viewpoint
October 2014
with John Barnes – Managing Director
October 2014: It is good to see that in this new Government we have the same Minister of Primary Production in the Hon. Nathan Guy and our Nelson man the Hon. Nick Smith retains his environment portfolio, which is also a critical part of the big picture in agriculture these days.
My reading of events is that New Zealand citizens got the stability and “steady as she goes” continuity that they clearly desired. Certainly this would be true of our farming friends I would suggest. So… it is business as usual.
Back in 2003 a Clean Streams Accord was instituted with Fonterra, Regional Councils, the Ministry for the Environment and Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries as the partners in the scheme. This initiative was met with much anger and criticism from almost all sectors, however it survived right through to its proposed end date of 2012.
Since that time there has been a remarkable pick up on the aims and objectives of that Accord and we now have ongoing work in various forms around the country. The aim of all of them is to rebuild the health of our waterways so that we can swim, fish, drink the water and safely eat natural watercress once again as we used to. We need to make things right for our grandchildren and thankfully that is beginning to happen.
In the Manawatu with the Clean Rivers Accord all sectors of the population are getting in behind the initiative and I just want to quote one small section of one of the many reports coming out of that area because it makes a point that I have made often… “the success of these schemes is not attributable to any one single factor but a range of actions undertaken by numerous parties.”
This is the point that I have been making.
Let us put an end to pointing fingers at people in other sectors in a blame game that helps nobody. Let’s all chip in together and that way we will fix the problem.
At Fertilizer New Zealand we are doing our bit with sustainable products such as RPR tailored to various applications. In some mixes we introduce biological organisms into the soil assisting nature to feed the plants as they require the nutrients… not just to see them leach into our streams. In others we introduce trace elements that have been identified as lacking by our soil and herbage tests and are needed for stock health in pasture or human health in the case of cereals and vegetables. As Grandma used to say, we are what we eat and all the good stuff comes from the soil.
We have been at the forefront of advising our customers to use chemical nitrogen judiciously and encourage the abundant use of our natural nitrogen which is supplied free by our wonderful clovers. There is no getting away from the fact that bagged nitrogen has a place in our farming systems but all things in nature must be done in moderation and in agriculture we have become immoderate in our overuse of nitrogen.
Most agronomists will advise as I do but, sadly, our practical application on the ground has ignored this advice and been more akin to a child overdosing on sugar. We all know that these practices will not end well so more caution is called for.
I saw something recently that caught my attention and really got me thinking.
Here is the picture, a beautiful, green paddock with between 2000 to 3000 kilograms of grass. It looks great. It was in my opinion just right for stock. Someone had spent a lot of time and money to get this pasture up to scratch. But this wasn’t what caught my eye, it was the sheep grazing it. They all were grazing around the edges or had their heads through the fence. If I was the farmer I would be gutted.
I never found out why those sheep didn’t like the new grass, but it got me thinking why they didn’t like the pasture. I know it can take some time for any stock to get used to new pasture, but obviously these sheep weren’t happy with it.
So what looks good doesn’t always mean it tastes good or even that it is good for stock. I remember well the entophyte when it first came out; it was a really good idea but wasn’t so good for stock. With this in mind, pasture needs to be not only quantity but also quality. I know why we need to have insect resistant grasses, otherwise farmers may not have anything to feed their animals, but are we looking for the answers in the wrong places. Our scientific farming leaders are working hard to get things right and they need to be congratulated for being intuitive, but I believe we need to look at why these insects are there in the first place. For example you don’t get maggots on a clean chopping board. These insects must have a favourable food source and conditions where they can multiply. The Fertilizer New Zealand take on this is to minimise the food source and create an environment where the eggs and the larvae are under attack. A law of the jungle theory.
There are two situations here which I would like to consider.
The first – create the correct environment in the soil.
The second – create a healthy sustainable sward of pasture which the animals will do well on.
The first is to create an environment which will sustain a healthy plant which will withstand attacks from insects and other diseases. Take away the environment (clean the chopping board), and the pests have a lower chance of getting established.
If sunlight can get down to the surface of the soil, some of these eggs will be destroyed. There are well known microbes and fungi which will compost down organic matter and dung sitting on the surface of the soil and return it into the soil as humus, which will allow the soil to hold more moisture and nutrients for the plants.
In short, take away the habitat, build a hostile environment for the eggs of the attack insects by introducing microbes who feed on these eggs. This will begin the process of breaking the life cycle of this target insect. The pasture treated like this will not have the problems associated with toxins and so be healthier for the stock.
Many of our farmers have been using this system now for over 15 years and have found it to be very successful. One of the reasons for this is it doesn’t matter when the treatment is applied within reason. So long as the system is in place, it will work. What does matter is there needs to be more attack microbes and fungi than those being attacked.
We sell this type of treatment as VitaLife. It contains microbes which break down the thatch and dung sitting on the soil. It will provide attack microbes and fungi which will begin to break the life cycle of the pest insect. It also develops a better root system for the plant enabling it to take up more nutrients.
The second is to create a healthy sustainable pasture which stock will do well on. Many years ago now I conducted a series of on-farm trials which showed that by getting the nutrient balance correct in the leaf, farmers could increase their production. Simply put if more energy was put into the pasture, stock could eat the same amount of dry matter but get more nutrients.
But back to those sheep which didn’t like this new pasture. If you are in this position then there are some practical steps which will help. The first is have a herbage test taken. This will help determine what the nutrient status of the pasture is. From my point of view I can learn quite a lot of what is happening to the plant from such a test. Many rural advisers concentrate on a soil test and forget about the rest of the system.
What happens to the plant is even more important. For example take a look at the root structure of the plant. If it has a weak system then no matter how much fertiliser is applied, very little can be taken up by the plant. This system needs to be re-established. This has everything to do with soil biology. Then there also needs to be a good interaction between the roots and the soil; a symbiotic effect where the soil and the plant interact. The herbage test results will not only have the status of the nutrients in the leaf but equally important will be the ratios of these nutrients. Often a plant will grow to the limit of the lowest element supplied. Equally almost no plant will grow efficiently if an oversupply is in place. As my old soil scientist would say, we must balance the soil.
The Fertilizer NZ way of doing this is by applying Actavize which will, within a short time, lift the nutrient status of the pasture, without going through the traditional way via the soil.