('COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME) - (WHISTLES) - Always a favourite on every rural road... (DOG BARKS) - Since I was tiny, my whole thing's been wanting to be a farmer. - He's the sixth generation to battle the Canterbury elements... - If you've got a lovely season, great. If it went dry, you've got nothing. - ...but his father has changed everything with irrigation. - We went from mostly sheep with a little bit of crop, to mostly crop with a little bit of sheep. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024 - It's late summer near Darfield on the Canterbury Plains ` and on the Grigg family farm, harvest is the busiest time of the year. Several different crops are coming ready at the same time, and each crop needs to be handled in exactly the right way. Farmers Hamish Grigg and his father, John, are taking advice from Jane Fitzpatrick and David Harrison of South Pacific Seeds. - JANE: You've got some nice seed here. It's got the white chalky bits inside. - The Griggs have grown a crop of beetroot, but it's not the root of the vegetable that they're interested in. - You will have the root part here, which you chop up and put whatever you're making in the kitchen. What we are producing is the seed, and what we're producing it for is actually a European buyer. So we're really in the multiplication of vegetable seeds for Europe, Japan, Asia ` and that's what we do well in Canterbury. - When you're growing a crop for its seed, timing is everything. A contractor gets straight into wind-rowing the crop, cutting it, then leaving it on the ground till it's completely dry. John Grigg says the drying process is essential. - If the stems are wet, when it goes through the combine, it will carry moisture and carry seed out the back of the combine, and effectively, we lose the seed. If it's dry enough, we then combine it, and then from there, we will put it into our dryers, and then we'll send it to the seed dressers. They will dress it, pack it, and then it will be exported to Europe. - Across the other side of their 850ha farm, John and Hamish are working together harvesting barley. Coming from a long line of farmers, working the land is all Hamish has ever wanted to do. - Growing up, since I was tiny, my whole thing has been wanting to be a farmer. So friends want to golf and have multiple different career trajectories and things like that, and, yeah, as far back as I can remember, my parents said my brother would go on the farm and spend time with dad, but I'd go on the farm to go farming. - Like the red beet, the barley is being harvested for its seed, but this crop will stay in New Zealand. - We grow the seed so that other farmers can sew it for silage barley to be able to feed mainly dairy cattle in the winter. - Growing for seed means thinking about factors that most grain farmers don't need to worry about. - The two things that we have to do differently to a normal farmer is that our ground has to be very clean ` so we can't have specific weeds for different types of seeds ` and we're a bit softer on the crop. We don't want to split the grain, because the split grain won't grow, and so we're being very careful with how we harvest it. And in this case, this barley will go to farmers to be grown for silage, and then that will be harvested and put in a stack and then fed out to livestock. - Most of the barley's dry enough to go straight into a silo, where it'll be stored until it's sold ` but if there's any moisture in it, it goes to the dryer. - On a hot summer, you can always get your crops in, but it's a wet summer that's the ones that you're gonna struggle with. So this cements the ability of safely getting your crops in. - The farm has its own drying rooms. Because they're selling the seed, they have to make sure it stays fertile. - The big one when we set the system up was to make sure we protect the germination of the crop. If you're doing feed crops, you just want it dry so you can get it stored, whereas we need to make sure we dry it at a rate that we're not gonna damage the seed at all, which is why, like, the tunnels that the air blows through can't get above 35 degrees. - The drying rooms have a tunnel below with hatches that can be opened or closed to control the flow of the air. (FAN CREAKS) - We blow the air from underneath the crop. That air is at a set humidity, which is done by LPG burner, to dry the air out so the air has the ability to take moisture out of the crop. - Once each crop reaches the right moisture content, they take it to a seed-dressing plant nearby at Darfield. The seed has to be harvested in the right way, then dried properly on the farm. And once it gets here, it still needs further processing before