It has turned into a summer of discontent for North Island rural contractors as the industry battles weather-induced disruptions during its peak summer period.
The rain has pushed back the contracting season by at least a month with the wet spring delaying the sowing of maize and other summer feed crops, Rural Contractors New Zealand president Helen Slattery said.
Contractors are having issues in Northland, Waikato, the central North Island and Hawke’s Bay, with the wet weather delaying grass silage and haymaking and collecting.
Slattery said she had correspondence with a Northland contractor who had to leave bales in a paddock for two weeks because of the weather and because the contractor did not want to damage the paddock.
“In Waikato, we’re also having issues although they’re not as dramatic as Northland or Hawke’s Bay,” she said.
Both Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne were hammered by the recent cyclone – while, in contrast, Southland contractors are having a great season, she said.
It is not getting easier, with rain forecast throughout much of the North Island in late January-early February.
Slattery said she has heard of contractors in Northland having to repeatedly return to replant maize crops that have been wrecked by the wet weather after sowing.
“They replant and then it got stunted with rain and then drowned. We have heard of contractors planting last week.
“They have to get a shorter maturing variety, but all depends on hoping and praying for the weather to be steady, and there are heat units.”
It is not easy for the contracting industry to manage a business around these disruptions, she said.
“It requires a lot of communication, particularly with the farmers, and planning around the weather. Most of the farmers are really understanding at the moment. They want their crop off but they don’t want the ground destroyed.”
Slattery said a fellow contractor told her recently that they had not seen a season like this one since the 1960s.
It will also mean the likelihood of a delayed maize harvest – depending on the weather over the next six weeks. A sustained spell of hot weather over the North Island is needed, she said.
The concern now for farmers is what this will mean for feed reserves heading into autumn and winter because, while many paddocks are green, the quality of the pastures is questionable on closer inspection.
“What are they going to do for winter feed or if it suddenly turns into a drought?” she said.
Federated Farmers Hawke’s Bay provincial president Jim Galloway said the region has just had about10 days of fine weather, allowing for hay and silage to be collected, but local contractors have had shocking conditions to work under.
Worst hit are those with vegetable and cereal crops.
“They were really hard work in the spring to get them planted and now that they have been planted, you look at the paddocks and 30% have been drowned out – oats sweetcorn and squash.”
On the flip side, the rain has filled up the dams and irrigation is being used at a minimum, which has brought costs down.
Galloway said it is more of a quality than a quantity issue regarding stock feed availability, while it had been a nightmare situation for commercial crop growers trying to get vegetables planted and harvested.
“If we have a reasonable autumn then getting it off might not be a problem, but it’s going to severely affect yields,” he said.
The lack of sunlight is also an issue. Instead of temperatures in the high 20s, much of the summer has been milder cloudy days, which means wet paddocks have taken longer to dry and the pasture in them has grown longer and reduced in quality, he said.
It has also affected livestock, with lamb growth rates and milk production down because of the lack of sun.
“The grass hasn’t had any good sugars in it because it hasn’t had the sun to bring the sugar up and the energy levels in it,” he said.
