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This month's reflection on the wool market has seen a strong growth in terms of sales and as Grant Edwards, PGG Wrightson's GM for wool, explains there is definitely an upwards trend for wool since June-July of this year.

The Country's Jamie Mackay spoke with Grant Edwards about the exceptional season the wool market has seen this year. Mackay acknowledges a slight recovery in the cost of wool, in particular cross-breed products, and that exchange rates have not directly influenced the market.

Mackay and Edwards touch on the reasonable New Zealand winter which has led to high quality, marketable wool, and as the country heads into pre-lamb season the wool continues to be exceptionally produced.

The droughts in Australia have continued to influence the market allowing New Zealand Wool, and in particular Merino, to become more prominent. Edwards explains that the 5.7% loss the Australian market has seen is equivalent to New Zealand losing twice its annual production.

Starch-based calf feed is recognised as beneficial to support rumen development pre-weaning, but is arguably equally important for the four to six weeks post-weaning off milk.

A good indicator that calves can be weaned off milk is when hard feed consumption is 1.0 to 1.5 kilograms per head per day (depending on the breed) for three consecutive days, provided weight targets have been achieved.If this hard feed intake is not maintained post-weaning, calves may suffer a double set-back. Fresh pasture is a bulky feed, so continuing and even lifting supplementary feeding after  weaning off milk can reducethe risk of growth rates melting away from full but not fully-fed youngsters. A 75 kilogram calf, growing at around 0.7 kilograms per day needs close to 25 mega joules of metabolisable energy per day, provided it is not cold and wet, and expending energy to keep warm.

If your calves are receiving, for example 600 grams of NRM Calf Milk Replacer as a liquid feed, they would be getting close to 50 percent of their daily energy requirements from readily digestible milk powder that is directed straight into the abomasum and has no effect on rumen function. Making up this energy deficit would necessitate harvesting and digesting about another kilogram of dry matter of high quality pasture (five to eight kilograms at fresh weight). This is quite difficult for a relatively immature rumen at a time  when forage intakes are typically modest. Managing pasture quality with calves alone can be hard, especially during November when pasture fibre levels can rise and protein falls. 

Although straights, such as PKE and barley, can help to fill a simple feed deficit for older calves, higher quality, nutritionally balanced feeds are more suitable for younger calves. Whilst energy is typically the first limiting factor for growth, protein is important for frame and muscle development; and may even determine the extent to which calves can express their genetic potential later in life.Extended demand for 20 percent protein calf feeds like GrowUp 20% rather than 16 percent options indicates that more farmers have decided that the extra investment in a higher protein feed is worthwhile.

Coccidia challenge is most likely to be highest in the eight weeks following weaning, so a hard feed that contains a coccidiostat makes sense. Calves take time to build up resistance to coccidiosis and may be at a greater risk of infection when grazing nursery paddocks in which the parasite load can increase over the years. A fully balanced hard feed also delivers major minerals, trace elements and vitamins that may be lacking in pasture. Whilst mature cows can benefit from the vitamin production of a fully functioning rumen, it is likely that the rumen of recently weaned calf is not capable of producing essential B vitamins, particularly if anything about the pasture diet is sub-optimal. 

To discuss your hard feed options post-weaning, contact your local PGG Wrightson Technical  Field Representative.

Soil testing is an important tool in your cropping calendar. It can be utilised to assist in selecting the correct paddocks to use for high value crops, like fodder beet, and for selecting which paddocks can be planted with a lower value crop in order to start the process of increasing soil fertility in areas lined up for pasture renewal.

Soil testing provides the ability to develop a tailored fertiliser programme and focus on the key nutrients required for your farms maintenance programme, or for a specific crop. Fertiliser spend makes up a significant portion of the farm budget, therefore it is always worth taking a measured approach and only applying the nutrients that are needed.

So what are nutrients? They are the 16 mineral elements that plants and animals require to grow and function, with plants getting their nutrients from the soil. Soil testing prior to planning for the season ahead gives a base foundation and understanding for the nutrient levels you are working with. In your farming system, growth or yield will be limited by the nutrient in shortest supply.

Soil testing is an essential component when it comes to nutrient interactions. Having an abundance of one nutrient can effectively antagonise another, or vice versa, where you have a synergy of increased availability of one nutrient due to the increase in level of another nutrient. For example, excess potassium leads to an imbalance of magnesium and calcium, which can have an effect of poor yield or quality, as well as the potential for metabolic disorders in stock to arise.

Another reason behind soil testing is for developing trends across your farm system against previously collected data. It is recommended that you get your PGG Wrightson Technical Field Representative, or Ballance Agri-Nutrients representative to soil test at the same time every year, to maintain consistency. Taking samples six to eight weeks out allows for tests to be sent away, analysed and sent back to develop effective fertiliser programmes.

Sampling depth for soil testing is directly related to the potential rooting depth of the crop. Pasture, or herb paddock samples should be taken at 75 mm, and arable or cropping paddocks sampled at 150 mm in depth.

Fertiliser inputs will be based on your soil test results and will determine if your fertiliser programme is maintenance, or capital. Maintenance nutrient requirements are the quantity of fertiliser nutrients required to maintain a particular soil test level over a one year period. Capital nutrient requirements are the quantity of fertiliser nutrients required to increase the soil test value to the optimum target value, for example increasing soil fertility levels to get an optimal Olsen P for the soil type and farm production level.

Taking a soil test to determine soil nutrient levels, prior to planting crops and applying maintenance fertiliser over the whole farm ensures rates of nutrients applied are in line with dry matter yield goals for your crops and overall farm production goals. Knowing what nutrients are already present in your soil also helps to avoid applying excess fertiliser, thus helping to farm in an environmentally sustainable manner.

For more information on soil testing, contact your local PGG Wrightson Technical Field Representative.

As the wounds caused by docking act as an attractant to flies, it is important that any treatment applied to lambs provides protection until these wounds have completely healed.

has shown that even relatively small strikes cause a marked loss in appetite in the affected animal with a resulting rapid loss in weight. Recovering this lost weight can take significant time¹.

Treatment types
Ready to use, water based insect growth regulator formulations containing the potent active ingredient dicyclanil, such as CLiKZin Spray-On and CLiK Spray-On are applied by many farmers as docking flystrike preventative treatments.

The benefits of these products include:

• The wide margin of safety to operators, which is a significant issue during docking where animals are handled closely and contact with the formulation used is unavoidable.
• The wide margin of safety to livestock, particularly important when treating young animals at docking and when the product is applied near the tailing wound.
• Water based formulations are non-flammable, an essential feature where a searing iron is used for tailing. It is important to remember that where the product is applied is the area protected against flystrike, if back or shoulder strike is anticipated, product should be applied to these areas also.

Length of protection
The label of each product indicates the expected duration of protection against flystrike in sheep and should give an indication of the duration of protection when used after docking. CLiKZiN Spray-On contains 12.5 g per L dicyclanil and provides flystrike protection for six to nine weeks. CLiKZiN Spray-On has a seven day meat withholding period.

CLiK Spray-On contains 50.0 g per L dicyclanil and provides flystrike protection for up to 18 weeks. CLiK Spray-On has a 35 day meat withholding period for coarse wool sheep and 56 day meat withholding period for fine wool sheep.

Choosing the right product for your stock is important, contact your local PGG Wrightson Technical Field Representative for more information.

Supplied by Elanco

¹Heath et al., (1987) The effects of artificially-induced fly-strike on food intake and liveweight gain in sheep. N.Z vet J.35: 50-52 2.