Outlook with Bill Webb Bill Webb Feed Solutions

The weather is certainly a lot drier than it was, and ground conditions are a lot drier than they were this time last year – by a country mile. We’re getting drops of rain but not a lot of it.

Last year we sprayed our swamp block on October 19 – this year we could have sprayed them by about September 24. Yet last year we had to get the digger in to drain it, and tow the spray truck around the whole block.

But in saying this, I had a few phone calls around September 17 from some farmers down on the swamps here wanting silage because they didn’t have much feed because it’s been so wet here for so long, and possibly due to pugging damage as well.

A week ago – about September 17 – we did some silage, which was down a bit in yield, but we were three weeks early spraying it this year.

We started planting crops September 26 – that was 10 days earlier than last year. So it’s certainly an early start to the season. But there are predictions of a dry summer. Although the last time drought was predicted we had the best growing season in years, so you never know.

But there has been a lot of drought around the world, so it’s funny old season again already.

High country farmers are growing grass, and a farmer I talked to recently was shutting grass up – very unusual for this time of year, compared to the past few years.

I believe the milk-take is up in the Waikato – so there seems to be plenty of feed there this year after a few years of trouble. This is lucky because the price of palm kernel has shot up due to high demand from other countries in drought and our lower dollar isn’t helping either.

We’ve got reasonable demand for silage for sale. Obviously some farmers will be a little concerned over having to reduce the amount of palm kernel they can use, so they may look towards maize silage to help fill that gap.

Farmers need to make sure they’re well-organised with their own cropping programmes, because it’s drier than last year.

Soil temperatures are okay – at about 14-15 degrees Celsius on September 24 – but they are rising.

And as the ground dries out, soil temperatures will be tracking slightly ahead of last year – but it depends what happens with the cold snap predicted for September 25-26 which will cool things off again. It’s what we call winter’s sting of the tail.

Last year most didn’t start cropping until October 15 – farmers this year will have to get into it earlier. And the sooner they can get it in, the better, so they have feed ready when conditions are predicted to turn dry in summer.

There’s been pasture damage around the place – for us high yields of grass meant we had to keep breaks tight during winter to clean up the grass. And when it rains this causes pugging and pasture damage, which is hard to control.

So some of the lower farms are still struggling for feed, with grass only starting to grow from the first week of warm temperature around September 20.

When you’re doing cropping make sure you do a full job – do the soil sampling, put the right amount of fertiliser on – and also the right kind of fertiliser on.

Don’t just put any old thing on, because you’ll just be throwing good money after bad. Your soil might be low in PH or missing trace elements which are crucial to good yields, so make sure you do the soil sampling and get the correct information first so you know what to target.

If you’ve had a crop or pasture system that hasn’t done any good recently there’s usually a reason behind it, so find out what this is, and how to target a solution, before investing more into the ground.

Then look after your crops, monitor them for weeds and if you’re in doubt, give somebody a call for expert advice. Sort things out before they become a drama – keep on top of it!