Photo: Dean Williamson
Around the motu raincoats have been put to good use this week!
The rain in Northland has lifted demand for stock and prices - people are expecting the grass to take off and they have the confidence to buy animals and want them before Christmas.
Across the Northland-Auckland border and further south ...in Pukekohe, dry farmland soaked up the 86 millimetres of steady rain that fell on Monday and Tuesday. A further 10 millimetres was added to that in showers that followed. Temperatures cooled later in the week but were still perfect for strong plant growth. Vegetable growers are hoping soils will have dried out by the weekend so they can venture onto them without making a mess.
Waikato has been wet on and off, sticky and humid - ideal conditions for facial eczema spores to proliferate! Most dairy farmers have automatic systems to dispense zinc - which protects animals from the disease. They chuck a bag into a cylinder in the shed and the computer works it out from there - pulsing zinc into the water troughs. Most herds are milking ok but are 2 to 3 percent down on last year - for the season to date. Sheep and beef farmers are about to wean and draft lambs and are looking at some very good prices. Dairy farmers will have a fantastic year financially - but if they want to buy a new tractor - they'll need to check if there are any available.
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
Bay of Plenty ended the week in brilliant sunshine after a front caused ponding in paddocks. The grass is now bolting away. That's slowed the flow of animals to the works because farmers are wanting to put the grass to good use. Pollination's finished in most kiwifruit orchards...
Wet weather in Taranaki has held up silage making - it's really out of whack to have so much rain at this time of year and farmers would have preferred half now and half in a few weeks' time! Milk production's fallen away in the damp - the upside is covers will lift and more supplementary feed will be made. People were expecting a dry summer in Taranaki - it could still happen though - the province has very free draining volcanic soils that don't hold much moisture.
Rain caused washouts and access problems up the East Coast this week but most farmers will have welcomed it. The store market will lift and there's a real buzz in the rural community with good growth, good production and good prices. We're told the only downer is the loss of a couple of adjoining properties to carbon farming. A local consortium cobbled together 71 million dollars to keep the 6300 hectares in farming but that wasn't enough and it has been sold to overseas investors - subject to Overseas Investment Office approval. Our contact says some of the land should definitely be planted in trees because it is marginal but there's also a lot of good finishing land. He says even production foresters are concerned about the sale - the farms will go into a permanent carbon forest which will never be felled - the owners will be paid for the carbon credits
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
In Hawkes Bay apple growers are about two thirds of the way through hand thinning. Recent wet weather certainly hasn't been ideal for stonefruit growers - it promotes splitting and disease. The summer fruit harvest is well underway - nectarines, cherries, peaches and plums are coming off - normally the pre Christmas week is a huge week on orchards - growers want hot days to bring up the flavour. If anyone's short of a job - there's still plenty of work in the Bay.
Some Manawatu and Rangitikei farmers will be spending summer clearing fences of debris and generally cleaning up after raging water ripped through farms this week. Significant damage has been reported. Farms were cut off and on one near Marton a stream went from ankle deep to 2 metres in ten minutes. Another farmer lost all of the floodgates in his gullies, along with a lot of riparian plantings and fences.
Photo: Dean Williamson
Glorious rain has fallen most of the week in Wairarapa ... it's like gold at this time of year. Crops are leaping out of the ground and so are the weeds. A dry spell now is needed so spraying can be done and sheep can be shorn. Wet wool just adds further to the cost of shearing. A winemaker says the canopy's growing like mad and even though she was laid low not feeling well she had to get up and help lift wires in the pouring rain so trimming could be done before things got too out of hand. Luckily a gang of leaf pluckers had already swept through and that job's been done. It's important to let the wind in to keep disease down especially when it's so wet and muggy.
Across the Cook Strait, the Nelson region's had over 100 millimetres of the wet stuff so orchards are topped up and set for summer. Everyone's flat out apple thinning but some growers have struggled to find enough labour. In Kiwifruit orchards, thinning's mostly finished on the gold and hayward varieties . with harvesting underway, the recent deluge of rain hasn't been kind to boysenberry growers, but on the bright side hot temperatures are forecast for the next few days.
Photo: RNZ / Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
There's been 40 to 120 millimetres of rain this week throughout Marlborough - very unusual for the time of year and a sheep and beef farmer says they're now well set up for an easy green summer with masses of feed. They'd normally be unloading trading stock now but they have no choice but to keep animals in the paddocks with holdup at the works. Luckily the wetaher has played into their hands. The rain has hit though as Sauvignon Blanc vines flower which is not ideal and yield could be down again.
Milk production's down 21 percent for the month on a farm at Karamea on the West Coast. Across the region it's down 10 percent on last year. This is due to wet and cold spring conditions. One farmer says his paddocks are sodden and the grass has no guts in it, so the cows are getting a top up of palm kernel and soy hull pellets. On another farm water's half way up the humps on humped and hollowed paddocks, but cows are still able to graze the tops. AI or artificial Insemination's in full swing, so every morning during milking, cows ready for mating are picked out and put aside for the technician. On farms without resident bulls this daily task goes on for 10 weeks.
Photo: RNZ / Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
A dairy farmer near Balclutha in South Otago says a bit of rain would be welcomed as conditions are uncharacteristically dry for this time of the year. Weeds are going nuts in paddocks sown with feed crops, so extra sprays are going on. Milking's going well and on par with last season. AI or artificial Insemination is coming to and end and the bulls are out amongst the cows to finish off the job.
Western Southland's had the odd shower this week. Paddock's have dried out enough to get the last of swede crop into the ground. Our contact up the Blackmount Valley's been busy weaning lambs. They've been going to the works averaging 17 kilos. He says the schedule's back from a few weeks ago, but at around $140 carcass weight, prices are still okay. Cattle are ticking along nicely on the hills, with weights for young stock ahead of usual thanks to massive amounts of feed at hand.
