If only the flax cutters could see it now

Peter Burke visited the farm to meet Glen and his boss Tony Dowman.

The farm is named Ruapehu, but unlike its namesake mountain which commands the central North Island landscape, the 253ha block is snuggled low between two stopbanks which protect it from the Manawatu River and the adjacent Moutoa floodway that takes overflow from the Manawatu when it floods.

Ruapehu is one of nine Moutua farms near Foxton for which business manager Tony Dowman is responsible. He's a newcomer to Landcorp, having joined last December from Taratahi where he oversaw its dairy farms in the North Island and ran training on these farms. But Ruapehu farm's awards entry was not his project because it presented its performance in the 2014-15 season.

The farms are located on former swamp land, once the scene of a thriving flax industry that made Shannon and Foxton famous. During WWII two camps for 'conscies' (conscientious objectors) were located in the area and the men spent lots of their time cutting flax.

"The blocks were originally Lands and Survey settlement blocks for servicemen returning from WWII," says Dowman. "The Moutoa block was originally all in swamp but in the late 1970s and 80s beef cows were brought in to eat down the flax and they were converted to sheep and beef farms.

"Then in the early 1990s they were converted to dairying. Now we have nine farms with from 180 to 900 cows. Ruapehu is a big one, as is Aspiring." (All farms are named after prominent NZ mountains.)

Originally the farms were share milked but in 2005-06 they came under full Landcorp control and are now run by managers. Dowman has 27 fulltime and up to 12 casual staff working on the nine farms which in 2014-15 produced a record 2.1 million kgMS. This past season this dropped to 1.9m due to severe flooding in the region.

Annual rainfall is about 1000ml/year; this and the low-lying land contribute to flooding. Surface drains deal with water on the nine farms' 1400ha. Dowman refers to a challenge in getting some locals to understand the role and nature of the Landcorp farm cluster at Moutua; a community hui and the farms' winning the award has helped reassure the community of Landcorp's intent.

$500,000 expenditure

Some $500,000 was spent on Ruapehu leading up to the awards.

The biggest chunk of that was to build a 3500m³ effluent pond, storage sump and solids separator. Looking like a gigantic home swimming pool, it enables Ruapehu to perform superbly in environmental terms.

The system is set up to separate the solids and hold them for use when crops are grown in the spring and summer. The size of the storage pond allows spraying of effluent onto the farm to be done at the optimum time. And, says Weitenberg, they have doubled the area from 50ha to 100ha where effluent can be spread off Ruapehu.

The judges applauded Ruapehu's good nitrogen leaching performance.

"Our max application of urea was only 50kg/ha which is lower than most people's. We try to stick to 'a little but more often' instead of putting on 150kg and getting a massive growth," he says.

Weitenberg and his colleagues were surprised and delighted at winning the award.

"We knew we were a finalist but some other very good farmers were there also, as it showed on the night, with the result being very close," he says.

Weitenberg enjoys his role at Ruapehu and will be there for the coming season.

Dowman is full of praise for Weitenberg, noting that he'd only been on the farm a year and had an entirely new team in the award winning season. It's a pretty impressive result.

Financials and the environment

High finance and great environmentals won Ruapehu farm the Dairy Business Award. Seventy percent of the marks are for financial performance, 15% for environment and 15% for people management.

Manager Glenn Weitenberg (26) grew up on a dairy farm, share milked for his father, and worked on another farm before joining Landcorp as manager of Ruapehu three years ago.

The financials are impressive. When Weitenberg took over the farm in 2013-14 it produced a record 373,000kgMS. In 2014-15 he and his four staff worked hard to lift it to 415,000kgMS, doing this at no cost increase over the previous season.

By the numbers, this gain translated into a 7.1% return on capital, an operating profit of $4191/ha, cost/kgMS of $3.61 and operating expenses of $4.08/kgMS.

Weitenberg says Ruapehu is a high input farm operating at system four. The stocking rate for the 871 Kiwi cross cows is 3.4, so PKE, maize and silage are used to achieve the high production.

"We harvest 60-100 tonnes of silage off the farm and buy in the remaining 400 tonnes. We also grow 450t of maize onfarm. But the big thing is growing and utilising grass well. That's our first priority and in 2014-15 we were bang on with this.

"We tried a few different things such as pre-topping our grass and we harvested an extra 1.8-2t/ha of grass which helped get us that extra 45,000kgMS.

"We also focus on leaf emergence – trying to graze it to 2.5-3.00 leaves. Half your growth is probably in your third leaf so allowing that third leaf to grow is a big part of our focus."