Busy family finds time for environment

For Bruce, Maxine and youngest Jessica Lovell, life is about family, farm and improving the sustainability of their valley’s bush-clad environment.

01-09-2010 | Jackie Harrigan

The Lovells of Tongaporutu, in north Taranaki, are one busy family.

As well as milking 170 cows and rearing calves and young stock, Bruce and Maxine have eight children and have found time during the past 10 years to plant 5000 trees along the banks of the Hutiwai and Tongaporutu rivers.

The family's riparian fencing and tree planting work on the Hutiwai, an important spawning ground for whitebait, has earned them a Taranaki Regional Council Environmental Award for 2010 for riparian planting and sustainable farming.

Bruce grew up on the property running alongside the Hutiwai River, a tributary of the Tongaporutu River, 70km northeast of New Plymouth, where his father Alf established the well-known Derwin Jersey herd. Maxine grew up on a sheep and beef property up the nearby Mokau River. Once Bruce had completed a Diploma of Agriculture from Massey University and worked on other farms, they did their overseas experience together then settled down on the family farm.

In 1993 the Lovells bought the 184ha property from Bruce's parents, milking 80 cows at the time through an eight-bale walk-through cowshed.

The 184ha farm has since been increased to 320ha, with most of it still in native bush and reverting scrub on the steep sidings. The 58ha milk platform is spread out up the floor of the valley which, according to geologists, was a glacial valley carved out several ice ages ago, Bruce says. A 40ha runoff on the easier hill faces supports the Lovells' heifers and drystock.

The meandering Hutiwai River is a tidal estuary for 4km from the Tongaporutu River mouth and with most of the silt flats being just a matter of metres above sea level, the Jersey cows suit the wet and heavy winter conditions. Bruce and Maxine have kept many of Alf's pedigree Jersey lines going, as well as bringing in new bloodlines to lift production.

Cow numbers have been gradually increased to 170 in the past 10 years as the milking platform was increased by buying two extra blocks of land and leasing a further two small pieces from a neighbouring lifestyle farmer. A new 15-aside herringbone cowshed was built in 1998 which makes milking a one-man job (or one man and a few children at the weekends).

The Lovells run an all-grass, low-input system, making and feeding 150 bales of their own wrapped silage and hay and producing around 925kg MS/ha, averaging 320kg MS/cow.

Bruce convenes the local discussion group of seven local dairy farmers, five in the Tongaporutu area, and two further up the coast in the Awakino and Mahoenui districts and is pleased with the way the farm is performing when benchmarked against other group members.

Fonterra picks up the milk every second day and carries it over Mount Messenger to the Whareroa plant in south Taranaki.

The past two seasons have been the Lovells' best, last season producing 54,665kg/MS, and Bruce wants to crack the 60,000kg mark in the next few years.

With an annual rainfall of 1600-2000ml, meaning wet springs but reliable summers, the pasture curve is quite flat, Bruce says, but the silt holds on to summer moisture and the cow's milk well until the end of May.

Conversely winters can be wet and Bruce has to use a standoff pad when pastures get too waterlogged, particularly in July. All the cows are wintered on the platform or the runoff, grazing 0.8ha/day, on a 80 to 90-day rotation around the farm behind a hot wire before the August 1 calving.

In the deep valley 10 frosts each winter are common, having the lucky effect of knocking back any kikuyu grass before it gets a foothold. Pastures are renewed at a rate of 5ha each year. Bruce has his own seed drill. Into existing pasture he drills a mixture of 50% annual Tabu ryegrass and 50% of whichever perennial ryegrass and white clover varieties the Taranaki Farmers seed rep recommends to handle the wet conditions.

The annual/perennial mix performs well for them, lifting production from 850 to 920kg MS/ha and resulting in great production in the first and second years with the annual component persisting for four years, Bruce says.

A wet spring can affect the fertiliser regime, when Bruce likes to apply five tonnes of Sustain over the milking platform in the late winter-early spring period to boost spring growth.

"We need a surge of growth in the September period, but if the ground is too wet we can't get the fertiliser truck on to the paddocks," he says.

Their two effluent ponds are checked annually by the regional council and cleared out every three years. Bruce hopes to invest in a tanker unit this season to spread slurry on to the milking platform and recycle the nutrients more effectively.

The low-lying farm is prone to flooding in extreme weather, which Bruce says happen every 10 years when the heavy rainfall runoff from up the valley cannot be contained by the Hutiwai River. Still, in all his years farming they have lost only two calves, when a massive slip filled the river which then backed up and overflowed on to the farm.

Bruce and Maxine rear 40 replacement heifers each year and extra calves for the drystock block. The older children help.

Maxine is keen to get more involved in the farm, but is busy with their eight children, ranging from 16 to two, including two sets of twins. William, 16, and Alice and Sean, 13, all attend Waitara High School, making the daily school bus trip from Tongaporutu, along with Dylan who attends Manukorihi Intermediate in Waitara. The children catch the bus at 7.30am for the 50-minute journey and get home after 4.15 each afternoon. Sophie, 8, attends the local Ahititi School and will eventually be joined by Ryan and Grace, almost four, and Jessica, almost two.

The arrival of two sets of twins was not too much of a shock - Bruce says the road has been home to five sets of twins (and it is a short road!). He thinks there is something in the water.

Weekends are busy covering the province with rugby, netball and soccer and the family minivan is much in demand to transport the Waitara High First XV or drag a trailer full of motocross bikes, the children's other great sporting love. Time at home is spent in the bush or on surfboards at the beach, and Bruce says one day he would like to have time to do more fishing with the family.

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