Gary Peddle

‘We needed a fresh and innovative approach,’ recalls Gary, ‘one that was less stressful but kept up productivity.

Six years ago, we applied 320kg/ha of Hatuma Dicalcic Phosphate® 10%S to start with and since then we’ve gone from strength to strength. It’s been a real success story.

We’re getting two growth seasons of clover now per year that we never had. We had areas where we couldn’t get anything to grow, but now clover is appearing across the farm from nowhere, even up through the ratstail.’

‘Our whole business now surrounds sustainability. For us to achieve this we need to be able to move into the future.

The old ‘high-input’ model wasn’t sustainable and, from what we’re seeing here, I think we’ve now got it right.’

Sheldon & Nicola Martin

The natural summer-safe landscape is a clash of extremes with 465ha of medium-to-steep hill country looming over the 120ha of flats out the front.

The Martin’s property is a Meat and Wool survey farm and, through this connection, the facilitator told Sheldon and Nicola all the best-performing farms on his books were using Hatuma Dicalcic Phosphate®. Eight years ago Sheldon and Nicola decided to try it for themselves. ‘The biggest change has been how evenly the place is grazed,’ says Sheldon. ‘It might not seem like we’re growing as much but, at the same time, there isn’t the surplus rank grass as there was before because the stock eat everything. Over the winter we graze the grass right down and the stock always look content.’

‘The stock are easier to handle and happier now and that helps with our time management. Clover growth has improved all over the farm. The regrowth is good; it might not look like much from a distance, but it’s a lot more dense than it used to be and is a better quality. After a drought, it bounces back very quickly.

‘The results we’re getting and the cost of the product speak for themselves. The customer service we get from Roger, our Hatuma Field Representative, is great. He’s familiar with the history of the place and knows how to get the best results from the product.’

John Wood

This meant fencing off remaining bush, planting some 600 natives (kauri, rimu, puriri, taraire) in these areas, and establishing a new emphasis on nurturing the waterways within the farm’s deep valleys.

To complement these changes a new direction in sustainable fertiliser practice was also implemented. ‘Avoca Lime Company had just begun manufacturing dicalcic phosphate the traditional Hatuma way and it got me thinking about what the old guys used to do with reverted super,’ John recalls.

John initially used a blend of Hatuma Dicalcic Phosphate® and lime on half the farm, and continued applying superphosphate on the other. But the results from the dicalcic blend made him change to spreading it across the whole property.

Six years on and John is still seeing the benefits from his decision. ‘With the extra fencing we put in, the stock used to be forced onto ropey and unpalatable kikuyu, but the clover content has improved so much that it’s growing amongst the kikuyu on the hill country and in patches that used to be just bare ground.

‘The Hatuma Dicalcic Phosphate® is much more sustainable than other options out there. We’re getting an extra response and better animal performance, and we’re not pouring on the high – analysis stuff to get it.’

By the time Toby was sixteen he was working full-time on the farm. He later moved into management, then finally as an official partner in the business. Twenty years ago the property saw its first application of Hatuma dicalcic. ‘It was Sam’s decision to use it,’ recalls Toby. ‘He was a true stockman and everything was done by the eye. He’d seen the effect lime had on the animals’ welfare and conditioning, so dicalcic was a natural progression.’

Toby & Erin Tyler

The farm is currently running 2,700 breeding ewes which produced 3,600 lambs. They also winter 250 ewe hoggets, fatten 35-40 heifers, and another 70 steers between 1 to 3 year olds. Toby calls his operation intensive, but doesn’t entertain the principle that definition has to automatically mean high input. ‘People ask how I judge performance. First is the stock condition, the second is how much money I’m making. Because of rising costs it’s natural for a farmer to demand more out of their acreage by upping the stocking rate and putting more pressure on what’s there. A few years ago we went up to 3,300 breeding ewes on exactly the same property, but we’ve come unstuck a couple of times where we’ve pushed it too far, so we’ve had to find a happy medium.

We’re terminal sire, so everything we breed, we have to fatten and finish. The years we’ve gone for big lambing percentages, the quality wasn’t there. Last year we’ve dropped ewe numbers back by 10-12%. We’ve had a lot more singles, but we’re killing more kilograms than previous years, some at 18.5kg. We managed to quit 1,100 of them by late November.’ Toby says hitting the early market and getting more than $30 premium over the standard $70 is a huge advantage. Last year was the first year he found himself in that position, although he admits the previous season’s drought meant stock numbers were far fewer. ‘Having lambs go away in November and the heifers going to the works, means we can play the market a bit more and continue producing more weight on the lambs until the price is right. Traditionally our income period was lumped between November to March, now we’ve spread it out a bit more. Now we only have six to eight weeks a year when there’s no source of income.’

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The Richmond’s farm takes in 120ha of this, while another 365ha spans briefly eastward over medium hill country, before turning steeply into exposed paddocks and regrown native bush. Tom was born and raised here, before completing a Diploma of Agriculture at Massey, and is now the third generation on the farm, while Abi’s family lived twenty minutes down the road. Their first foray into farming was a 50:50 sharemilking family arrangement on the 50ha. Meanwhile, Tom’s parents, Jock and Jan, were running a deer operation on the hill country after successfully trapping them on the farm twenty-five years ago. It’s a role they still actively manage today.

