Intensification pays off for Northland beef producers

Peter and Pam Kelly, on the hills overlooking Omamari Beach, north of Dargaville, and with their eyes on far horizons in Europe and Asia.

01-02-2003 | Hugh Stringleman

Intensification of beef farming, from calf rearing right through to finished bulls and steers, has paid handsome dividends for Northland coastal farmers Peter and Pam Kelly, Omamari Beach, north of Dargaville.

Throughout 25 years on a former Lands and Survey settlement farm of 300ha, the Kellys have dispensed with sheep (Peter’s preferred livestock) altogether and extended their beef specialisation.

For Peter, the light really came on when attending a Kiwitech/Richmond field day on intensification at Aranga, a few kilometres away on the northern side of the Kai Iwi Lakes, some four years ago.

Technosystems founder Harry Wier was a speaker at that field day.

Peter could readily see that intensive stocking and quick rotations would combat the kikuyu scourge, as that less productive grass invaded the northern pastures.

Recent pasture species trials on the farm have confirmed that kikuyu is being controlled. Animal numbers and productivity are 50% higher than before the Technosystem was applied to one-third of the farm.

Winter kikuyu is now down to 7% in the intensively grazed pastures, while traditional pastures may have 30% or more kikuyu.

The Kellys had for years reared up to 250 Friesian and white-face male calves sourced from Dargaville-district dairy farms. This was the first step away from the 80% sheep SUs dominance of their first decade on the property.

Low returns from store lambs and wool in the late 1980s and early 90s dictated a change in farming policies, towards calf rearing and yearling bull farming.

The old wool shed and covered yards were employed in a no-frills calf nursery.

Pam uses the Poukawa system of milk powder and calf meal up to around 80kg in liveweight, before they go outside.

Before the Technosystem changes, young cattle were mostly set-stocked “or at best shuffle grazed” until 15 to 18 months of age and sale as stores. Productivity was around 200-220kg carcase weight per hectare annually.

The straightforward young cattle system fitted well with Peter and Pam’s wanderlust, which breaks out with three month annual winter holidays in Europe or Asia, tramping and staying where possible with farming families.

Neighbouring farmers were deputised to look after the set-stocked cattle while the Kellys were away.

Peter’s original training as a geologist, a son’s residence in Stockholm and the relative isolation of their farm in Northland, are added reasons for the annual sabbatical.

“This farming policy and time-out periods may well have worked for a long time, if it wasn’t for the spread of the kikuyu and the difficulties with grazing management,” says Peter.

The well-attended Aranga field day, near Maunganui Bluff, provided some answers to the kikuyu encroachment.

Peter put in a 20ha Techno block for a one-year trial, measuring out lanes for himself using a land wheel and an aerial photograph of the farm.

He weighed young cattle on and off the system, and did the same with a set-stocked control block alongside.

In 10 months the Techno block produced 400kg carcaseweight/ha and the control 220kg.

Then after attending a Harry Wier course, at Bulls, Peter Kelly decided to introduce the Technosystem to all the land that was flat enough and subdivide that which wasn’t with polywires.

At the time, about 40ha of the steepest country was put into trees, mainly pine.

Fortunately most existing permanent fences fitted in with the Technosystem laneway approach with power fencing.

In recent times the Kellys have planted some single trees like Norfolk pines along the Techno lines to provide some stock shade in the future.

Water supply comes from a small stream on the property and bubblers have been reticulated over the whole Technosystem area.

Now the whole farm is managed under intensive and rotational grazing, and the 100ha Technosystem is loaded up in May with 18-month-old bulls.

They are stocked in mobs of about 20 at 1300kg/ha and tightened up as they gain weight on the spring growth. The objective is slaughter weight of 330-340kg carcaseweight before the summer dry hits.

Modest weight gains in the winter months improve to 2kg-plus/day in the growthy spring.

Shifts are made every two days around rotations of 64 days in winter, shortening to 48 days at the beginning of August and 30 days or less by the middle of September.

At the June 30 balance date last year, the farm carried 800 cattle, at 3head/ha. The whole farm is now producing at the rate of 360kg of carcaseweight/ha and the target for 2003 is 400kg/ha.

The best of the Technosystem country with an intake of yearling bulls did 1100kg liveweight/ha from May through to February, while the best of the R2 bulls achieved 920 kg/ha in the same 10 months. However normally the younger bulls are run on the polywired paddocks which are not part of the Technosystem.

Peter also likes to keep steers in the boundary paddocks and lighter cattle on the steeper, more erosion-prone country.

The older bulls are prone to dig holes, so Peter does some summer renovation with a rotary hoe, followed by new grass.

On this rolling coastal sand country, no weight gains are expected during late summer.

However nearly 200mm of rain over a week in early January may have set the district up for one of the most productive summers ever recorded.

Another district farmer, Gordon Appleton, commented that the combination of weather conditions had produced the best clover growth in 50 summers.

When Country-Wide visited the Kellys, the older bulls had gone and the Techno areas were flush with feed and Peter was going to move in some dairy grazers.

“This is a pretty unusual summer, but I don’t normally make any supplementary feed.

“We don’t own any machinery and prefer to run enough animals to utilise all the feed which grows,” Peter says.

The total workload on the farm has doubled with the beef cattle intensification, so local man Brian Edwards is retained under contract as stock manager during the year and as farm manager when Peter and Pam are away.

Brian is a former camp manager at the nearby Kai Iwi Lakes and has worked with the Kellys for the past 18 months, enabling them to get away for those winter holidays.

Neither of two sons has yet decided to go farming, and the heavy farming workload and succession planning are looming issues for the Kellys.

Peter is keen on share farming options and flexible ways of involving local people who have a history or interest in farming, but little chance of raising the big capital needed these days.

Their own farming career began at Mangawai Heads, in lower Northland, after Peter was born and brought up on a farm and had qualified as a geologist.

The move to Omamari 25 years ago was a huge stretch financially.

“It was only really possible because we were prepared to come to such an out-of-the-way district.”

In common with many farmers of their generation, the Kellys regret the loss of a development and settlement-type national policy which would give young farmers a means to start in land ownership.

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