 kg of sulphate of ammonia per hectare each year.

This year, which has included the worst October for rainfall the Raymonds have had on the place, quite a lot more Cropmaster 20 has been applied as well. Mr Raymond was asked what he thought of new pasture varieties, such as prairie grass and Pitau white clover. He wasn’t too fussed over either, clearly relying on the evidence of his own production successes to stick with Nui ryegrass and Huia white clover.

The men from the Grasslands Division of D.S.I.R. had to take comfort from some unsolicited endorsements of newer varieties from visting North Island dairy farmers and a fuller testimonial later in the conference from the milkfat production leader among newly-established dairy farmers in Mid-Canterbury, Mr John Roadley, of Dromore.

He said that cows preferred Ellett ryegrass to Nui and that he included nearly 50 per cent Manawa ryegrass in his mixtures for its superior winter growth. He also used Pitau clover for preference. Matua prairie grass had also been tried over 12ha for one year and during a one month period last May an unimproved paddock grew a measured 18kg of dry matter per day per hectare, a new ryegrass and clover paddock grew 29kg and a newly-established prairie grass paddock did 41kg and continued to grow 19kg per day for the 80 days winter.

“I am delighted with these results,” he said, and the grasslands scientists looked pretty pleased too.