Morning rural news for Wednesday 28 October

I sort of knew it had been wet in Southland for farmers and growers, but not quite.

How wet? It's one of the wettest seasons in a long, long time, right?

That's right.

Almost half a century about.

It's considered Southland's wettest winter in more than 45 years.

Wow.

And, you know, it's the third wet spring they've had in a row as well.

So there's poor farmers down there.

The good news? Some warmer weather in recent weeks has helped dry those waterlogged paddocks out and let farmers get machinery out for cultivating and planting for the next season.

Dairy NZ's regional manager for the Lower South Island, Jarrod Stockman, says while the weather's improved, paddock damage from pugging remains an issue.

He says feed levels are better than they were at the start of spring, though.

We've had some quite good dry days with a bit of heat, so grass is growing, farmers have hooked mowers up to make some baleage and replace some of that supplement they've gone through over the last few weeks.

I think most people have managed cow condition reasonably well.

There's quite a few people that are on once a day or got herds of cows on once a day, so yeah, just making sure they're in good condition before and during mating is really important this time of the year.

Gerard Stockman says with mating underway, there's little let up on the workload front.

Farmer and staff fatigue remains a concern too.

It's been pretty busy through the spring and then into mating.

So farmers haven't had a huge amount of respite.

So with a bit of tiredness just comes a bit of caution around decision making and just hoping we get through without any accidents on farm and things like that.

Meanwhile, Invercargill-based rural contractor Darrell Thompson says while things have largely dried out, there's still water on paddocks in low-lying areas.

He says most are a few weeks behind schedule, especially on cultivation works, which is creating a huge demand bottleneck, putting contractors who are working long hours under pressure.

There's still paddocks where you go around bits and pieces that are wet.

You know, you do three-quarters of the paddock or 90% of it, but there's those areas where we'll have to go back to at some stage.

There's been a lot of damage.

Daryl Thompson says fuel prices have also ramped up again, which is frustrating, and most contractors are having to pass these costs on to their customers.

I sort of knew it had been wet in Southland for farmers and growers, but not quite.

How wet? It's one of the wettest seasons in a long, long time, right?

That's right.

Almost half a century about.

It's considered Southland's wettest winter in more than 45 years.

Wow.

And, you know, it's the third wet spring they've had in a row as well.

So there's poor farmers down there.

The good news? Some warmer weather in recent weeks has helped dry those waterlogged paddocks out and let farmers get machinery out for cultivating and planting for the next season.

Dairy NZ's regional manager for the Lower South Island, Jarrod Stockman, says while the weather's improved, paddock damage from pugging remains an issue.

He says feed levels are better than they were at the start of spring, though.

We've had some quite good dry days with a bit of heat, so grass is growing, farmers have hooked mowers up to make some baleage and replace some of that supplement they've gone through over the last few weeks.

I think most people have managed cow condition reasonably well.

There's quite a few people that are on once a day or got herds of cows on once a day, so yeah, just making sure they're in good condition before and during mating is really important this time of the year.

Gerard Stockman says with mating underway, there's little let up on the workload front.

Farmer and staff fatigue remains a concern too.

It's been pretty busy through the spring and then into mating.

So farmers haven't had a huge amount of respite.

So with a bit of tiredness just comes a bit of caution around decision making and just hoping we get through without any accidents on farm and things like that.

Meanwhile, Invercargill-based rural contractor Darrell Thompson says while things have largely dried out, there's still water on paddocks in low-lying areas.

He says most are a few weeks behind schedule, especially on cultivation works, which is creating a huge demand bottleneck, putting contractors who are working long hours under pressure.

There's still paddocks where you go around bits and pieces that are wet.

You know, you do three-quarters of the paddock or 90% of it, but there's those areas where we'll have to go back to at some stage.

There's been a lot of damage.

Daryl Thompson says fuel prices have also ramped up again, which is frustrating, and most contractors are having to pass these costs on to their customers.