Latest / The Muster on Hokonui / The Muster- Deane Carson: Beef and Lamb NZ

Transcript

The Muster- Deane Carson: Beef and Lamb NZ · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: The Muster Events Diary, brought to you by Beef and
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Lamb New Zealand.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Click beeflamnz.com.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: Dean Carson joins us in the Beef and Lamb Slot
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: of Farm Advisor, talking about the spring here in the south.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's the obvious, but it's certainly something for discussion,
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: and I suppose, what's your plan heading into October?
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Dean, good afternoon, good to catch up again.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good to be here, Andy. Yeah, thanks for
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: having me.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Right, straight off the bat, Dee, we've had the third
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: spring in a row that has been very, very wet.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: And how are farmers, how are they coping? What are
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: you seeing?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a range of responses. I think some are taking
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: it in their stride. They've almost been normalised to this now.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: You know, they're kind of like, oh, it's just another
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: wet spring. I think that's probably the minority. A majority
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: are showing reasonably severe signs of stress. You know, the frustrated,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: they're tired, they're really unhappy and probably trying to find
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: significant ways to change their farm systems. And a few
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: are under really high levels of stress. I've seen a
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: few farmers that are talking about selling blocks of land
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and things like that. Probably the minority, but they're definitely
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: showing really high signs of stress.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Normalising this weather pattern for September, though, and getting used
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: to it. I mean, it never used to be like this.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not sure this is the new normal, though.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: You know, is this three years of unfortunate spring? I
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: don't know. You know, normally when we do get changes
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: in weather, it's very slow and subtle. So, you know,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think this is the new norm. I'm no
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: great weather forecaster, but I don't think weather... Well, climate
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't change that rapidly. It only changes slightly. So, yeah,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I do sort of caution farmers not to make radical
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: changes based on the last three years. I think it's
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a good idea to think about your system and try
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: and figure out ways to make it more resilient and
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: more robust to issues like this. But, yeah, I get
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a little bit nervous about people, especially now when they're
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: under sort of stress and emotional stress, making really big
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: systems changes to their farms.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Henry Buckingham on the show last week, and that's perked
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: a lot of interest in changing his lambing date to
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: the first week of October, and he won't be the
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: first one.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: No, no, yeah. Every second farmer's talking about that interview,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: to be honest.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: But they're looking, like you say, they are looking at
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: changing their farming operation. They just want to negate that
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: six-week September window.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I guess if you do change to October,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: do we end up with three years of bad weather
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: in October? We get these spring storms, there's a real
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: chance that it's kind of a luck issue as to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: when those storms hit. We do have to remember why
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: we set up our landing date to sort of that
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: mid-September period. and that is that we try and match
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: our feed supply with our feed demand. You know, typically,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: if we just do some real rough math, if you're
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: stocking 10 ewes to the hectare, the twins and triplets,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: they're eating three kilos, you're demanding 30 kilos a day.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: And typically in mid-September, you know, it's usually providing 25,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: 30 or thereabouts, around about the 15th or the 20th.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: So that's what we try and do. We try and
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: match that demand with the supply. What we've got at
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: the moment is temperatures that are probably resulting in pasture
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: growth rates more like 17, 18. And so pasture is
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: on the decline. So yeah, what we're seeing is pasture
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: covers falling. But I don't think every year this will happen.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: And there's a real chance that some years we'll end
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: up with really good pasture growth rates in September. And
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: in that scenario, there's a risk that we end up
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: creating pasture quality issues later on if we push our
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: lambing later. So yeah, we do need to remember why
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: we go in mid-September. There is a reason for it.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: So how do we view the next six weeks, given
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: the situation's been so wet and that we need peak
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: milk out of use?
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, really good question. I'm tackling sort of the future
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: a lot with clients at the moment. There was quite
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: an interesting bit of research out of Woodlands done a
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago. It was published in 2025 where
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: they looked at whether urea worked in a sheep system.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: They put urea on and what it did was it
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: lifted pasture covers in late September from around 1500 up
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to about 1800 by December where on the control the
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: pasture declined from around 1,500 down to 1,300, 1,400. You know,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: quite normal. A lot of farmers will end up with
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: 1,300 covers in October and into November. And the difference
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: between those two systems was huge in terms of the
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: weaning result. The block without urea had a 7% weaning
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: off mum to the works. That's how many lambs went
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: to the works, where the urea... that had the higher
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: covers went to 23% off mum. So a very, very
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: big difference between those two treatments. And the point is
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: not urea is the solution, the be-all and end-all. It's
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: that to maximize our weaning result, we probably need covers
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: through October and November more like $ 1, 600, $ 1, 700 rather than
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: $ 1, 300 and $ 1, 400. So what I'm keen to see farmers
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: do is to start monitoring their pasture covers, get the
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: sword stick out and start getting a feel for where
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: it's at. And if you are finding that your covers
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: are definitely going to be 12, there's quite a few
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: covers that are 1,000 at the moment. But if we
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: find that into October they're not recovering and they're not
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: getting up above 1,500 into that 1,600, 1,700 range, then
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: we probably should start thinking about options like urea or
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: other ways of reducing our demand on farm.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: Well, when you say demand on farm, you're talking about
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: changing your stocking rate.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, potentially, do I graze off? How can I get
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: a bit more feed production on farm as well? So, yeah,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: some farmers have got cattle that they're exiting at the moment.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: You know, they can just see that their demand's going
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: to be pushed too low for too long into October. So,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: you know, there's all sorts of options, ways of reducing
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: your demand or increasing your supply. So, yeah, you really
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: need to sort of look at what those options are
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: per farm. But essentially, I think we need to start
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: targeting pasture covers of $ 1, 500, $ 1, 600 through October, November if
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: we want to maximise our weaning results. And that's about
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: trying to recover from the situation. How do we make
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the best out of what we've got? And yeah, as
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I say, I think the majority of my clients are
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: looking at nitrogen at the moment and sort of saying, right,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I might use a bit more once ground conditions allow.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: Well, the worst case scenario, I suppose, Dean, is the
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: fact that the store market's pretty buoyant, although this could
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: depend on Canterbury and how it goes through the summer.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that could be an option for some farmers. They
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: store a few more at weaning time. It might not
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: create a great, I'm talking about lambs, it might not
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: create a great outcome through October, November. The store cattle
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: market at the moment is pretty deflated. I'm trying to
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: move a few cattle at the moment. They're quite hard
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: to shift. I am hoping that once the weather improves
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a little bit, that market will get a bit easier.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Good on you, Dean. Thanks for your time.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Very good.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Andy.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Dean Carson in the Beef and Lamb slot.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Click beeflambnz.com slash events to receive the e-diary into your
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: inbox every Friday morning.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Harriet Bremner's up next. You're listening to The Muster. Every
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: memory of walking out the front door