Outlook with Bill Webb Bill Webb Feed Solutions

The old weather’s certainly been a complete contrast to last season. It’s been drier through October and November. But late-November we’ve had rain forecast. There’s been some cold spells thrown in between. This has made things rather challenging.

The maize is doing okay-ish but some growers are experiencing germination issues with some seed. It’s not all hybrids and not all coatings but there’s something going on. So we’ve been checking all our crops and doing population counts. We’re also checking for weeds. Mostly we’ve had a pretty good run with weeds this year – but we still need to spray a post-emergent. We’re spraying earlier than later – to get weeds while small and there’s not much cover from maize leaves, so we hit the weed’s base.

If spreading nirtogen, do this before rain. So keep tabs on the forecast to get some on before rainfall. Brassica crops also need weeds sprayed as soon as possible to get good responses. Also look out for white butterfly and leaf miners.

Early-December we’ll be cutting hay weather permitting. Things haven’t changed from last month – some still have feed, others are still struggling. Nearly everyone’s milk-take is up – putting pressure on Global Milk Auction prices and holding farmers’ payouts down. But I suppose they’ve just got to focus on getting as much production as they can to keep paying the bills.

Maize interest

There’s more interest in maize silage this year with Palm Kernel Expeller issues. Fonterra is monitoring farmers’ usage and can penalise those with test results showing the fat composition of their milk exceeds feed limits for PKE, which were adopted in June. Funnily, Fonterra is one of the biggest importers of PKE. It’s a bit ironic. But it’s seen renewed interest in maize silage.

There’s probably not much PKE being fed yet – when it turns dry and farmers are short of feed they tend to use it. This is when protein levels are high in grass and they bump up the kg rate of PKE per cow.

Last month we reminded farmers to ensure their health and safety policies on-farm were up to scratch and up-to-date. Since then a Wellsford farmer has appeared in court after a worker on his farm was killed in a tractor incident in December 2016.

The worker was driving a tractor and towing a trailer carrying two bales of bailage when he lost traction on a sloped piece of land. The tractor and trailer jack-knifed and the tractor rolled, fatally injuring the driver.

Health and safety

WorkSafe’s investigation found systemic failures by the farmer to do a risk assessment of the entire farm and work tasks taking place on it. It also found the farmer failed to identify the need for a maintained roll-over protection on the tractor after it was found to be severely corroded.

This shows farmers need to be doing more around health and safety on-farm. We’re dealing with a lot of machinery and outdoor activities that constantly change – so farmers need to do their best, have processes in place, do their paperwork and identify hazards. Because WorkSafe NZ are starting to check farms to ensure polices are in place. They want to work with farmers, educate, and point out where they’re going wrong. So give it your best shot – because we want people to go home to their families at night.

The team at Bill Webb Feed Solutions would like to wish all Coast & Country News readers a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Watch out for traffic on the road this festive season – be wary of agricultural machinery using roads for haymaking and suchlike, and travel safely!

We’re closed over Christmas but can be contacted via our office phone for urgent enquiries should you need feed. We have a good stock of milking quality silage available.