d www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 Hello and welcome to Rural Delivery. Farmers around the country are taking a much closer look at the impact they're having on the land, but it clear that different regions have specific issues they need to address, whether it's climate, topography or soil type, for example, or a combination of factors. This week, we find out about a Sustainable Farming Fund project on determining the impact of effluent nutrients supplied to peat soils in Waikato. Then we catch up with Shane and June Birchall and find out about progress they've made since 2008 in mitigating nutrient losses from their Bay of Plenty farm. And, finally, we visit a macadamia operation that's now set up to produce the health-giving nuts for the next 100 years. Peat soils have been classified as high-risk for effluent irrigation, but some farmers are not convinced this is necessarily correct. Little research has been done on the actual impact of effluent nutrients supplied to peat soils, so a Sustainable Farming Fund project has begun in Waikato looking at nitrogen and phosphorus movements into and out of peat soils. The project began when we had concerns about how accurate the current science was in terms of coming up with the recommendations in terms of the size of lagoons that we were gonna have to be building on peat, and that was to do with whether our soils were classified as high or low-risk, because the high-risk lagoon is considerably bigger than the low-risk lagoon, and therefore, there is considerably more cost involved. So we wanted to make sure that we were making the correct decisions on accurate, modern science. Currently, we've got a joint partnership with about half a dozen peat farmers, DairyNZ, AgResearch, LandCare Research, Waikato Regional Council and Ballance Agri-Nutrients, who are all contributing to this total project. All peat farmers are gonna have to build some sort of storage capacity so that when the soil conditions are saturated, that they are storing the effluent and then only irrigating when the soil is in ideal conditions, so this is the latest challenge. We've also got the challenge of a high water table through the winter and spring periods, so that makes it difficult to irrigate over those periods. We've also got management issues with peat soils in terms of they do dry out in summertime, and they require careful management, and there is also a problem` well, not so much a problem but a new issue that, I guess, peat farmers are only becoming just aware of is consolidation of peat, and peat soils actually getting shallower and shrinking as` with a drop in the amount of organic matter in it, and so this is gonna have implications for, um, drainage, so this is, possibly, a new issue that we might be looking at as well. Peat soil's really just organic matter. That's how it's very different from a mineral soil. Peat soil is just where there's been a spot that's had very poor drainage, and so water's built up, and so in normal circumstances, where you have organic matter building up and breaking down and building up and breaking down ` that's the normal process. But when you've got a high water table, it doesn't break down, so it just keeps building up, and up, and up, and up, and up, and you end up with ` in some places like here, you've got, um, metres and metres of peat. OK, guys, how's this all going? It's good. Oh, it's going really good. Harry's farm is what we call a fibrous peat, so it's quite recent. You still see a lot of the original organic matter that never broke down. You still see all the remains of that. You can see sticks. You can see leaves, and that goes down quite a ways, whereas on the other farm that we're looking at, it's been under farming for a longer. Um, all you really see is at the top layer, you see this nice, fluffy, dark soil, and you can't actually discern any... bits of the original organic matter. GENTLE CHATTER We got in contact through DairyNZ with a, uh, peat farming group here in Gordonton and sort of proposed the idea that maybe we should go in for one of the Sustainable Farming Fund projects, and so we all had to agree what the purpose was and put the project together. Since we've gotten the funding, we've done a nitrogen trial in the spring. We put nitrogen down in September on this farm, at Orini Downs, and also on a farm in Gordonton. So what we did is we put down a range of different rates of nitrogen from 0kg up to 100kg of nitrogen per hectare. So what usually happens is you get your greatest growth from the 25, and you get a bit more 50 and maybe a little bit more at` at 75 and 100, but it kind of diminishes. You, kind of, get a curve that looks like that, and that's pretty much what we see in those mineral soils as well. But at this site, we had almost a linear increase. Um, we put down 25, and we got so much growth, and you put on 50, you got twice that, (LAUGHS) and then up to 75, you got three times the growth. So there's a big difference between nitrogen availability. Here, it was