Helping grow
the country

PGG Wrightson Livestock National Sale Manager Matt Macfie joins Mark Leishman on the daily report to discuss how the livestock market is tracking as we head into November.

From 11 November 2019 our Head Office will be moving to a new location at Christchurch Airport.

The modern office will home staff across our Corporate, Agency and Retail & Water divisions and will continue to provide accounting, supply chain, marketing, technology, human resources and administrative support to PGW’s operations.  

Technology was a major consideration in the new building to enable greater communication and collaboration across our business and extensive nationwide footprint.

The retail and wool stores on Blenheim Road will remain in their current locations and are unaffected by the move.

Head Office Contact Details

Physical Address: 1 Robin Mann Place, Christchurch Airport, Christchurch 8053

Postal Address: PO Box 292, Christchurch 8140

Phone: +64 3 372 0890 or 0800 10 22 76

Hours: Monday to Friday 7.30am - 5.30pm (Closed weekends and public holidays)

The warmer months are an exciting time in the garden as your spring planting efforts come to life, There is also plenty of summer sun loving crops to plant and it's the perfect time to get your garden into shape for summer BBQs and backyard entertaining. 

By now your spring planting should be coming to fruition and you can enjoy bountiful harvests of homegrown vegetables. Harvesting your vegetables regularly helps promote more growth throughout the season. Crops that flower and then fruit will continuously fruit throughout the summer season if you keep up with harvesting and watering.

There is still plenty to plant at this time of year, so you can continue harvesting delicious homegrown ingredients for your favourite summer meals. Pizzas are a great option for feeding family and friends over the summer entertaining months. Plant tomatoes and a variety of herbs and you'll have tasty, fresh pizza toppings. Top tomato varieties for pizza include Money Maker (reliable and flavoursome), Beefsteak (large and tasty), Grosse Lisse (full of flavour) and Sweet 100 (small and sweet). 
Flavoursome herbs include parsley, thyme, oregano and basil. Rosemary can also be chopped finely and added into pizza dough for extra flavour. Herbs will provide the perfect finishing touch to your homemade pizzas. If you're planting your tomatoes in the garden or in pots and containers, add a layer of Tui Tomato Mix, which is specifically formulated with extra potassium to encourage a bumper crop of big juicy fruit. Plant your herbs in a spot close to your kitchen so they are easily accessible, and add a layer of Tui Herb Mix, rich in nitrogen to promote green, leafy growth and continuous harvesting.

If summer BBQs are your go-to, plant salad greens such as mesclun, spinach, lettuce, rocket and spring onions for fresh ingredients at your fingertips. Other vegetables and herbs you might want to add to your summer dishes include radish, cucumber, tomatoes, sweetcorn, basil, coriander, parsley, radish and mint. Before planting dig in organic matter to your soil such as Tui Compost to replenish nutrients used by previous crops. Compost is also an excellent water saver, it improves the soil by increasing moisture holding capacity, particularly in sandy soils. You can then add a layer of Tui Vegetable Mix, formulated with the right blend of nutrients to provide your vegetables with the best possible start and sustained growth throughout the season.

Add some vibrancy to your backyard space with some luscious green foliage and pops of colour. For greenery plant Chatham Island Nikau Palms, New Zealand's only native palm tree. They are fast growing, tolerate the wind, dry summers and poor soils. Gardenia and Hibiscus will bring a relaxed tropical feel to your garden. They both make excellent container plants, choose a large container and plant with Tui All Purpose Potting Mix, specially formulated to give the best start to your indoor and outdoor plants in pots, containers and hanging baskets.

Plants use nutrients from the soil as they grow, so replenishing the nutrients used by your plants ensures they will grow to their full potential. Feed your plants with a suitable fertiliser during key growth periods and remember to water your plants in the morning or evening to avoid water evaporation. A good deep soak every few days is better than shallow watering every day as it helps plants to better survive short term drought.

For more information, pop into your local PGG Wrightson store.

New pastures are a great opportunity to lift production and fine tune the production dynamics on your farm.

After sowing your new pasture paddocks, ensure you monitor them as they emerge. Once the clovers are at the two trifoliate stage, it is a good time to assess the weed pressure. Some paddocks can be clean during establishment but many have a resident weed population that emerges at the same time as sowing down the new pasture. Checking the paddock at this early stage allows selection from a range of herbicides that can prevent the weeds competing for nutrient, moisture and light.

Weeds are much easier to control when they are small, so once your clovers have got two trifoliate leaves, check the paddock for weeds. Identifying the weeds at this early stage can be tricky but I  recommend a copy of “A Guide to the Identification of New Zealand Common Weeds in Colour” by E. A. Upritchard. This little red book is a good investment to have in the truck, and shows the most common weeds at the seedling stages. Identification of weeds is required so the correct herbicide can be selected.

A couple of common weeds seen in new pasture are shepherd’s purse and spurrey/yara. Both these weeds have distinctive characteristics. The shepherd’s purse seedlings have distinctive white hair on their leaves in a cross shape, these can be seen with a hand lens. Spurrey/Yara is an interesting weed, the seedling has upright, round leaves which can be mistaken for grass, but it has a distinctive pattern of four upright leaves originating from the stem above ground level. As with many weeds, spending time to get to know them helps with identification. I suggest if you would like some help identifying weeds, contact your local PGG Wrightson Technical Field Representative.

Weeds in pasture often show up where the gaps are. If you have used weed control and left open areas, use some more seed to fill in those gaps and prevent the weeds establishing. This can sometimes happen, even in new pastures where something has gone wrong during establishment.

If your new pastures are patchy with large gaps, consider using the drill to fill in those gaps because weeds do not provide much in the way of value feed for your stock compared to modern productive grass species. Contact your local PGG Wrightson Technical Field Representative who can help.