December 9, 2025 • 7 mins
Farm Consultant Graham Butcher looks at farming positives for December.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back to the muster. Graham, God's going to say
Graham studio. He's in studio, but his name's Graham Butcher.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm very good at and you and yourself.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'll get someone's name right, probably helps matters. Suppose, mate, Look,
we haven't spoken to you for a few weeks. There's
been quite a bit going onto the rural landscape. We'll
start off of this. The big news and the farming
sector over the past twenty four hours is a changing
around Resource Management Act.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yes, absolutely, I haven't read the whole eight hundred pages.
I'm not likely to either, just some summaries. There's some
really interesting stuff in it. A lot of the stuff
we sort of hoped for and half expected has happened.
One of the more interesting ones that I came across
is that regulated a relief part of the whole act.
(00:48):
And this is when imposing significant restrictions such as heritage
protections and significant natural areas, Council must provide practical relief mechanisms.
Now that I wasn't expecting that sort of thing. So,
in other words, if you, as a farmer, are impacted
by regulations and posts on you by council counselor are
expected to compensate.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
That's some hectic terminology for saying that money.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well the devil, Yeah, the devil is going to be
in the detail of that one, of course, but it's
only a very good principle to have. So as I said,
devil's in the detail. We'll find out. But that's that's
the one that struck me as something that was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Can councils afford to pay that though? That's going to
be the issue.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Probably not situation, but maybe it's angled from the fact
that when the councilors get around the table with a
highlighted pen saying this is a significant natural area, they
may pause and think we're going to have to pay
for that good thing. Really, so what what's it actually
doing instead of making the farmer pay for the regulations
(01:54):
which the whole of New Zealand citizens benefit from. In fact,
in reality, everyone in New Zealand's going to pay for
it for now, which I think is good.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, certainly it's a document that's found a lot of
favor of rural New Zealand forests and bird not so
much as you'd expect, but it just had to happen though,
like common sense just had to prevail.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
It had to prevail. And I mean the rules that
are going to be surrounding who you have to consult
to get a consent about anything. That's going to be
a pretty significant change too. Yeah, this is again the
devil will in the detail. I haven't read it completely,
but that had to change.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Your savings are plenty. If you get bored, you can
go and read those seven hundred odd pages. Graham, there's
one thing next time. I'm sure you won't sweet sewing
dates injurycing as well. People have different philosophies around this.
Back in the day it was all about the Gorse
Show or the Mbicrgol show getting things so and James
Egger before saying that end in November is when he
(02:51):
has to have them in just for the moisture reasonings,
What are you thinking, because well, I would have said
it's just depending on where you're based in what you
farm types like, it's.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Absolutely I mean a farmer who's been on a farm
for a number of years or no, the risk involved
with later sewings. And you know, James has obviously got
an issue with dry conditions there and he's got to
get them early to get leaft cover, get the roots
down so they can scavenge for the moisture. But there's
a bit of theory around sewing dates for kale in particular.
(03:22):
Probably applies to swede too, But Carla has got a
bit of root foraging system and swedge. Then I'm suffering
from break. You haven't got a screwdriver in the studios
and I haven't got one. Just hold on to it.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
You're just gonna have to hang on to it, sir. Continue.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
The basic driver of Brassica crops for winter is your
average daily temperature, which relates to growing degree days. That's
the that's the critical bit. So what so in theory,
here's here's what happens. You take the number of days
in a month, your average daily temperature for that month,
and a neiba has all that information as far as
(03:58):
south and is concerned. You have a base temperature below
which nothing happens, which in the case of brassicas somewhere
between four and a half degrees and five degrees. So
you're growing degree days is your average temperature for the
month less your base temperature, that's your growing degree days,
and you multiply that by the days in the month
(04:18):
and you get growing degree days for the month. Now,
for every growing degree day that you have, you should
grow about ten kgrees of dry matter and kale. So
there's a theoretical formula there you can work out just
what crop yield you're going to get. So I've actually
done that. One of the things you've got to take
into account is that for the first twenty odd days,
(04:39):
not a lot's happening, So you've got to take twenty
days off your growing degree days. This is a great
exercise for Excel. You can put all this stuff and
it comes up with great answers. So anyway, if you
are sewing first of December in the Gore area, with
all the growing degree days in what have you, in theory,
you should have an accumulated growth by the end of
May of just under twelve ton. Now that's like, it's
(05:02):
pretty much what happens in practice. Early December, growing first
of December, good growing condition, You've got a twelve ton crop.