just so hungry for it. We're gonna try develop a tool to help farmers and consultants, sort of, distinguish between the different types of peat, and we're working on that now, so we'll also have that as an opportunity to, kind of, get some feedback into the programme. So, today, we've got the team out, and they are mowing off the` the grass that's been growing here. So, we haven't applied any treatments to it yet, but we have to just take off the grass that's growing there so far, and what they're gonna do is gonna go and mow two strips down the middle of each plot so we've got five blocks with five plots in each. And we're gonna be putting five different rates of nitrogen to it, and one plot in each block, so we've got rates of 0kg, 25kg, 50kg, 75kg and 100kg of nitrogen going on to each separate plots. So they'll be mowing through the centre of each strip and measuring how much grass has been growing on` on those pots. And what they're also today is they've been taking soil samples, and they're taking soil fauna counts. In the spring at this site, we measured the equivalent of five earthworms per m2. And at the other site, with the more developed peat, there was, uh, the equivalent of 300 worms per m2, so there was a huge difference in the amount of biological activity in the soil at the different sites, so that was really interesting. I'm really hoping that we're just able to give farmers more advice about what they should be doing for nitrogen fertiliser and also for their effluent application and also just to add more information out there about nitrogen phosphorus losses from peat soils, because there hasn't been a lot of work, and that's all becoming very important with, like, the Healthy Rivers Programme. Everyone needs to know how much nutrient they're losing, and sometimes it's nitrogen; sometimes it's phosphorus, but for peat soils, it's` it's still a bit unclear what the actual losses are, and if farmers are meant to help try and reduce that, it's not exactly sure, cos these are unique soils, what's the best way to do that. We'll be back soon to look at how Shane and June Birchall have been mitigating nutrient losses from their farm in the Bay of Plenty. s UPBEAT ROCK MUSIC Welcome back. In 2008, we visited once-a-day dairy farmers Shane and June Birchall to look at efforts they'd made, in conjunction with Environment Bay of Plenty, to mitigate the effects of their farming operation in its environmentally sensitive catchment by Lakes Rotomahana and Okaro. Eight years on, they continue to make improvements. This year, they were recognised with three awards in the region's Ballance Farm Environment awards. Property's 290 ha, easy rolling to quite steep on the young stock block. 190ha, roughly, of milking platform. Calving down 530 mainly crossbred cows this season. Our strength is probably the family unit, just the way we all work together. If one of us falls over, there's` there's another two of us lined up to take on that job. Um, it` it's not a` it's not an easy property. it's quite, uh, labour-intensive, mainly with the contour of the place. We've got my son and my daughter working with me on the farm both pretty much full-time. My son runs a small contracting business as well, so he's on and off a little bit. Uh, I got another` one full-time labour unit, and then a couple floating that come in and out when we need them. We're on very wet soils. They call it Rotomahana mud, which is actually the bottom out of one of the swamps or lakes when Tarawera blew up about 120-odd years ago. The contour and the heavy soil, it's something we are really focused on. Not doing any damage, and this is where the herd homes have been a huge investment. They're just worth their weight in gold, really, to us. The environment side of things is a huge part to our business, actually. We've invested a lot in the way of time and money into, uh, wetlands, and just, uh, yeah, the general farm health, um, the soils, the pasture quality; bringing in herbs, plantain and that, onto the sidelings, just those deeper-rooted plants. They're all just tools that we've got working on the farm. We're in three catchments here. We drain into the Waikato on 80ha of the property. We've got another 120 that goes to, uh, Lake Rotomahana, and the balance of it is to Lake Okaro. My daughter does most of the environment side of things now. It's a huge part of the job. There's a lot of time involved in just keeping up with what's going on, rules that are coming in, um, new science ` it's just all part of it. You know, we` we kicked it off over 10, 12 years ago, really. Um, just taking the farm forward, environmentally. Must have been 2005, 2006. We had a really wet paddock out the front. Um, and we decided were just gonna fence it off and plant it up in natives, because it wasn't overly productive anyway, and then Environment Bay of Plenty approached us, cos they'd wanted to do a wetlands on the lake side of the road and wondered if they could have a bit of that swamp area on our side as well. Um, so we decided that