Alderstone

Staff check the irrigation while going about their day. Maintenance and repairs are recorded - previously in the Dairy Diary and now online.
There is a runoff check location where the pivot CSA's would drain into Pleasant Creek if there was a runoff event.

K-Line is shifted twice a day on a six day return. Lines are turned off where necessary to avoid over watering. Steeper paddocks have K-Line across the slopes, and lower slopes have blanks on lower pods.

All staff with irrigation responsibilities are trained using the training template and by attending NOIC irrigation managers workshops.

There is an operations manual for K-Line as well as the installation video are used for training, and the Pivot operators manual is in the door of the control panel.

Bucket Tests:

Alderstone Pivot: applies 14.6mm when set at 20mm. Distribution Uniformity 0.87.

Alderstone K Line top line by road: applies 54mm in 12 hours. Will retest to confirm and then if confirmed will be renozzled or replaced.

Maintenance is recorded in the Irrigation Maintenance record.

Start of Season Checks

Pivot start up checklist. There are always more blockages at the start of the season so more time is allowed to clear nozzles.

K-Lines are most likely to blow apart or lose sprinklers in the first few pulls of each line. Check carefully before starting up, and then once up to pressure check again.

End of Season Checks

Drain all lines to protect from frost and cover all valves.

Winter maintenance is done by engineers or water company.

Soils and Nutrients:

Soils

Alderstone Soil Maps

Alderstone is primarily Kauru silt loam with Timaru silt loam at the margins.

Kauru silt loam has 52mm Profile Available Water to pasture rooting depth of 300mm and Readily Available Water of 26mm.

Timaru silt loam has 55mm Profile Available Water to pasture rooting depth of 300mm and Readily Available Water of 27mm.

Nutrients

Alderstone is managed to minimise the amount of nutrient that escapes the farm and becomes a pollutant, and maximise the nutrient that stays within the root zone of the plants as a resource. Infiltration rate is optimised to minimise runoff.

Critical Source Areas are managed by only grazing when dry, using a minimum 5m buffer from crops and monitoring for run off. Alderstone is located immediately outside a Nitrogen Sensitive Zone.

Fertiliser orders, and applications (proof of placement examples via Tracmap) are all recorded and are informed by an agronomy plan. Spreading is done in house using a spreader calibrated using a known weight of fertiliser and a known area.
Soil temperature is checked prior to first application in shoulder seasons to ensure it is above 8 degrees. There is no application of fertiliser in June and July. Fertiliser is not applied during periods of heavy rainfall, on hot days, in windy conditions, on pugged fields or when field capacity is exceeded. Bore locations and waterways are avoided by 20m and 10m respectively in these conditions. Fertiliser is not applied to gateways or troughs, or other compacted soils. GPS aids navigation and recording. Fertiliser is collected from the supplier and stored on farm in covered concrete bunkers.

Nitrogen

An Overseer Nutrient Budget has been prepared by Ballance to understand where higher N loss occurs. One new pivot per year is budgeted across all the farms - initially replacing worn pivots, then replacing Rotorainers, and fixed grid is under consideration initially for Alderstone K-Line to reduce N loss.

No more than 190kg of Nitrogen is applied to each hectare and reported annually via Ballance to Otago Regional Council in accordance with the Synthetic Nitrogen Fertiliser Cap and monitored using a heat map generated by proof of placement on Tracmap. To prevent accidentally exceeding the cap the grazing rotation is set and half of the farm is spread every two weeks on a preset schedule which will result in 186kgN/ha. Application rate changes throughout the season.

Phosphorous and Erosion

The aim is to maintain good soil structure by using the relevant cultivation practices for the given situation, and minimise the period of soil exposure to wind and rain erosion.

P applications don't exceed 100kg P/ha and not spread in Jun or July. Waterways are avoided and run off points are monitored.

Minimum tillage cultivation is used where soil conditions allow, and if full cultivation is necessary slopes are worked across. Steep areas are avoided where possible and weather forecasts are considered when deciding on cultivation timing. Care is taken not to work soil into fine aggregate sizes and a 5m buffer is maintained to waterways. There is minimal delay between cultivation and sowing to minimise the time that soil is exposed.

Waterways are protected by fencing, vegetative strips and stock crossings.

Pugging prevention is achieved by giving larger breaks in wet conditions and cows are allowed to leave longer residuals. Young grass is grazed only briefly and in dry conditions only to minimise damage to the softer soil.

Bought-in feed is recorded and the majority of silage is sourced from in-house foraging operations. Typically 350kgDM is made on farm and imported feed is usually 60kgDM straw per cow, and 650kg wet weight per cow of a blend consisting of approximately 10% barley, 60% PKE and 30% DDG.

Soil tests and agronomy recommendations are done annually to inform fertiliser decision making.

The winter grazing plan below includes identifying risks of crop paddocks losing nutrients to the environment.

