New Zealand is a new country geologically. Most was pushed up out of
the sea with volcanic layers thrown on top. Some of the ash is pumice
(light sand). Very, very few soils are alluvial.
Also our rainfall is comparatively high, but does vary from 12 to 200
inches pa with most dairying areas getting 40 inches or more by rain
or irrigation, so leaching is high.
Also the rainfall and fertilisers give high pasture yields of 15 to
18 tons DM/a pa of top quality feed (mostly perennial ryegrass and
clovers) which means a lot of milk, meat and/or wool is going off the
farm and on 99% of farms no concentrates or other feed is bought in.
In Northern Hemisphere bought feed is substantial which brings
fertility on to the farm.
Northern Hemisphere soils are far better than those in NZ, but most
Northern Hemisphere pastures produce less animal products/acre.
Also NZ land is expensive (US$2,000/a) so it pays to feed it to
achieve high production.
A 300 acre farm can milk 400 Jerseys with no bought feed and give two
workers a living, although the predicted lower payouts for milk mean
that the owner may have to milk the 400 on their own. Some owners or
sharemilkers now milk 300 on their own and do most of the farm work.
The agricultural infrastructure in NZ is excellent so contractors of
all kinds (hay, silage, draining, hedge cutting, shearing, fertiliser
spreading) and relief milkers are available.
Trace elements, except for cobalt, are not expensive per acre.
Amounts usually required of selenium, copper, salt, boron cost only
about US$2/a pa.
In the Northern Hemisphere you usually feed concentrates with
minerals added. We sometimes feed soluble minerals through an inline
water dispenser, but most add it to the fertiliser.
If Northern Hemisphere farmers added the low trace elements to
fertilisers their animals would be a lot healthier. I've seen arched
back cows from low selenium, heifers licking each other madly to try
and get salt, weak calves and lambs dying at birth from low minerals
(mostly selenium), etc.
I've also been consulting in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia and
many Northern Hemisphere countries and seen the pathetic farming
methods such as one man herding a flock of 50 sheep all day. Here one
man farms 2,000 sheep. Five men shearing 13 sheep a day. Here one can
shear 400 in a nine hour a day.
I could go on.
Come down and have a look.
At 9:23 PM +0000 14/3/04, Richard and Carol Conklin wrote:
>Vaughn, I received a startling message last Spring from a US State
>Dept. project office asking me to go to a country in southeast
>Europe, formerly part of the USSR, and help their farmers. I visited
>about half the country, and on two locations, set up 1hectre
>fertilized pasture test spots. Nation-wide excitement! Pictures,
>yield measurements, milk production improvement on holsteins that
>weighed about 800#. I'm told they will all be fertilizing their
>pasture this year. And that's in the face of the fact that there was
>only one brand of fertilizer available, 13-16-16, and for the tests
>was applied at 50#/ acre, on acreage that held only native species.
>Why are your needs in NZ so complex?
>Dick Conklin
>Amity Farm
>Ft.Ann,NY
--
Vaughan Jones