it's ready for sale. - Ideally, when you harvest something through a header, you try and keep your crop as clean as possible so that there isn't any short straws or husks. They'll go through, and they'll dress all of that extra stuff that isn't seed out, and any light seed that's immature so it won't germinate. So that'll all get dressed out here, and then it'll get packaged up, ready to be transported. - This white clover seed is destined for Europe, either to be planted in farm paddocks or for a grower to do the same as the Griggs are doing in Canterbury. - A lot of white clover goes into pasture grasses ` so whether it's for cattle and stock feed ` and then a set amount will be regrown in Europe and then sent back to New Zealand to get another season. (EASY-GOING MUSIC) - Their farm's rich soils help the Griggs produce high-quality seeds, but the land is also full of ancient river stones, and the Griggs aim to change that rock by rock. - As a good Canterbury farmer, with most of farms being made up from field and riverbeds, we have a lot of rocks around the place. So what Connor is doing at the moment is cultivating up the ground, lift the stones up, and then the aim is to pick up any rock above a 40mm diameter. It's a slow, gruelling job to do, but we noticed the vast difference in yields, soil condition and even looking after our equipment, from the discs that are behind me to our drill, and mowers, especially. - Once the rocks have been lifted to the surface, they'll bring in another machine to pick them up. Growing crops for seeds provides the Griggs with most of their income, but sheep are an important part of their farm too. (SHEEP BLEATS) - The Canterbury Plains are famous for their wide, swift rivers, but there are pockets of quiet wetlands too, like this one on Hamish Grigg's family farm, 45 minutes west of Christchurch. - It was part of our original farm bought in 1925, and so all behind us through here is stuff that we've been looking after for 99 years now. It's something we're incredibly proud of. With this area comes a lot of challenges, because the water table's incredibly high. And so for us, the only way we manage this area is through sheep grazing. - Today, Hamish is moving a mob from a wetland paddock to new grazing. - We're lucky that our regulations allow us to graze the edges of our waterways with sheep, whereas cattle, pigs and deer are excluded, as they like to swim in the water, which is gonna mess up the sort of biodiversity and the fish life in there, whereas sheep don't like swimming. So it's a really good management tool for us because we couldn't afford to run this area and keep it as beautiful and as natural as it is without sheep. (HORN TOOTS) - The sheep are moving to a paddock that's been recently harvested for seeds. They'll get a good feed, and they'll also help prepare the paddock for its next crop. - We've harvested the crop, allowed anything that is gonna regrow to regrow, and now we're putting the sheep into graze it out before we can cultivate it. So it's a bonus feed for us from the crop and makes it easier to cultivate. The next stage of the paddock is getting it ready for next crop to go in, and the rotation. - The farm's wetlands are one of the few safe homes left in Canterbury for mudfish, an endangered native species. Yohannes Welsch from Environment Canterbury has come to take a look at the wetlands with Hamish's father, John Grigg. - It's one of the last sort of remnants we've got on the Canterbury Plains. With John, We've got an amazing steward ` it is almost in its natural state. - Environment Canterbury has built a unique electric fence in the water made of railway irons. It stops the mudfish's main predator, trout, entering the wetland from downstream. - Last year's data is really showing there's a much bigger spread of sizes, which means the population is recovering, there's less predation going on, so it looks like it's working. - Well, that's brilliant. - Yeah. It's awesome. - The electric barrier doesn't hurt the trout, but it stops them getting into the wetland ` and Yohannes says that's essential if the mudfish are to survive. - Mudfish are slow-moving. They just wanna hang out. They were easy prey because they're slow ` and delicious, by all accounts ` and so it's easy to be gobbled up. - The barrier has its own solar-driven power supply. The whole thing was designed by an American company, taking a creative approach. - Traditional production is, you build a ginormous concrete structure somewhere, hoping that something doesn't get through, but we're dealing with a floodplain, the fault line right through here, the elements ` all four seasons in a day ` is not an uncommon thing, and so we had to find a