{"id":42461,"date":"2021-02-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-31T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/from-the-ridge-you-dont-get-something-for-nothing\/"},"modified":"2021-02-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-31T11:00:00","slug":"from-the-ridge-you-dont-get-something-for-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/news\/from-the-ridge-you-dont-get-something-for-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"FROM THE RIDGE: You don\u2019t get something for nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

My thermometers are in well-shaded spots, so I\u2019m doubtful about the claims of 40C from near here.<\/p>\n

However, I do know that some of you had official recordings in the high 30s, so I guess I have little to complain about.<\/p>\n

I made sure I drank plenty of water as I toiled in the afternoon sun, but it was surprising how thirsty I still was in the evenings and despite topping up, the body sucked it up, as little piddling was going on.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I tell you this because the farm water systems which have been functioning well inevitably came under pressure from thirsty stock also dealing with the heat and dry grass, and the weaknesses in the infrastructure suddenly came to the fore.<\/p>\n

I used to have a couple of systems running 40-odd troughs and quite a lot of dams and big paddocks.<\/p>\n

Early in my career I learnt that the key driver for productivity and profitability was subdivision, subdivision, and more subdivision. Been to a dairy farm lately?<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s what I did and of course the water system had to keep up with it. Research has shown something like a 30% return on capital on a reticulated water system, so why wouldn\u2019t you? If you know of any other 30% return on capitals year in and year out, give me a ring.<\/p>\n

Early in the piece, I moved a large mob of thirsty sheep into a paddock that they would have known. I watched hundreds of ewes run past a perfectly good dam and crowd 20 deep around the new trough. I\u2019ve been fencing off the dams and planting them out ever since.<\/p>\n

Another similar memory that comes to mind is shifting thirsty ewes into a paddock where I had moved the trough into the centre of the paddock two or three years earlier.<\/p>\n

About half the ewes ran to where the trough used to be before saying \u201csilly me\u201d and ran for the middle where the others had headed. I assume they were the older ewes who were used to it being in the old spot. Never say sheep don\u2019t have good memories.<\/p>\n

Have you ever noticed that when you move stock, they often head straight for the water and disregard at first the fresh feed? Then you go back to the previous paddock\u2019s water expecting to find an empty trough and it\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n

The problem with my water system is that it wasn\u2019t designed with all the bells and whistles from scratch, but has incrementally grown from what was there. A lot of tee joiners out there.<\/p>\n

Also complicating matters is that over my career I\u2019ve slowly grown our farming business with four small blocks separated by 5km. I\u2019ve ended up with three pumps and a gravity-fed system off a neighbouring property, which I was smart enough to pay to get a water easement for the right to transport water put in with the original owner.<\/p>\n

And about 140 troughs as all my paddocks have reticulated water and my average paddock size is what you might think a ridiculous 2.5ha average.<\/p>\n

Plenty of things to go wrong and fail.<\/p>\n

And they do.<\/p>\n

When something like the bulls lifting a lid and breaking the ballcock arm, then another mob suddenly without water object and cause their own problems.<\/p>\n

A new bit of kit has just turned up courtesy of a local business, which is a decent weather station and water-use monitoring system down on my bottom farm.<\/p>\n

It texts me when there is a problem, so I don\u2019t have to travel down every day or so to look at the flag and check in with the pump.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m surprised I was so slow to pick up this bit of excellent technology that I know plenty of you have.<\/p>\n

If you want to have a nosey, google \u2018Isaacs Hatuma weather station\u2019 to see how the weather and water usage (not that high as I\u2019ve killed most of my bulls, lambs and ewes) is going here. The online software is excellent and allows a lot of searching and changing parameters. There\u2019s even a webcam to see my poor grazing (I prefer deferred grazing technique) and a nice vista across our farm towards Woburn and Ngahape Roads.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t farm without decent water, especially in the drier regions but as always, you don\u2019t get something for nothing.<\/p>\n

You need to spend the money on good water infrastructure, and you need to be on your game to maintain and care for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We had a mini heatwave like many of you last week.\nOver a few days, temperatures sneaked into the low 30s and working in the afternoon heat felt like you were in a furnace.\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":42462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t