A field day, held recently on their Walton dairy farm ‘Tremeer’, was attended by many farmers and rural professionals keen to see the detail of a profitable and sustainable operation.
Originally purchased by Wills’ grandfather in 1931, running sheep and beef, the 215ha property has been, over time, divided into two, both parts converted to dairy and finally rejoined in 2003. Now run as Preston Wills Ltd it runs 650 cows through two dairy sheds, with an extra 54ha leased runoff.
Wills is an avid recorder of everything measurable on the farm, and is proud of the results of his ‘assess, analyse, activate’ process which is used for every decision relating to change or improvement to ensure each is going to be profitable as well as beneficial to cows, people and the environment.
A farm with a contour of rolling pasture, this has led to large areas of fenced riparian planting, plus shelter and shade planting, and the building of three herd homes. These maximise any supplement usage, prevent pugging in winter and provide shade for the cows in summer. They are also used as calving platforms, making pickup of calves a simple one person operation each morning.
In order to get the maximum pasture growth over the whole farm, Wills has been using cages in three places on the farm to monitor growth and ME levels of pasture once a month. And he’s been doing this for 18 years. This year they did soil tests on every one of the 120 or so paddocks, and used Wealleans’ computer calculated spreading system to apply only what was needed for each. The process had a cost, but the savings in fertiliser amounted to about $20,000.
The farm effluent system at present consists of two anaerobic ponds (4.5m deep, emptied by contractor twice a year) and two shallower large aerobic ones, with a discharge consent to a stream. There was much talk on the day as to the nitrogen value of irrigating effluent on this type of country, compared to the losses incurred through the discharge. They are currently investigating new options, bearing in mind that their consent to discharge runs out in another year.
