16 August 1985 Costs of crop productions analysed

By Professor Jim White, Professor of Agronomy at Lincoln College.

As costs of farm machinery, chemicals for plant protection and fertilizers continue to rise, Canterbury farmers are looking for ways to reduce their costs of production .

Cultivation costs are being kept down by minimum tillage techniques while in general there is increasing emphasis on attention to detail, and timeliness in growing crops.

The best farmers carry out regular crop inspection every two-to-three days in spring to identify the incidence of pests and disease, and take remedial action when the chemical has most effect.

Precise timing is often the cheapest and most effective way to control a troublesome disease, such as stripe rust in wheat.

The biggest effort to beat the cost rise is in increasing crop yields.

It is well known that the cost of producing a six-tonne crop of wheat is little more than producing a three-tonne crop, yet there is very little money to be made from a three-tonne crop these days.

Over the last five years yields of all Canterbury crops have increased substantially.

This is because of better husbandry, new varieties, and, particularly, by the use of nitrogen fertilisers on cereals and ryegrass seed crops.

Again, precision is important: using a soil available nitrogen test at the right time, such as late winter for winter wheat or winter barley, followed by application of fertilizer at the correct growth stage.

Initial testing was confined to winter wheat, but is now extending to barley and ryegrass seed crops.

Fertility maintenance by grazed ryegrass-white clover pastures is a thing of the past for many mixed crop farmers.

The returns from sheep are considerably outweighed by those from crops 1 particularly if lamb gets down to $15-16, as
I heard recently could happen.

Another method of increasing yield is beginning to be tried. by some farmers : double cropping, or growing two crops
in one season.

This is mainly confined to early maturing crops, such as winter barley, which can be followed by a second December-sown barley crop if water is available.

The Plant Science Department at Lincoln College is investigating autumn sowing of vining peas, which if harvested in
November would allow a second crop to be sown immediately.

Farmers have a much smaller choice of crops than they had 10-20 years ago.

Today it is barley, wheat, peas and white clover, with a limited market for ryegrass seed.

Barley is the big cereal these days, with 166,000 hectares predicted for New Zealand in the coming season an increase of 28 per cent on last year.

The world coarse-grain harvest is always hard. to predict, but with the present cool wet summer  in Britain and other E.E.C. countries harvesting of cereals is difficult.

Total harvests may be significantly down.

Last year barley growers in N.Z. recorded substantial reductions in yield, compared with 1983, because dry hot conditions in early summer reduced the period of grain fill, causing pinched grain with high screenings.

More barley has been autumn sown this year, a trend which will mushroom if we follow Western Europe, where 60 per
cent of barley is now· autumn sown.

As a further effort to beat the drought spring-barley growers are likely to be sowing in.August and early September,
several weeks earlier than traditional sowing.

Wheat, once the staple cereal for Canterbury, now occupies less than half of the area sown to barley.

The predicted New Zealand area this year is 67,000 hectares, up a little on last year.

Worried cropping farmers are watching their wheat price fall as the world wheat price fa:l:.ls and the New Zealand dollar strengthens.

At the time of writing average milling-quality Rongotea with an index of 88 was returning only $179/tonne at the farm gate.

This, of course, is significantly less than the $190/tonne for 1985 malting . barley contracts, and $83/tonne less than last year's return from wheat.

Wheatgrowers are now calling for for a return to some system of price control to avoid these massive fluctuations.

This contrasts with their demands for a free market only a year or two ago.

There is wide uncertainty in the wheat industry as it moves quickly towards deregulation.

Grain quality is assuming a much greater importance than before and, with this in mind, farmers have taken more care in choosing varieties.

They are also looking anxiously at DSIR plant breeders to provide a high quality wheat resistant to stripe rust, the biggest disease problem in wheat at present.

The pea market is always unpredictable, but farmers are hoping that developing overseas markets will further boost the $42 million earned by peas in overseas exchange last year.

Vining-pea prices are up by 15 per cent for the ·coming harvest, and there is a long queue for contracts.

We sell our threshed peas to a wide range of countries.

Our seed merchants have made a good effort in marketing in recent years but with the present pea explosion in E.E.C. countries it will not be long before surpluses from there will be competing with our peas.

We can only meet the challenge by improving the quality of our products, and developing more uniform standards.

I think that pea growers should form an organisation to co-operate with the merchants in quality control and marketing.

The old saying "It's an ill wind that doesn't blow somebody some good" is holding true for our grass and clover seed growers.

The droughts in North Otago and South Canterbury, and the scarred hills of Gisborne have meant major regrassing
programs.

Seed prices are reflecting the increased demand.

White clover seed is already being sold for $3/kg ( a rise of .50 per cent on last year, while some perennial ryegrass sales have been at $1/kg.

Even so, ryegrass is not likely to become the major crop that it was after the war.

Virtually all our seed is used locally, and demand has slackened as land development has declined.

White clover seed, on the other hand, has a brighter future.

New Zealand still dominates the world market with Huia, and our new Seeds Promotion Council may already be having some effect in expanding these markets.

In addition, we are widening our base of cultivars with Pitau and the hill-country. Tahora, now being grown, and the large-leaved G18.

Our biggest problem is the high buried-white-clover-seed content of many Canterbury cropping farms, which makes
growing pure seed of a now cultivar difficult.

We have found the OECD rules are rather inadequate to control purity of new varieties ; the only way is for the farmer to arrange a buried-seed count of any paddock he wishes to sow.

Anything below about 75 hard seeds a square metre is acceptable.

In addition. to the three new N.Z. bred cultivars now being grown for seed, 100 hectares of overseas white clover varieties were grown last season.

These are being multiplied for the European .market, as seed production in Western Europe has fallen right away in recent years because of poor climate and a low level of technology.

We do have some competition in multiplication from Oregon in the United States, where clover seed has been grown in the last two years for a consortium of British seed merchants.

New grain-legume crops offer some light on the horizon for those farmers concerned about the lack of choice of
crops to grow.

Some hundred of hectares of lentils have been grown in the Methven district recently, with yields up to two tonnes
a hectare.

Prices last year reached $1250/tonne, which should encourage further expansion.

This crop is grown in medium soils, is autumn sown, and does not need any irrigation.

Trials at Lincoln College last year produced more than four tonnes a hectare from the best plots.

There is a good market for lentils both in New Zealand, where these are sold mainly in health food shops, and overseas.

Chick peas, another grain legume used in much the same way as lentils, also have potential for cropping.

Trials carried out by the Plant Science Department yielded two tonnes a hectare, and this is most promising.

Further information from Professor Jim White, Plant Science Department, Lincoln College 8150