Nick and Jo Collins

Piopio, nj [dot] jcollins [at] xtra [dot] co [dot] nz

Nick and Jo took over their 140ha of fertile Mairoa ash near Piopio in 2004. It has quite a steep hill block where they raise the young stock, and high rainfall of 1800-1850mm. This gives good summer water but gets very wet in winter when the hills slip if not managed carefully. There are patches of bush, swamps and gullies which have been planted for shelter. There's also shade and fodder with flax, comfrey, and poplars which can be browsed but not killed through the fence.

Nick had seen the negative effect on stock health of urea and superphosphate when sharemilking on a previous farm so decided to move in the opposite direction and work towards organics. They run 276 cows, about 2/ha, including all young stock up till July, when they move to an organic runoff during the wettest part of the winter. They still bring in some hay.

They have had some problems in the drought year during conversion, when a very bad spring knocked production to 61,000 kg, but they expect 86,000 kg this year with conversion policies starting to bear fruit. They are close to their target of keeping operating expenses at or below $3/kg MS; with the savings from the organic system combined with the premium, it is looking good financially.

The fertiliser regime is 2x 650kg/ha of maglime 3:1 mixed with salt, trace elements, humates and small quantities of biophos. Also Agrisea soil and foliar seaweed sprayed twice at 10L/ha. At times he has also used compost teas, rock dust, dolomite and chook manure, all used in separate applications. Nick says "We have found the best results for us have come from the Rorisons lime mix and the agrisea products."

Vet bills per cow are about half the national average and this includes cider vinegar and tonics. Calves are drenched with wormwood grown on the farm with cider vinegar and garlic. Jo has studied homeopathy and uses this to treat any illness. The worm count is very low.

Mastitis is still an issue, but they cull any cow that gets it for a third time in an effort to breed out any susceptibility to the disease.

Stock health and high production are maintained with a herbal ley including chicory, plantain and red clover which is spread by helicopter. Each spring any areas with soil damage, such as the sacrifice paddock used to keep stock off other pastures when they are wet, are oversown from the farm bike spreader & harrowed.

Nick is very careful about soil compaction. He says biological farming depends on healthy microbes and damage to soil structure is not good for these microbes and allows more weeds to come into the pasture as well. The ash soil gets wet very quickly and dries out quickly and he is careful to remove stock before they cause pugging.

I found it interesting that most dairy farmers do not drink the milk from their own vat, but buy it at the shop. The fact that all the organic farmers I met proudly drink their own milk says something about their production system.

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