Country Life

This week Country Life learns more about a woman trialling growing rice at her home in Nelson, we check in with dog trainer Chris and his young star Miley one last time and we take a look back through the archives to revisit the battle for the West Coast's top rugby prize, the Woodham Shield.

A trip to the archives where tradition meets passion as four South Westland teams compete for the region's foremost rugby prize, the Woodham Shield.

For the past year, Country Life has been in the yards or out in the paddock watching Wairarapa dog triallist Chris Shaw train up his latest working dog, Miley - a young Huntaway that's got that "X-factor".

Pretty much the last place you'd think you'd find a rice paddy growing is on a hill in Nelson, but Yuki Fukuda is doing just that.

A round-up of the week's news from the primary sector.

This week Country Life takes a look at efforts to save soil on farms at both ends of the country and takes you to taste some traditional kai in the Bay of Plenty.

Producer Justine Murray flexes her tastebuds on traditional kai cooked up at Otawhiwhi Marae where food and stories came together as part of this year's Flavours of Plenty Festival. It's the first time a marae has taken part in the Bay of Plenty's annual foodie event.

Kaipara farmer Stephen Newman is intent on improving soils and pasture in low cost, natural ways. He's now helping others too and hopes these methods will become even more useful as the country experiences more and more intense weather events like flooding, heavy rainfall and drought.

The gloom and wet of winter is especially challenging for Southland's farms where pasture can go for nearly a third of the year without growth. Country Life heads south to find out how to keep paddocks and stock in good nick.

This week Country Life takes you to a dairy farm with a difference, supplying milk direct to the customer, and the team checks in at a lab where work is underway to stop a tiny pest munching through grapevines.

It's a busy time of year for Stacey Faith, calving 300-plus cows, rearing their calves and keeping the Faith Farm's roadside milk dispensing outlet going, providing locals with milk fresh from the cows over the fence - with the cream on top.

Are some grapevines better that others at naturally defending themselves from a disease-spreading pest? Michelle Thompson is running trials at Plant & Food Research in Lincoln to find out.

With rural health care under the spotlight, our guest this week sheds some light on working in a small country hospital. Sophia Zohrab is among 12 med students on Auckland University's rural medicine immersion programme, sprinkled around North Island towns.

Country Life speaks to farmers and growers around New Zealand to find out about growing conditions over the past month.