Northland TSR Bryant Martin has worked with the Co-op for the past 12 years and spends a lot of time on farm working with Co-op farmers to learn their systems and provide guidance.
"Northland is a very strong dairy area and is greatly impacted by the payout. If the payout's up, life's good. If the payouts down, it's not so good. As aTSR I get to go out on farm and see what's happening. No day is the same, there's always something different," he says.
When it comes to managing pasture and crops Bryant says the more communication the TSR and farmers have the better.
"The best approach is to have a discussion about where the farm is at and come up with a plan together. How many cows do we want to feed? For how long? What's our budget? How many hectares do we have? We can then try and find the best fit of feed. If the farmer doesn't want to be moving cows on and off a paddock all the time we might look at planting crops, like turnips," Bryant says.
"We also need to look at the farm's pest pressures. If they have a lot of ducks with ponds and wetlands on farm then chicory is probably not the best crop to plant. Once we've decided on the best approach we'll set up a planting date and spray out as well. Then before the crop goes in we will talk about pre-emergent options, and once they have germinated talk about post-emergence and insect spray. We'll monitor through the summer and once these paddocks are sorted we'll move on to autumn grassing - we'll go out on farm and drive around to see which paddocks need work.
"We work closely with with our trusted vendor partners throughout the year. We can call them and get advice for our Co-op farmers. I'll call them and say 'hey we've got a curly one here, what do you recommend we do?' and they'll give us great advice and information to apply on farm."
Farm Source's pasture guides also provide TSRs and Co-op farmers with a great ranking system to assess paddocks.
Co-op farmer Steve Jochems says Farm Source's team has provided useful guidance over the years on his 150ha Maungakaramea farm.
"It's fairly steep land. Anywhere else in the country this would be pine tree land. Here we farm it. We're largely grass and silage but have grown turnips and kale as well. A few years ago we had problems with armyworm and Farm Source's team came out and checked out the property. The team is always easy to deal with and Farm Source provides competitive pricing in store," he says.
Get in touch with your local TSR or visit your Farm Source store to find out more about how we can help with pasture management on farm.