September and October here at Valetta are like a freight train running downhill.

We have come out of winter and lambs have gone out onto grass seed crops, and the ewes have spread out on pasture for lambing.

While we tend to them, we need to get greenfeed fields turned around and back into spring crop.

About the author

David Clark

Farmer Focus writer

David Clark runs a 463ha fully irrigated mixed farm with his wife Jayne at Valetta, on the Canterbury Plains of New Zealand’s south island. He grows 400ha of cereals, pulses, forage and vegetable seed crops, runs 1,000 Romney breeding ewes and finishes 8,000 lambs annually.

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Grass growth has been slow and feed tight.

I was a bit disappointed that we were 7-10 days late getting some mobs of lambs off crop and onto grass seed crops, as our window of compensatory growth to get the lambs finished prior to the grass seed being closed was very tight.

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However, we may have chanced it right more by luck than design, because many of our friends and neighbours got on top of their grass early and it hasn’t recovered, and lamb growth has suffered.

At this point, three weeks from closing the last crops, we have good feed levels and are on track so far to average 24kg processed weight on the lambs at a record NZ$9.40/kg (£4.80/kg).

Lambing has gone well, and we had a good run with cultivation and drilling. This year we established a radish crop by Cross-Slot direct drilling, so I will report on that later in the season.

High dairy prices and tight feed have seen keen demand for our wheat, with it all finding a home in the dairy market, the bulk of it selling at NZ$450/t (£231/t) ex silo.

Our truck and trailer is away most days delivering to our customers as we keep their feed silos and processing mills topped up.

We expect to be empty by mid-December. The integration between arable, dairy and stock within the arable system is very unique and is truly the strength of the farming system as a whole here in Canterbury.

The Covid delta variant is still spreading in Auckland as they remain in lockdown, and it has unfortunately, but as expected, leaked out of urban Auckland and there is nothing to suggest it won’t make its way right across the country.

We are making the most of our less-restricted status here while it lasts.