Hill-country challenge

Pakaututu farmer Tim Dinneen, left, with climate scientist Gavin Kenny, of Hastings.

01-09-2009 | Marie Taylor

Adapt or die, says Pakaututu farmer Tim Dinneen.

He is one of 20 Hawke's Bay hill-country farmers taking part in a Sustainable Farming Fund project looking at adapting to climate change.

A workshop late in July brought 17 of them together for the first time. One of the major outcomes was a call for relevant research and working models for sustainably farming Hawke's Bay hill country.

Dinneen was one of the farmers wanting research into suitable pasture species: "We are not England, we don't live in the Gulf Stream; we should be looking at grasses from Spain and southern Italy."

Dinneen, who with his wife, Kelly, leases family land and farms 70km west of Napier on the edge of the Mohaka River, says a lot of research has gone into growing 1% more grass on dairy farms.

"I have tried fancy grasses, and now I only plant Nui ryegrass. We need plants that will grow and thrive on hill country."

He has faced three consecutive years of drought, and now capital stock numbers are down 40% on pre-drought levels. "Previously we wintered 7300 stock units, and this year we are wintering 5100, of which 900 are on swedes."

Dinneen is enthusiastic about the climate change adaptation project, and is doing his own experimental work as well.This winter 24ha of pines are being planted. Inside this area 5ha of flat land will have a three-tier fodder crop system.The upper layer of fodder will come from poplars spaced every three metres. The shrub layer of blue lupin and tree lucerne will be under-planted with clover and grass.

This area won't be grazed for the next few years, giving the plantings time to establish. Tim got the idea last year when he planted 600 willows on the river banks because where the trees created shade, good green grass grew.

Dinneen is also noticing a change in the spread of rain during the year. While the average rainfall is 1100mm, most of it comes in winter, and in big falls. "We had 250mm of rain last month in one dump."

Hastings scientist Dr Gavin Kenny, who is managing the two-year project, found three-quarters of the farmers had access to good rainfall records which went back 20 years or more. Rainfall variability is an important part of the Hawke's Bay climate, and while most farmers believe the climate is changing, coping with the rainfall pattern is the biggest challenge.

Wind is a big factor in determining droughts and this needs to be understood more widely, he says. Few farmers talked about the benefits of shelterbelt systems to mitigate wind-run.

Extended dry autumns are creating serious management challenges. Kenny's team found most of the farmers had altered their sheep-to-cattle ratio back in favour of cattle.

He says most farmers are working to secure on-farm water supplies, but found an urgent need to better understand the water issue in hill country.

More than half the farmers want to see unbiased and centralised information about sustainable farming practices and management in the hill country. Some want to see working models and on-farm research rather than monitor farms to show what is possible.

  Printable View