Weather station No. C95022 keeps well-informed watch

Anthony Clark , NIWA agricultural climatologist, with Don Dempsey, left, who has collected climate records for NIWA for the past 45 years.

01-09-2010 | Not Specified

Returuke farmer Don Dempsey has devoted almost 45 years to collecting climate data for NIWA, as weather station No C95022, and to being a well-informed weather watcher.

Showing a huge commitment by taking daily readings of rainfall, ground and air temperatures, Don is looking forward to NIWA ironing out the bugs in the recently installed automatic weather station.

"I would like to go on a holiday one day, but at the moment I seem to be more reliable than the automatic station."

Don says he thinks farmers need to farm for extreme weather, reducing debt so they can ride out a bad year.

Farming a relatively small 96ha farm, of which 70ha is effective and 30ha bush in a QEII covenant, Don has had to diversify to remain sustainable. An interest in tree crops led him to establish a trial stand of hazelnut species in conjunction with the Tree Crops Association Hazelnut Action Group. Don says there is a lot of work grading, bagging and selling the nuts and although his is not a commercial crop, he eats a handful of them every morning with his breakfast.

"The market wants mainly small nuts for muesli bars; ours apparently are too big."

Don and his daughter Isabelle run 70 South Devon cows and finish 70 steers each year.

Isabelle rears extra calves and does the stock work on the farm, helped by her son Cameron. She loves the quiet nature of her South Devon cows and says they are good milkers, being bred up from the dairy herd her father used to milk on the block.

They make pit silage and self feed it to the older stock through the winter, and have undergone extensive pasture renovation.

During the 1980s downturn Don planted a small stand of truffle-infected oak and hazelnut trees in the old pig pen and Isabelle is training their Labrador to sniff them out. Retailing for around $300/kg, the Dempseys have had some good sales, but say they are still learning how to identify and cash in on the fungi's short window of ripeness.

A peat swamp running through the property was planted in nearly a hectare of blueberries in 1984. Isabelle manages the harvest with help from local labour, which can be difficult to source and demanding to oversee in January when she is also making hay. She also offers a Pick-Your-Own opportunity for $5/kg.

Climate change is one issue that has hit the blueberries, with an unseasonal frost wiping out the crop on one occasion. Blueberries, a northern hemisphere crop, are well adapted to winter frosts.

They actually need a chill period in the winter to produce well, but Isabelle says a frost at the wrong time can be devastating and is hard to guard against. Covering the crop with frost cloth or a hovering helicopter would both be prohibitively expensive.

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