Day 8 - South Island and Christchurch

This morning we woke up bright and early to leave our hotel at 7:15 AM to catch an 8:40 flight from Wellington to Christchurch. It was a hop, skip, and a jump 30 minute flight from the North Island to the South Island.

As usual, Meg, Kendall, and Kaitlyn had to be wand checked after walking through the screening. They did pass the wand inspection.

Upon arriving in Christchurch, we met John, our new bus driver. He is a character like the rest of the Kiwi’s. Then we departed to make our way to the first farm destination, David and Hillary Ward’s mixed cropping farm.

Along the way to the farm, Ron talked to us about the new region and some of the history. In February of 2011, there was a major 6.2 magnitude earthquake that killed 185 people and had 11,000 aftershocks. Many people moved out of Christchurch after the quake.

We met David outside his “hotel” office where he started telling us about his operation. He has three main enterprises on what he considered a moderate sized farm with 380 hectares: mixed cropping, finishing sheep, and finishing deer.

Sheep grazing at David Ward’s operation.

 

He began by showing us what he planted with, a Cross Slot no-till drill, and how it worked and how he has moved on with precision planting. They get less moisture in this area than other parts of the country, so he was saving money by using no-till systems as well as building soil health. He didn’t use a lot of fertilizer because of the deer and sheep farming and then his planter also fertilized while seeds were put in. His soil health had everything to do with his no-till system. He dug into the ground to show it to us; it was crumbly and nutty and the rye-grass helps it aerate. He is also looking for more land to possibly get bigger and to help out more of his workers that have been there for a while and help get them started with farming.

Soil structure of a rye grass field at Ward’s.

The crops David focuses on include rye-grass, onions, beet radish, corn salad, spinach, barley. Rye-grass and the radishes were mainly used for feeding stock. Barley and wheat were mainly for selling for crop. When the rye-grass grew, he would chop it and sell it as straw to dairy farmers. Onions were marketed to some countries in Asia.

The integrated pest management for David includes not using many chemicals, and if he did, he rotated the types of chemicals he used. He also rotated his crops as a main source of pest management.

He finishes about 20,000 lambs and 1,000 deer over the course of the year. With the lambs, he finishes different breeds of lambs and depending in market prices, he will put more effort into finishing a certain breed but generally starts with black faces then goes into crosses then ends with light wool breeds. With the deer feeding, he tries to start feeding them while they graze, then offer barley out of a feeder, then eat barley throughout the winter. That is how he adjusts them to eating barley during the entire winter; this helps him get greater overall gains. 

After finishing the tour with David, we headed into Ashburton to eat lunch. Then we went out to visit Ted and Sue Rollinson’s dairy farm and meet Tom Hannigan, the sharemilker.

Some dairy cows grazing with the milking barn in the background at Rollinson’s.

When Ted got there to work, the farm was one of the first three dairy farms in the Canterbury area. We met in the carousel parlor and then headed out to the paddocks to look at the cows. As we headed to the paddocks, we could see the flood irrigation system they used. Because they were located close to the river, they were able to utilize flood irrigation. There are concerns with the flood irrigation and nitrogen leaching. He told us that when he bought the farm, some people said that dairy cattle could not be farmed there. But he bought it anyways and proved them wrong. The soil is really stony and it has actually been to their advantage to have cows on there. When cattle walk on common areas, they can compact the soil greatly and they don’t develop muddy areas that reduce grass growth. Overall, the farm is a low input cost farm, and that has helped the farm stay out of debt.

Crystal and Kimberly getting a photo with the dairy cows at Rollinson’s operation.

The gang taking a picture after a group of Rollinson’s cows were moved to a new paddock.

 

When breeding and culling, they look at the PW (production worth) and BW (breeding worth). His 1,400 cattle consist of Holsteins, Jerseys, and many Kiwi (Holstein-Jersey) cross-bred cattle and are hardy to the weather and elements. They have very high production at 6.6% fat and 4.7% protein.

To end the day, we drove back to our hotel in Ashburton to eat supper and relax for the evening.