Tom & Abi Richmond

When dairying became uneconomical, Tom and his parents made the decision to switch to using the land for cropping and fattening, and incorporating it into the rest of the farm. ‘We run separate systems for the deer and the beef, they’re both easy care,’ says Tom. ‘The hills run all the breeding hinds and in the winter the cows go in to clean it up, while all the progeny, the fawns at weaning time, come down to the flats. We fatten the steers and heifers on the flats most the year, as well as cut all our own hay and baleage.’

Hatuma’s dicalcic phosphate was first applied straight after they stopped dairying. Traditionally, copious amounts of chicken manure from the poultry sheds on the farm were used. They’d been there since the 1970s when a local man, the founder of Gold Coast Poultry, talked Tom’s parents into growing broiler chickens on contract. So, every two months, there was approximately 30 tonne of chicken waste produced, and consequently spread over the flat areas of the farm. ‘But we haven’t used chicken fert here for over ten years. It’s given us a P reserve in the ground that doesn’t look like fading. When I finished dairying we didn’t apply any more concentrated fertiliser and consequently we didn’t get any more growth. So we went to dicalcic to help raise the pH, which was pretty low by that stage, and to help release the phosphate that was there. We used a dicalcic and Cropfine blend for two years in a row, then continued using the No.8S blend at a lower rate, as well as some Haymix in different paddocks. We’ve only flown it on the hill country twice in that time, but a few months after the first application the response was amazing. I can still see where the plane stopped.’

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Blue and Helen McMillan have been farming their property here since arriving back from England. In that time they have helped oversee the transformation of this iconic slice of Hawke’s Bay into a model example of sustainable land use. Their home, overlooking the southern end, is a reflection of their attitude to the environment; quails roam the garden, giant wood pigeons hang in branches, while two ring necked doves will sit beside you if they think there’s a chance of a feed.

Before farming the property full time, Blue was employed by Tutira Station as part shepherd, part outdoor education instructor, working with school groups and teaching them outdoor pursuits like canoeing, abseiling, and the merits of conservation projects. Eventually the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC) bought 450ha of lakefront land off the station with the objective of improving Lake Tutira’s water quality. Blue and Helen began leasing off the Council and farming approximately 240ha that ran adjacent to their own 80ha left of the original McMillan family farm, and allowed the steep slopes to revert back to kanuka.

Blue & Helen McMillan - Lake Tutira

With concerns over the degraded water quality through years of intensive pastoral farming within the Tutira catchment, one of the first things Blue and the Council did was meet to discuss using a sustainable topdressing product, something that wasn’t going to compound the nutrient damage already in place. ‘My background in conservation was a definite reason to begin working with Hatuma’s dicalcic,’ Blue says. ‘Farming to what the environment will allow is our biggest issue and we find the non water-soluble nature of the dicalcic fulfils our requirements, as well as fitting our regime regarding sustainability and production. I’m not that worried about increasing stock numbers, I’m more interested in getting a sustainable level of stock to suit the land. Currently we’re
running 1,200 ewes to the ram and about 110 cows. Last year we sent approximately 1,550 lambs straight to the works at an average of just over 17kg.

The first thing I noticed after using dicalcic was the improvement in stock health. I haven’t needed to dip for flystrike in the last five years. I still drench a bit, but I feel I don’t have to poke the chemicals down the stock like I used to, certainly not as routinely as many other farmers, so the stock health costs have come down significantly. The silty areas left from the landslides during Cyclone Bola turned to browntop, but with the dicalcic the clover came back by itself without re-sowing. Now the cover is better quality, resulting in easier pasture management. The paddocks are now far more evenly grazed.’

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The Alexander name is synonymous with the picturesque settlement of Puketapu, beyond the hills of Taradale. The first of the Alexanders settled their farm here back in the 1920s, and the second generation, Roger, took over when he was twenty.

These days Roger’s sons, Phil and Geoff have returned to the 840ha property, consequently splitting it in half, and with their families are now managing either side as separate entities. That’s not to say they don’t work in with each other, quite the opposite. You’ll often find them lending one another a hand to assist with the day-to-day running, such as picking lambs, shearing, and docking. It’s a reflection of their shared farming philosophies and management style.

Phil, Geoff & Roger Alexander

It was Roger who made the initial decision to start using Hatuma’s dicalcic on the property. He’d farmed through the 1980s with very little fertiliser, then through the tough times of the 1990s, he applied Hi Grow 767. Seven years ago they began looking for a product that would sweeten the soil and, with a bit of luck, improve the grazing. After making a visit to Hatuma Lime Company they decided to initially try a small amount of dicalcic across the farm at 200kg/ha. From there, Geoff and Phil have continued to use the dicalcic blends at 300kg/ha on their respective properties, although Phil admits he stopped for two years to apply capital rates of superphosphate. But after seeing how Geoff’s place continued to have a different appearance and was being grazed better, he’s since reverted back to the dicalcic blends.