it would be a good use for that land. In, I think, 2007, the wetlands construction started. All up, it's 2.2ha. We got 60ha that are under Rule 11, so they're capped for stocking rate, nitrogen application and a few other things. We've developed our own nutrient management plan. That's not with anyone; that's just our own thing. We put together a catchment group a few years back, and it was everyone within the Okaro catchment. And, um, we did four years of overseer to make sure that everyone was within or under their capped, um, benchmarks for NMP, and we were definitely under, so we've made huge changes since we were capped. I think it was the start of our night season now. We switched over to once-a-day. It's been interesting. It's something that's, uh, actually worked really well on this farm. We've increased production per cow and per hectare and reduced costs. We've revamped our whole effluent system. About four seasons ago, we put in this lined pond. It's better than 90 days' holding. We've developed these weeping walls. They've been a huge asset, really. They're stopping all of the silt, um, and fibre from going into` into the ponds, um, which is gonna make, you know, the other end of it a hell of a lot easier. There's, uh, only water going in. There's no worried about sediment in the pond, no worries about having to clean it out later on. We're not gonna lose our storage capacity. We've got the machinery here, because we've got herd homes as well. So we've got the machinery here so we can clean these silt traps, keep them ticking along. There's month-and-a-half storage, at least, in each of these two bunkers here. This one obviously full now. We'll start pumping into the other one, and this one will dehydrate down so we've got a nice dried product in a month and a half. And, sort of, round about October, November, period, we'll come in and empty them out when soil moisture levels are down, and we can do something with it. Everything's fed here. There's no worries about having to be out in the paddock with the machinery. We went around 180 to 190 cows in each barn. So that looks after all our mature cattle. We've got, uh, a mob of 100-odd R2s that, uh` that are wintered outside, but, uh, just the small mob, though. That is actually reasonably easy to look after. Originally, they were gonna be used just for when they really needed them, but now they've become quite a big tool on the farm. Cows stay in here for up to 40 hours in a row. We feed them, uh, grass every second day, and then they get added, um, supplement feed around the outside of the barn. So comfortable. Um, through this last period, uh, the last two weeks, um, we've just` we've had pretty horrific weather here. Been cold and wet. And, um, you'd open the gate up, and the girls wouldn't come out. They're, 'Nah, (CHUCKLES) we'll just stay here, and you bring us some tucker.' So we got to a stage there where, um, you know, we'd leave them in for an extra day if they wanted to, and we'd just chuck a bit more hay and a bit more silage around, and` and they're more than comfortable, yeah. We'll return soon to find out about a macadamia nut business that's set to produce for the next 100 years. UPBEAT ROCK MUSIC Hello again. Wyn and Chris Daniel have been running their macadamia nut business in the Bay of Plenty for over 20 years. It took a decade for their trees to produce commercial quantities of fruit, but once established, the trees are expected to continue bearing for over 100 years. Property's 8.2ha. It runs down to the Tauranga Harbour. There's about 7ha that's in horticulture now split between three crops ` kiwifruit, avocados and macadamias. They're a native of Australia. They're a subtropical tree. They grow in relatively restricted places, so the volume is always gonna be capped, particularly out in NZ. The kernel, once harvested, is capable of being stored` It's quite robust. It can be stored without the need for cool storage and can be distributed internationally, again, without the need for refrigerated distribution systems, along with being a wonderfood in terms of its health properties. When we came here in 1980, the property was entirely kiwifruit with a smattering of citrus, and we enjoyed some very good years, and after 12 years of doing that, prices reflected the fact that the volume of kiwifruit had increased, and we were apprehensive about the merit of soldiering on with a monoculture, and we looked around as to what was appropriate to diversify into, and ended up making a decision on these back in the days when Google wasn't available to help you do your research. We've got 900-odd trees compressed into 2-and-a-bit hectares, which is a high-planting density. They're cropping phenomenally well, with a little bit of a biennial trend, but that comes after nearly 20 years since we established it in amongst an existing crop. Market's predominantly domestic. We do sell a very small proportion of our total offshore, but we lack the critical mass that you need to be able to send offshore in any great