whole different solution for here. We brought them over, they had a look at the site ` how could we do this and sort of DIY a little bit? Which then ended up with three railway irons creating an electric fence in the water, in essence, that does not sort of interfere with the natural stream habitat, but just keeping trout out. - But trout aren't the only exotic species causing a problem in the wetland. Hundreds of willow trees are choking native plant life. Environment Canterbury has been bringing crews in to poison the willows. It's a long-term job for Mark Moore and his team, and they're tackling it bit by bit. - We'll keep progressing up through this wetland and then up the stream system to the springhead. By then, hopefully the native has come away back through here and flourishing and, you know, back towards what the biodiversity was like. - Each poisoned tree is then clearly marked. - That's so that we know that that tree's done. And when the rest of the crew are coming through, if they see a tree that doesn't have a dot on it, we'll pick it up. Hopefully that way, we don't miss any. - Hamish Grigg reckons a farm with a wetland in the middle of it needs to be managed the right way. - Our farm is very different to a lot of places. Yeah, we've got our own specific challenges. With all of the creeks, springs and the river running through the middle, if we have a big weather event, we know that the river is gonna blow out. And so we very much set our farm up in a way that we allow the river to slow down over a larger area so it doesn't do as much damage. And then within 24 hours, it'll always be back within its channel. - As well as the wetland, there's water below ground here too. Thanks to a series of bores, two-thirds of the farm is irrigated. For John Grigg, it's made a huge difference to how they farm, because they used to be victims of the weather. - If you've got a lovely season, great. If it went dry, you got nothing. And, you know, there's many a time I can tell of have crops that look really good, and then a month of hot, dry Canterbury nor'west, and they were a disaster. - Many farmers with irrigation pivots remove fences so the pivot can operate unimpeded, but the Griggs need to keep small paddocks for their specialised seed crops, and they need to bring sheep in as part of the rotation. - We are a bit unique because we're running crops and sheep. Because we're running a whole lot of very high-value vegetable seed crops, we need to have a secure boundary so that we don't have stock eating those crops. - John's invented a gate that a pivot wheel can push down, but it will bounce back up behind it so stock can't pass through. This gate's been running here for over 10 years, and it's still doing very well. It is very secure, and we've had very little problems with them in the whole time we've been running. (CALMING MUSIC) - The soil on the Canterbury Plains is rich, but it can be stony too. On Hamish Griggs' family farm near Darfield, they have their own stone-picking machine. - We have a set of rakes in the centre which scoop the stones into the bin. That goes through a grill, which enables any soil or the smaller stones to fall in behind, and all of the big goolies come out. - The bin holds 3 tons of stones, but it can fill up quickly and soon needs to be emptied. - The distance you can travel really depends on the paddock. The worst we've done is only about 10m to fill the bin. And, uh, those paddocks, uh, you're in there for an awfully long time. - Meanwhile, Hamish's father, John Grigg, is working in a paddock of kale. - We grow different crops for different purposes. And this one, instead of being harvested by a combine, it's harvested by black-and-white cows instead. And so they'll come to us in the winter when they've finished milking, and we'll feed them on kale and beet, and then they'll go back and start milking in their home farms in the beginning of the spring. - Everything's looking good, except for one thing ` the cows won't arrive for another two months, but the crop's already being eaten by uninvited visitors ` white butterflies. John is spraying insecticide to keep them at bay. - The caterpillar, of course, is the problem and it will start eating the leaves. And if you look closely to the leaves, you'll see a whole lot of holes where they've had their lunch and their dinner and their breakfast. - Meanwhile, Hamish is moving another crop out of the dryer. It's peas, to be grown by market gardeners. - These peas were planted the start of October, and then we've got irrigation spraying fertiliser that's got to go on them. We're very pleased with how it's turned out. - The peas will end up in a number of different places, both here and