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The Muster- Nigel Johnston: A Year On From The Wind · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Nigel Johnston farms in Mabel Bush and catches up with
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: us once again. G'day, Nigel. Last time we spoke to you,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: it was, well, it wasn't sunny.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: No, g'day, Andy. There was certainly a period of inclement
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: weather at the time. caused a few issues, and I'm
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: pleased to be out the other side of it with
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: the sun shining on us at the moment.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: So the calving and everything's concluded now, I'd say?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: No, we've still got a few late calvers. We decided
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: to leave the bull out longer and keep some of
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: our better younger cow as late calvers to enable us
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: to cull a bit deeper on some of those other
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: confirmation-type issues. So that turned into a bit of a blessing.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: We actually had a period... end of September with very
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: few cows calving through the worst of the weather. And also, comparatively,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: our stocking rate was a bit lower on pasture. You
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: can't really tell looking around the place now. We did
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: a bit of pasture damage. There's a bit to be fixed.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: But we've got through and out the other side. Just
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: hoping we don't have another labour weekend storm like last year.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: It sounds like an absolute blessing, that later calving of
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: those younger animals.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a pleasure to go. When I say
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: we've still got some calving, I think there's eight left.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: So it's not too hard to manage and we'll be
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: finished before we start mating on the 4th of November.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's nice to know that they would have
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: been good enough to be carryover, so I'm happy to
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: be milking them this year, especially in high milk crops.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Grass growth is rebounding around the region, still damp in
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: places for the obvious reason, Nigel. There at Mabel Bush,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: how are you looking?
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Yep, we're growing more than we're eating. And currently that
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: just means that we're lifting covers to get the feed
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: wedge looking right. We haven't created a surplus on the
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: dairy farm. And some of the pasture damage we did
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: is limiting things. So often you'll go to a paddock
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: and there's not as much feed there as you originally
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: thought because of the gaps in the middle. But things
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: are looking pretty rosy, and I don't think we're far
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: away from a surplus here. We got our hand in
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: managing surpluses. We took baleage off the support block this week,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: and we've got more coming from the other blocks that
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: we graze our heifers on and buy into the dairy farm. So, yeah,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: things are looking positive in Southie.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So you're into the baleage season then? The growth is sufficient?
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Yep, and we've been hard out with ammonia and sulphate.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: We're actually on our second round of that. on the
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: dairy farm, and I think that's paid some dividends. We
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: certainly would have lost a bit of sulphur in that
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: wet weather, so it's nice to get that replenished.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Now, your milking system is once a day as it is,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: so it probably had more benefits than not.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I joke that it's problematic because we can't resort
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: to nonce-a-day milking or every second-day milking. I've run the numbers,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: that doesn't work for the business, but once a day
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: certainly has worked really well. It takes a lot of
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: pressure off... both cows and people. And so we've got
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: happy staff and I think a few less animal health
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: problems on the way through. Frustrating, no, we still get
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: lame cows, we still get mastitis, but all that stuff
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: seems to be easy to manage in the daylight.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Based on a once a day system, what reduction in
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: lameness and the likes do you think you'd have?
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Hard to put a direct pin on it because like
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: most things in life you can't run a direct control
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: experiment to see what it would be like otherwise. There
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: is an improvement. As I say, the bit that I
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: really like about the system is that we've got time
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: to manage it properly and put good solutions in place.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: It is really nice. We don't start too early in
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: the morning so it's always daylight when we get here
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: and daylight's your friend in terms of monitoring animal health
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: and so forth.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Well, if it works for you, full credit as Sean
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Fitzpatrick once said as well, Nigel, and you've been open
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: and transparent about the system. You're in a group there
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: of farmers who milk once a day and you catch
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: up regularly, and it fits in with the synergy of
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: your operation, right?
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Actually, this week we went to a dairy and
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: zen field day at the Impton Family Farm where they're
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: the other end of the extreme, milking twice a day,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: but significant feed input and... and quite literally doing twice
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: the milk production as we are on a per-year basis.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: It was really quite inspiring stuff. The attention to detail
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: and the brains they've picked around the country to make
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: their system run like it does, it was really quite inspirational.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: 12 months on from the wind event, Nigel. It's a
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: theme today. You've got a couple of pointers to add.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: I'm just conscious of it. When the wind comes up or, like,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I look at the forecast of... what's coming towards us
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: near the end of this weekend, is you just think
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: back and make sure we have got it right. We've
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: always talked about how we would get through a prolonged
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: power cut, so it was nice that we had those
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: solutions in place. But even what we learnt from last year,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: we've improved things with the way we've set up with
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: our generator, such as... we used to have to pick
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: it up with a front-end loader to get it close
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: enough to the plug, whereas now I've just put a
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: longer cable on it so that it's much more user-friendly,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: it's easier to do, and more to the point, easier
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: to delegate whoever's here can work out how to get
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: power on and get cows milked, and more to the point,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: water to the cows, milk chilled as well.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Did you have a plan in place as far as generators,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: et cetera, before this occurred? I mean, just regarding emergencies
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: in general on the farm?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, we've spent quite some time on that, making sure
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: we're right. I would have obviously preferred not to have
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: been in that position. The bit that really stuck out
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: to me is perhaps we weren't prepared in terms of
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: what we should have been doing as a community and
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: looking after our neighbours and keeping those lines of communication
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: open physically, keeping them open in terms of how phones work,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: but also just making a point of getting up driveways
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: and making sure people were right in them. how we
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: can all work together and I think that was one
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: of the real highlights for me is we've always enjoyed
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: our community and that was one of those events that
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: showed the relationships we've got and the help that people
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: were willing to give.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: That's a really interesting point you bring up and really relevant, Nigel,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: regarding your neighbours. It's one thing stopping and having a
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: five-minute chinwag on the road when you're passing, but when
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: push comes to shove and these events occur, it's about
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: looking out for each other as well. Especially where I
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: used to be, you're up a dead-end road. Yeah, there
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: was only one way in and one way out. Yeah.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: I've actually been doing a bit of community-focused stuff. In
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: my role with the Osprey Committee, I ran a... part
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: of the competition that I think Mel Young from Girls
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: High was on the radio last week, wasn't she?
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, she was.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: She was fantastic. It's pretty inspiring to see what's out there,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: to know that we've got a school and teachers like that, A,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: offering the subjects she was talking about, agriculture and agribusiness,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: at a school level. It's really quite powerful stuff. But
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: then taking it to the next level, supporting the Young
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Farmers Club, running their own competition and And to see
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: a significant number of the students there, not only passionate
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: about agriculture, but their skill set was quite literally inspiring.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: And that makes this decision by the Gov, by National,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: who want to take agriculture out of the Year 11 curriculum,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: even more ridiculous.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Very much so, because I know how difficult it's been
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: to get it in there. I can see the argument
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  Speaker 2: some schools struggle to find the right teachers that are
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: willing to take that space. I don't think that's a
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: good enough excuse to penalise everyone. My girls both did
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: agri-business through Girls High and both of them would say
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: it was that analysis of whole systems. Like when you
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: go to a farm, you talk about everything from growing
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: the grass, feeding the stock, turning it into a saleable
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: product and how you sell and transport that product. It's
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: the culmination of all the individual disciplines that you learn
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: at school.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, Nigel. Good on you. Thanks for your time and
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: we'll catch up again.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Excellent. Thanks, Andy.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Nigel Johnston, farming at Mabel Bush. Up next on the muster,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Chris Wilson of Advanced Agriculture.