‘When I took over I started re-grassing northerly hills,’ says Geoff ‘I had giant discs bouncing over the ratstail after it’d been sprayed with high rates of Roundup and it was so hard to break it down. We’d put it into rape for summer then regrass it for the autumn. It was a very time-consuming and expensive process.

Within a year of using dicalcic we started seeing a change. There were all these new plants germinating through the ratstail. We thought they must’ve been thistles, but two or three weeks later, we discovered they were clover plants. Where were they coming from? We couldn’t work it out. These days the ratstail has disappeared without re-grassing, without spraying, it’s died and gone, you can’t find it. Now our northerly faces are mainly clover and ryegrass. We’ve had droughts since, and the ones I spent time and money re-grassing have never responded again, they’re some of my worse paddocks now. The ones I’ve put just dicalcic on are the best by far. They’re steep paddocks too, you can’t get a tractor on them.’

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The results in the fi rst 12-18 months were outstanding. We could see the change happening in the pasture’s colour and the improved soil condition,’ says Nigel.

‘It became a lot more friable once we shifted away from the acidic fertilisers. It was like the earthworms arrived with the dicalcic,’ says Bernie.

Nigel & Bernie Payne

‘The soil’s condition is absolutely paramount to our business,’ says Nigel, ‘even more so as farmers become increasingly regulated with fertiliser practices. With the local lake here, and the market demand for more chemical free produce, whatever is grown off this farm, its success lies within the agronomy of the soil and how we treat it. It begins and ends there.

The improvement in the natural soil fertility has meant pugging has been reduced to a point where if it does, the recovery is very quick. I now fi nd I can leave stock longer on the heavier parts of the farm during the wet winter conditions.’

‘We’ve also noticed less run-off when it rains, it just seems to soak it all in,’ says Bernie. ‘In winter the entire farm just works like a sponge, it absorbs a horrific amount of water. It would have to be an exceptional amount of rain for water to run off this property. Because of this, we also know any litter from the stock is absorbed and processed before it can become a pollutant.’

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‘My father, on frequent occasions, used to remind us of the many tons of bagged lime he carted from railway trucks to farms in the district. Some of this was mixed with superphosphate on the floor of sheds, then spread by various means, a lot of it spread on the hills by hand. The whole process must have been damned hard work, and if they didn’t see results with it, they would never have carried on. That’s where my appreciation for what Hatuma do to manufacture the dicalcic came from. This was followed up later when the Colyton Young Farmers Club went for a trip to Hatuma. After a tour of the plant, Joe Topp gave us a very stern lecture – the answer lay in nurturing the soil – today called sustainability – followed by some much appreciated hospitality!’

Don & Adrian Thurston

There’s a generational change happening where the crucial old practices are being discarded. Having a hay contracting business, the topics of fertiliser and grass growth are often discussed. Perhaps I am a little one-eyed, but we do see the results of various fertiliser applications. I have a genuine concern that there is nowhere near enough lime being applied for what the modern farmer is expecting to get from his soil. I’ve seen farmers move away from regular liming, substituting it for high analysis fertiliser, and for the first couple of years they have achieved good results based on what organic matter they’d built up. I believe that the time is rapidly approaching when some of these farms are going to have to start their build-up cycle again.

Some people spread lime every four or five years, but I believe it should be applied every year, if possible. I well remember properties in the district that had rushes almost to the top of the fences. Lime played a big part in transforming this land – I hope the rushes don’t get a chance to come back.

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While this practice used to grow a lot of grass, I believed we could do better because the sheep were often covered in dags through the spring and the animal health wasn’t where I would’ve liked it to be. It was around this time that I became interested in using dicalcic, having become more aware of the positive comments from farmers in the area using it, and being able to apply lime and phosphate at the same time made good sense to me.

Ralph Harper

While this practice used to grow a lot of grass, I believed we could do better because the sheep were often covered in dags through the spring and the animal health wasn’t where I would’ve liked it to be. It was around this time that I became interested in using dicalcic, having become more aware of the positive comments from farmers in the area using it, and being able to apply lime and phosphate at the same time made good sense to me.

After several years of dicalcic use it was becoming more apparent that the liming effect was growing better grass and unlocking more nutrients from the previous superphosphate applications. There may be twice as much phosphate in superphosphate compared to dicalcic, but the lime and insoluble nature of dicalcic is the big difference. Thanks to its neutral pH, it encourages the soil biology which is very important to my farming operation. There are always earthworms under the cow pats, so they’re working to ensure the grass makes better use of the nutrients it does get.

I don’t apply any nitrogenous fertiliser, because I don’t feel I need to, yet the soil tests show plenty of naturally occurring nitrogen is available. Nitrogen applications may grow more grass, but I prefer to grow better grass, and experience has shown that the stock maintain condition and health longer into drier periods and recover quicker when grass does grow. It’s about looking at what the grass system here does, and the dicalcic blends are very complementary in keeping old pastures healthy.

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