overseas. - These ones are small market gardens, sort of old variety Massey peas. So, um, most of them will end up in the New Zealand market. - But this crop of carrot seed will all go overseas. - Good flight over? - Yeah, flight was OK. - The buyer, Laurent Nercardie from France, is visiting to see how it looks. - I'm looking at how many seeds I'm gonna get from your crop. Like, this one is looking nice. - Laurent is inspecting a range of seed crops all over Canterbury. - So seeds are looking good. They are looking big, pretty heavy, which works fine for me. - Hamish is pleased at Laurent's response, because growing carrot seed can be a bit of a lottery. - Very difficult crop to grow. There's a lot of disease control or nutrients control, the amount of water it needs ` so it's a very-high input crop, but that's what makes it interesting and fun. It's one of those ones ` with great risk comes great reward. It's a very lucrative crop, so you've gotta be on to it with everything you do. (GENTLE ACOUSTIC MUSIC) - There's always another job to do on the Griggs' farm, and each task is quite different. Hamish is testing that his fertiliser spreader is calibrated correctly. - We've got trays set up to make sure that our spread pattern's nice and even. Hopefully the end result will be the same amount of urea in each tray. - The aim is to get exactly the right amount of urea on to every square metre. - Well, I'm very happy with that. A big thing about cropping farming is if you don't have good soil health, you're not gonna grow anything. The extra nutrients we're putting on is what the crop requires, so then the crop isn't having to mine excess nutrients out of the soil. - The grass in this paddock has already produced two crops ` grass seed as well as straw. - We've then got to wait for the grass to start regrowing again before we can put some nutrients on to get a bit more growth, which then gives us feed for pregnant ewes over the winter. - Now that the farm has pivot irrigators, applying urea fertiliser has become more effective. - Previously, we'd wait for a shower of rain to come through. And as we thought it was coming, we'd go and put on fertiliser to make sure it would get washed into the soil nice and quickly and we wouldn't get any loss of nutrients. But nowadays with centre pivots, we're able to have the irrigator sitting right there, ready to go, put on the fertiliser and water it straight in. - This paddock will go through a similar cycle. John Griggs already harvested the seed from the grass here. - That's actually sitting in the dryers now, waiting to get to the seed dressers, and then we have raked this and baled it for rye-grass straw. Once this paddock has cleaned up, we'll water it, give it a little bit of fertiliser, and then we'll grow it up for stock. And often we'll have heifers that'll come in and May, and they will eat this grass. And then in the spring, we will put it into a different crop. - John's great-great-grandfather started farming in Canterbury in 1863. For the first four generations, they were mainly sheep farmers, but all that has changed during John's time. He's taken the farm in a completely new direction. - The two neighbouring properties came up for sale, and we stuck our necks out and bought the two properties ` and that's probably one of the defining moments, followed by the decision to start irrigating. You get a higher yield, higher inputs, more management, but it's dimensionally changed what we do on the farm. We went from being mostly sheep with a little bit of crop to being mostly crop with a little bit of sheep. - And now with Hamish, it's the turn of the sixth generation. - I'm very fortunate and very privileged to be in this position, but then I also understand that there's a lot of responsibility that comes with that, because I've seen each generation take the farm to a new step, or what have they done to build this legacy? Because of the family farm, you're not doing it for yourself. You're doing it for the generation below you to be able to grow up the way I grew up, experience what I experienced and have the opportunity to pass this on to the next generation as well. So there's a huge amount of excitement, but it's something I'm very keen to take on and be able to give that to my kids. (GENTLE ACOUSTIC MUSIC) (MUSIC STOPS) (COWS MOO) - Next time ` - Jersey cows have got a lot of character. - And the milk these cows produce is something special. - We're organic. It's Jersey only, and it's A2, so there's attributes that make it stand out. - Knowing your customers is top priority. - Good time to tell them what's happening on the farm and make it clearer about what dairying is about. - That's next time on Hyundai Country Calendar.