Soil-first switch suits far north farmer

Now the 320ha beef farm produces more grass than ever and doesn't cost as much to run. It's also less vulnerable to extreme weather, coming through the devastating 2009 drought better than many nearby properties, they say.

Their secret is a 'soil first' approach, as relayed at an Association of Biological Farmers field day earlier this month on their farm, the first of its kind held north of the Bombay Hills.

According to Whyte it began seven years ago when he was not happy about how his farm was performing and took to reading books on soil fertility to see if he could improve his land management.

"Normally a fertiliser book, if you have insomnia, is the best thing to read," says Whyte. "But I couldn't put these books down."

Whytes began applying fertilisers other than superphosphate and changed their paddock sizes and grazing routine to take advantage of the extra fertility the cows were providing the soil. They made paddocks smaller and left cows on pasture for one day or two at the most.

"This place produces about 18 tonnes of poo a day; it's hugely beneficial and we're seeing the results," Lindsay says. The results are already a lower fertiliser bill and more drought resistant farm.

"We know where we're going and we know the money we're spending is going on the right thing," says Erica.

"It's empowering."

Nicole Masters, key speaker at the field day and director of Integrity Soils, says the Whytes are among a fast-growing number of farmers taking a soil-first approach to farming.

"About 45,000ha of New Zealand is being farmed under a soil-first system and that number is growing rapidly."

She describes biological, soil-first farming as an end to reliance on glyphosate, urea and superphosphate.

Instead it involves monitoring stock condition, pasture condition and the presence of weeds to determine how the farm is going and what problems it might have.

" It's like being a detective; you go out every day, gather clues and work out from those clues what needs to be done to get the farm working well."

Masters says soil tests and Brix tests (pasture test in which herbage is measured for sugars, minerals and trace elements) are key clues to making sure the soil has all it needs to remain fertile and produce the best quality feed possible.

Whyte says their focus has been on getting a balanced soil and getting some more trace elements like magnesium into the soil. This they do by spreading fertiliser themselves, in small quantities frequently.

"Potash tends to be absorbed quickly so we've found doing lots of little applications of potash has been successful."

Masters says one of the best indicators of what soils are lacking is the weeds predominating on the land.

For example, most weeds seen in pasture indicate low available calcium, and many broadleaf weeds including thistles indicate low phosphorus and/or high potassium.

She says the good news is that if the conditions are favourable it is possible to deal with glaring deficiencies in a short time.

"The first farm my husband and I were on was known as the yellow farm because it was filled with ragwort," says Masters. "But one and a half years later you couldn't see a ragwort on that farm." The same is true for pests and parasites, she says.

Whyte's has recently faced the problem of carrot weed and buttercup, both signs of surface crusting.

He says the farm's clay soil base is prone to pugging, resulting in heavy pans in some paddocks. "If a paddock pugs its basically stuffed for two years."

However, he plans to aerate the soil with mechanical aerators and long-rooted forage crops to break up the pan.

Masters says this experimentation is the core of biological farming. "We don't tell farmers to go out and do something all the way through the farm; we get them to try it on a paddock, or a small section, first, to see if it works."