Hinds farmers Phill and Jos Everest run Flemington Farm about 10 kilometres south of Ashburton with son Paul and his partner Sarah Hayman.
They have made farm changes to reduce their nitrogen loss by 36%, ahead of national and regional regulatory requirements.
Not satisfied with resting on their laurels, new goals are being set.
"The work we’ve done I think they’re cost effective things, they’re off the shelf and they’re not very technical," Mr Everest said.
"I guess the thing hindering them most is legislation and every time we feel like we’re making progress we seem to be getting hit over the head. I think we need to be positive and let’s get some change and get some tools going and work through it, but our legislation from our regional councils and a national government needs to enable things to happen. We need to be able to try new stuff and not at a massive consented cost."
Their Flemington Farm is 273ha of flat irrigated land, once part of Longbeach estate and, further back, Longbeach swamp.
A milking platform of 225ha sits alongside 23ha for young stock and a paddock of crop, while 25ha are in trees, laneways, drains and buildings.
The land, owned by the Everests for 30-plus years, was converted to dairying 11 years ago and carries a herd of 735 cows with a2 milk supplied to Synlait.
Aside from a bit of grain fed mainly during the shoulder seasons, the herd is on pasture mixed in autumn with some fodder beet. No cows are wintered on the milking platform with the cows going to a support block and young stock are grazed off from weaning.
Mr Everest said they initially cut their nitrogen use by reducing nitrogen fertiliser from 240 kilograms a hectare to 190kg a year before they had to.
"That was a change, but probably the most significant area that’s added to it has been our use of plantain. We’ve got 15.4% in plantain of our sward in the autumn so that gives an 11% reduction in nitrate losses just like that. We drill plantain in our pasture mix at about 1.5kg and we spread 1kg every year of plantain seed in our fertiliser mix just to keep the content up in our pastures. We seem to get three or four years and it starts to drop off so by putting extra seed in we can get a good level of sward in all the time."
The herd’s intake is built up to 5kg of dry matter per cow a day with pasture supplying the remainder of the total 18kg of feed.
This pre-conditions cows to fodder beet before they go to the support block for winter, but also results in 12% less autumn nitrogen reaching the ground via urine. Fodder beet is lower in protein than pasture and this helps to trim the autumn nitrogen loading during a wet period for the property when leaching is a risk.
Yet another factor is about 5kg/ha to 6kg/ha of an Italian-based hybrid ryegrass going into their pasture mix the past seven years. This remains active in cooler months and helps to soak up nitrogen in lower soil temperatures and hold soil nitrates.
Mr Everest said the last part of their equation was making sure they kept only 70% to 80% of their soils’ capacity topped up with irrigation so there was still room for rain water.
About 50 days of effluent stored in a pond and irrigated on to paddocks via centre pivots is treated as a fertiliser.
"We know from our own tests that one millimetre of our effluent per hectare is equivalent to 5kg of nitrogen so we take account of it that way as well. From our point of view if the soils are too wet, or it’s too cold, or we don’t want to put it on late in the autumn it means we can just hold it in the pond till the spring when soil temperatures are lifting and the nitrogen will be taken up by the growing plant."
One of their pivots is under variable rate irrigation and this allows them to avoid gateways and troughs. Each pivot has technology to monitor soil moisture.
Mr Everest said they had their eye on other tools to help make further gains.
"Certainly for the high-sugar grass that AgResearch has developed with their bio-technology that would be a huge plus in changing our protein balance and therefore the amount of nitrogen in the form of urine being applied to the ground. The breeding programme to try and get low methane animals will also have an impact on nitrogen loss as well. It’s all those sorts of things that are critical coming down the track."
"We’ve already reduced [nitrogen losses] by 36% and I think some of those new technologies that will become available will give us some new tools, but we just have to keep working away at it, evaluate them and take them up as they come."
The 36% reduction target was achieved in the 2021 season from their 2009-2013 base-line. They had to reach three targets to meet a regional plan — a 15% reduction by 2025, a 25% reduction by 2030 and a 36% reduction by 2035.
"It just shows you can do it, but you have to do something for it. The reduction in applied nitrogen to 190kg cost about $40,000 that year, but we need to be positive about that. Yes, it did cost us in year one ... but I think we are now seeing improved clover production in our swards and they just take a while to recalibrate themselves to the lower input of nitrogen. While it was a loss in one year, I’m not convinced it’s a loss for ever."
Synlait had supported changes they made and they also "read the tea leaves" to see the marketplace wanted them too, he said.
The milk processor offers a premium for farmers supplying milk under a programme and other companies are showing similar leadership.
"The incentives that Synlait’s Lead With Pride programme provide put something in place to assist in driving change. From a farmer perspective I expect Synlait to offer more incentives into the future that have been captured from the market place."
Mr Everest said the family was driven to run an environmentally and socially friendly economic unit.
"Why did we do it? I think because we wanted to show that we could actually do some things and there were tools out there that farmers could use ... we had a strong target for our plan change with a 36% reduction and there was no way we could leave this to the last minute so we wanted to do little bits all along and that would help us in the end and I’m sure it has."
The Everests are part of DairyNZ’s five-year Selwyn and Hinds programme in Canterbury to help reduce farm nitrogen losses and improve water quality.
Mr Everest said the farmers had been building knowledge together and it had been good to learn from them.
The programme with DairyNZ partnering with 40 dairy farmers in the two catchments started in 2018 and is coming to an end.
Analysis shows there has been a 44% reduction in nitrogen loss from the farms’ baseline time to the latest year-end.
Hinds farmers are on track to meet the nitrogen loss target set by Environment Canterbury, with the first milestone being the 15% reduction by 2025. In Selwyn, dairy farmers needed to achieve a 30% reduction by 2022.
Overseer information shows reductions of 29% from the 2017/18 season to 2021/22, and a new report shows a continued downward trend of a 27.5% decrease across Canterbury over five years to 2021-22.
DairyNZ general manager for sustainable dairy Dr David Burger said the pace of change in both catchments was encouraging and showed the sector was moving in the right direction.
"Dairy farmers across Canterbury are improving effluent and irrigation management, reducing fertiliser use and increasing their focus on overall efficiency of farm systems, which helps reduce nitrogen being lost into groundwater."
Options trialled across Hinds and Selwyn farms were tailored around different farm systems with the results shared at field days and events.
Catch crops grown to contain excess nitrogen in soils that may otherwise have been lost through leaching and low-cost but effective plantain plantings have been taken up by many farmers.