volume. This was actually recognised in Australia by a Kiwi who went there years ago, Henry Bell, and it's an A38 variety, and they're obviously pretty happy here. These are all grafted in the nursery and planted out as little seedlings` as little grafted plants maybe this high, all of which had to be frost-protected every night when frost was due for the first, maybe, three or four years. Subsequently, it became oblivious to the frost, uh, so, yes, they're hard to establish and very frost-prone in those juvenile years. And thereafter, it's just a matter of waiting until nature says they're ready to go. In our case, it was a decade after planting before we got commercial volumes. It's a substantial period of time and not one that's attractive to a lot of horticulturalists. I'm mindful that you could grow three rotations of Christmas trees in the same time. We irrigated them in their first couple of years ` 1994 when we first planted them, it was a drought year, so we're lucky they had irrigation in the block. The block had higher fertility anyway, but we maintained a fertiliser regime that was appropriate for the crop that was in here previously. And subsequently, we've taken soil and foliar tests on an annual basis, and none of the experts can see that there's anything deficient, so we've had about a decade or more of no artificial fertiliser. So, you're prone to getting the problem with the green veggie bug that attacks early in January when the shell` when the husk and the shell is unformed. And you don't even know you've been attacked until you've harvested and dried the nuts and then find the kernel's all got a little blemish on it. So he's the main villain for us at the present time. Further north in NZ, there's the guava moth, and we hope it doesn't come here, and we're quite paranoid about doing things that don't facilitate its introduction, because it's very hard to eradicate, so we hope we can keep that away. The other mammal that's a predator is the rat so we have our little bit of fun and games with them, and most of the time, we're on top. We've got them arranged in different varieties, uh, in the direction of the prevailing wind with a view to assisting with pollination. With that said, the bees love it, and the beekeepers actually love us. Uh, they're queued up to put the hives in here, and the bees just go ballistic. The flowers are very fragrant and obviously have a high yield of nectar. All our macadamia trees are varieties that drop` they crop when they're ready, and that occurs over maybe a three-month period. We harvest fortnightly, which means that we have to keep the grass well-mown. Mow immediately after harvest. We harvest over about nine months of the year, because we've got the four varieties, and they tend to overlap, so this particular variety that we're standing by now, it's the first off the rank, and it's sort of slowing down when the next starts, and so it is right till December. Once they're harvested, they're taken down to the shed. We have to remove this outer, green fibrous husk, and then we have the nut, which has a very hard shell. And then we dry. It is further dried in the Waikato, where they are processed. When we de-husk them, we're then grading them, having a look for smalls, for those that are, perhaps, last year's nuts, and then they're dried. It's got a very tough outer shell. Uh, once it is dried, the kernel will rattle inside, and that goes through another process, and the macadamias are cracked. Uh, then they are further processed. They are, um, put into nitrogen-flushed bags. They're graded into different sizes, into wholes ` small wholes, large wholes and pieces, and they can be utilised for different products. We are our own marketer, so it's up to us how we do this versatile product. We have the natural product, which is becoming more popular. We first went into this for the beneficial health reasons, but we became confectionary, uh, with chocolate ` dark chocolate and milk chocolate. But now people see the health benefits and go for the raw nut. They're rich in antioxidants, a healthy source of protein, vitamin E and B complex, and, uh, studies have shown that a handful of macadamias will help to reduce your LDL and total cholesterol. Our main market is the Tauranga farmer's market. We market in Howick, um, and then we also have cafes, bakeries, restaurants. For more information on these and other stories, feel free to visit our website. Or if you've missed an episode, you can watch it on TVNZ On Demand, keyword Rural Delivery. Next week, we visit a farm at St Peter's School, Cambridge. It's about to enter a new phase as a demonstration farm for the Waikato region as well as remaining a centre of learning for students. We meet Chris Patterson, a farmer involved in the Lake Rotorua Primary Producers Collective. And we find out about the production of salt for agricultural use at Dominion Salt. Thanks for watching. We hope you'll join us again next time. Captions by Alana Drayton. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016