Taking pride in their paddocks

BY JON MORGAN

A project to turn marshy fields into high-producing pastures has powered the transformation of a Tararua monitor farm.

Pride of place in Andrew and Vicki Ellingham's photo album goes to their new twins, Campbell and Cooper. Next, is their new paddocks. The couple dote over the boys, who are five months old today and who join older brothers Flynn, 4 1/2, and Henry, 22 months. But they're equally proud of the high-performing pastures they've created on a rundown farm they bought five years ago.

The photos track the changes from bumpy, rush-covered marshy fields to clean, smoothly contoured paddocks that would not shame a dairy farm - not that the Ellinghams would consider such a switch.

They're dyed-in-the-wool sheep and beef farmers, born and bred in the Ormondville district of Tararua, and have just finished three years in the Meat & Wool New Zealand monitor farm programme.

Along with two other farms in Tararua, their farm and its management have been under close scrutiny as ways of lifting production have been tested with the aid of rural specialists.

The refurbished pastures and an unusual grazing system have attracted the most interest. Despite the three-year period coinciding with two bad drought years and rollercoaster meat prices, the 1120ha mainly hilly farm has come through well, proving the value of the monitor farm programme. While the average Tararua sheep and beef farm has been making losses or struggling to make a profit, the Ellinghams' balance sheet has remained firmly in the black.

The new paddocks have played their part. They are on a 167ha block of north- facing rolling country in a high rainfall area and are powering a transformation of the farm from an all-breeding operation to one that also has the flexibility of finishing trading stock.

It's no wonder the couple have created a photographic record of the land's change. It has given them greater control of their destiny, going from being forced to sell at the season's peak when prices are at their lowest to having the ability to buy in more lambs and grow them to slaughter weights when prices are rising on the "shoulders" of the season.

The first photos show soggy paddocks littered with brown rushes and ankle- turning lumps - the soil had the rare distinction of having never been turned over.

Working section by section, the paddocks have been sprayed with a herbicide to kill the grass and rushes, then bulldozed to smooth out the humps, rolled with giant discs to break up the lumps, followed by a power harrow to produce a fine soil. Then seed is sown by a drill.

Kale, a lush, leafy brassica, and swedes are planted first. Cattle graze on them through the winter, adding weight quickly, trampling the stalks into the ground and helping to cultivate the land further. In spring, channels are dug and perforated tubing is laid to drain the soil. On top of that goes a crop of pasja, a small-leafed brassica, and trading lambs are bought in to graze on it over summer.

Eighteen months and two cultivations since the old grass and rushes were removed, the new perennial ryegrass is finally sown.

At a cost of $2500 a hectare it is not a cheap exercise and it had its critics at first. At field days, it was suggested the money would be better spent on fertilising the paddocks to get the same outcome.

But Mr Ellingham says the land needed more than fertiliser and he was determined to do it his way. He maintains that the results prove him right. Before the paddocks were improved they earned $700-$800 a hectare. Now they bring in $1500 a hectare. This is because the new grass, as well as being tastier, gives the sheep and cattle 1 1/2 times more to eat than the old grass. More animals can be farmed and they grow faster.

Right from the first, the new paddocks earned their keep. The first 30ha held up in the drought and allowed the Ellinghams to finish 800 of their lambs and 600 they had bought. A further 40ha has since been regrassed, with 50ha remaining.

However, the droughts weren't all plain sailing. To cope, the Ellinghams had to reduce stock numbers by mating fewer hoggets - down from 1500 to 300. The effects of having less feed on the farm were seen at tupping when the autumn flush did not arrive to lift ewe weights. The result was a drop in the lambing percentage to 121 per cent. There were also more dry cows.

But that was last year and with a kind autumn, though followed by a hard winter of three snowfalls, the last of which caught their late lambs, they have performed better this year. Hogget mating was back to normal and they docked 8400 lambs, up from last year's 7200. The lambing percentage lifted to 128 per cent, excluding the hoggets, though still down on the pre- drought 135 per cent.

And they also had the bonus of using the new pastures for winter trading - this year buying in 1500 lambs in February- March and selling them in May-June.

A further lift has come from a change in their breed of lamb. After 10 years of breeding the kelso, a coopworth-romney-texel- finn composite, they decided to strengthen the romney base by using rams from Wairarapa romney breeder Jason Le Grove.

Mr Ellingham says that after two years of using the romneys, strong-boned lambs are reappearing in the flock. In the first year, lamb carcass weights lifted from an average of 16.5kg to 17.1kg and that will continue this year, though the cold spring has put grass growth and lamb weights a month behind. He expects that once the change has worked its way up through the age groups the result will be a reduction in scanning percentages but lambing will remain the same, meaning an improvement in lamb survivability.

A big talking point at field days has been the trialling of a new grazing system. Called creep grazing, it is based on a vertical-barred gate between paddocks. The 200mm gap in the bars allows lambs into new paddocks ahead of their mothers. The theory is that the lambs will gain weight if they are not competing for grass with bigger animals.

Mr Ellingham says it appears to be working. A comparison with set-stocked weaned lambs shows the creep-grazed lambs gained an extra 1kg. "We were told to expect up to 4kg difference, but 1kg is better than nothing."

The monitor farm programme hopes to show farmers ways they can improve their farms, and though the hard times have meant chequebooks have been put away, the Ellinghams have noticed some interest in their innovations. A phone call that morning was from a farmer inquiring about the costs of regrassing. "If it hadn't been in the programme he wouldn't have seen it," Mr Ellingham says.

At the first meeting of the monitor farm committee the basic aim of improving the farm's profitability was set. But that was before two droughts.

Three years later, they haven't yet had the big gains they had hoped for but they have come through the hard times in good shape. They feel confident they are set up to make further advances when better times return.

The big driver of this will be the renovated paddocks. And they have the photo album to show them how it is done.

They don't see anything unusual about it. "It's like the before and after pictures you take when you're doing up a house," Mrs Ellingham says. "On a bad day, it gives you a lift to see what you've achieved.

"It shows how passionate we are about farming," Mr Ellingham says.

He looks down at his baby boys smiling up at him from their blanket and adds, "Mind you, there's some things that are more important."

- © Fairfax NZ News