Dairy

More than 300,000 hectares is now used for dairy farming in Canterbury – up 187 percent since 2002. Alongside this growth has been an increase in sustainable land use practices, as resilient and innovative farm businesses look to reduce their environmental impact and meet new regulations.

Within this landscape, pasture management is becoming an important tool for optimising environmental performance and animal production.

Cates’ agronomists understand the need to adopt pastoral systems that address sustainability challenges without impacting production or profitability. Our team supports dairy farmers throughout Canterbury, providing access to all pasture varieties sold in New Zealand. This includes supplying grain as a supplementary feed to help dairy farmers meet the cows’ energy requirements, particularly at either end of the growing season.

At Cates we don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, we work with farmers to develop a customised pasture mix – providing a tailormade solution for their individual farming system. Our T100 Triticale variety is perfectly suited to the dairy industry, as it is a great forage option for reducing nitrate leaching via plant uptake. A recent trial showed it was the only participating forage variety where kg/ha of nitrogen removed at the final harvest exceeded total applied nitrogen.

We appreciate pasture is only one part of the picture. Our agronomists have experience helping dairy farmers manage their farming systems to meet regulatory requirements, and bring in-depth knowledge of seeds, agrichemicals and fertilisers.

We all know how hard farmers work – it is our role to provide advice and solutions to help them remain profitable while meeting their environmental obligations.

Cates Agronomist Morgan with Murray Bowden, Farm Manager at Ma Taua Dairies (Rylib Group)