Effluent

Consents

Effluent Storage:

Consent Number RM21.180.01

Consent Type: Effluent Storage Consent

Expiry Date: 27/09/2036

Activity Purpose: To store effluent in an animal waste system for the purpose of operating an animal waste system

Effluent storage summary: stone trap, sump with separator and a 2,000m³ single staged clay lined holding pond with approximately thirty days storage.

Solids are dried and spread to land monthly using a slurry tanker. The slurry tanker also acts as a backup in case of break down, along with a spare pump carried on farm.

Minimum amount of effluent is stored at any one time to ensure maximum capacity is available for periods of adverse weather events.

Effluent Discharge:

Consent Number: RM21.180.02

Consent Type: Discharge to Land Permit

Activity Purpose: To discharge effluent to land for the purpose of operating an animal waste system for a dairy milking shed

Effluent discharge summary: over 183.4ha through irrigation system for up to 600 cows a day and not exceeding 10mm application depth with a two day return period (except K-Lines at 1.67mm per hour application rate adding up to no more than 20mm depth over twelve hours and a seven day return).

No discharge must occur within:

(a) 50 metres of any surface watercourse;

(b) 100 metres of any water abstraction point;

property; and

(d) 20 metres from any property boundaries.

No discharge at or near field capacity. Refer to Soil Moisture records. Soil moisture tests are done after rain periods to determine when irrigation may resume.

Click for consent documents.

Maintenance is recorded in the Irrigation Maintenance record.

Bucket Tests

Effluent Exclusion Zones

Effluent Management Plan

The effluent management plan is in accordance with the consents. Only trained senior staff are responsible for effluent management, but all staff are responsible for alerting senior staff to any issues. Training of staff is recorded using this template.

Storm water is not diverted from the yard (although roof stormwater is diverted) so storage levels are to be monitored carefully during periods of wet weather and high soil moisture with maximum capacity available at any given time to store effluent in wet periods.

General risks include swales/CSA's, point sources such as laneways, effluent storage and yards. Any paddock with slope has the potential to cause effluent run off. Avoid applying effluent to swale or gully floors as they don't need it as much as bony areas elsewhere.

Weather forecast is always considered when deciding to apply effluent.

Waterway and CSA Management

Creek

The creek is fenced and planted with stock crossings installed and maintained. Plantings reduce the nutrient, sediment and pathogen load entering the creek.

Culverts and laneways are maintained to prevent stock coming into contact with surface water.

Point Source Management

Pit silage is not used. Any ensiled feed is to be individual or tube wrapped baleage.

Offal: Dead stock are disposed of in an offal pit on a high and dry spot in N25 and are not left in sight of the road. In accordance with regional council requirements, dead stock are buried:

a minimum of 100m from any wells that supply water for domestic drinking or livestock
a minimum of 50m from any waterway, including lakes, streams, rivers, wetlands and groundwater
a minimum of 50m from the closest property boundary
in an area free from ponding, flooding, or erosion
away from any areas used for offal pits within the past five years
away from any areas of cultural, historical, or conservation significance

Waste and by product: only steel and concrete is disposed of by burying on farm.

Household rubbish is disposed of by burning drum, or dropping to a transfer station.
Plastics, tanalised timber and other chemical product is not burned.
Greenwaste, cardboard, and other non-chemical product may be burned in accordance with fire season requirements.
Bale wrap, and chemical containers are recycled. Only a minimum of chemical is used to reduce the amount of toxins stored on farm.
Needles and sharps are collected in a sharps bin and disposed of by the vets.
Sick or injured animals collected for pet food.
Soil, fill and stones used elsewhere for development.
Oil is captured in a container and disposed of at the transfer station.

Critical Source Areas

Critical Source Areas are only grazed when dry. More areas are considered to be a CSA and further management considerations are described in the Intensive Grazing Plan for winter crop paddocks.

When rain ponds in paddocks these areas are fenced off with a hot wire to prevent pugging and stock access.

Fertiliser is not spread to CSA's and irrigation is designed to avoid them where practical.

Tracks, troughs and gateways are maintained to minimise their loss of nutrients and sediment. Water tables are maintained to reduce erosion risk.

Intensive Winter Grazing

Winter grazing does not occur in CSA's from 1 May to 30 September each year - these areas are left in grass, or if planted they are lifted mechanically rather than grazed.
Stock are excluded from CSA's with a buffer of 5m, or up to 20m if steep
Grazing does not occur within 5m of any waterway, or 100m of a water abstraction point.
Backfences are used to protect previously grazed areas and they are replanted as early as practicable.
Slopes are grazed top to bottom, and any slopes over 10 degrees are not grazed at all. Where slopes over 10 degrees are planted in crop this will be lifted mechanically with buffers of at least 10m between the CSA's and waterways.
A runoff check point is checked daily during rain events to ensure there is no runoff.
Crops are sown along the contour where safe to do so.