That sounds pretty reasonable. So what I did after I
had all that set up in Excel, I said, Okay,
if we delay it to mid December, if we delay
it to mid January, or if we delay it to
the first of February. What sort of impact on yields
(05:22):
do we likely have now, the impact from going first
to December to fifteenth of December a two week delay
is only about a five degree or five percent drop
in the yield. So we go from just under twelve
ton to about eleven point four ton, So not a
huge impact by delaying that two weeks from first to December.
If we go to mid January, from mid December to
(05:46):
mid January, delay a month, and some people are looking
at that sort of proposition, there's a thirty four percent
drop in yield, so we drop to about seven and
a half ton. Now, seven and a half ton is
still a reasonably useful yield to carry into the winter,
it's not out of the question. If we go to
the first of February two week delay, we get to
under five ton. Now those sorts of yields look like
(06:11):
what happens on farm, But these this calculation depends on
having significant moisture, not significant adequate moisture, adequate fertility, good
plant population, good establishment, and that often doesn't happen on farm.
So I would have thought that getting it in by
Christmas times quite important. If you're delayed till mid January,
(06:34):
you're still in with a chance of getting a useful crop.
If you're getting into late January early February, you've got
to think of other options.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Well said, Hey, just finally as well, you want to
comment on the schedule price at the moment, you're showing
me some store figures before far out.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, that's the stork microphone.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Microphone, you've got a budget in here here, we have.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, Typically, over the past few years, the perkilo price
for stall lambs live weight is about forty eight or
mid forties to forty eight percent of the schedule value.
Right now it's hovering around fifty percent, which is sort
of an historic high. So you know, there's there's a
lot of good things happening in farming at the moment.
(07:17):
The schedules haven't been dropping like they would usually be
doing this time of the year, and we've we've got
some pretty high shedul prices as well, so they are
pretty good. Store price is good. Works price hopefully will
carry on to be good. And we've got the RMA
which is going to make it easy for farming so
we can sort of offset wet springs and winds out
(07:37):
of that good news.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
A lot of happy feely topics for the end of
a year growing. Everything's honky dory.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, it's looking forward to next year.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Good on your Graham, enjoy the holidays. We'll catch you
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Absolutely, and the same to you.
Welcome back to the muster. Graham, God's going to say
Graham studio. He's in studio, but his name's Graham Butcher.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm very good at and you and yourself.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'll get someone's name right, probably helps matters. Suppose, mate, Look,
we haven't spoken to you for a few weeks. There's
been quite a bit going onto the rural landscape. We'll
start off of this. The big news and the farming
sector over the past twenty four hours is a changing
around Resource Management Act.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yes, absolutely, I haven't read the whole eight hundred pages.
I'm not likely to either, just some summaries. There's some
really interesting stuff in it. A lot of the stuff
we sort of hoped for and half expected has happened.
One of the more interesting ones that I came across
is that regulated a relief part of the whole act.
(00:48):
And this is when imposing significant restrictions such as heritage
protections and significant natural areas, Council must provide practical relief mechanisms.
Now that I wasn't expecting that sort of thing. So,
in other words, if you, as a farmer, are impacted
by regulations and posts on you by council counselor are
expected to compensate.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
That's some hectic terminology for saying that money.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well the devil, Yeah, the devil is going to be
in the detail of that one, of course, but it's
only a very good principle to have. So as I said,
devil's in the detail. We'll find out. But that's that's
the one that struck me as something that was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Can councils afford to pay that though? That's going to
be the issue.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Probably not situation, but maybe it's angled from the fact
that when the councilors get around the table with a
highlighted pen saying this is a significant natural area, they
may pause and think we're going to have to pay
for that good thing. Really, so what what's it actually
doing instead of making the farmer pay for the regulations
(01:54):
which the whole of New Zealand citizens benefit from. In fact,
in reality, everyone in New Zealand's going to pay for
it for now, which I think is good.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, certainly it's a document that's found a lot of
favor of rural New Zealand forests and bird not so
much as you'd expect, but it just had to happen though,
like common sense just had to prevail.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
It had to prevail. And I mean the rules that
are going to be surrounding who you have to consult
to get a consent about anything. That's going to be
a pretty significant change too. Yeah, this is again the
devil will in the detail. I haven't read it completely,
but that had to change.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Your savings are plenty. If you get bored, you can
go and read those seven hundred odd pages. Graham, there's
one thing next time. I'm sure you won't sweet sewing
dates injurycing as well. People have different philosophies around this.
Back in the day it was all about the Gorse
Show or the Mbicrgol show getting things so and James
Egger before saying that end in November is when he
(02:51):
has to have them in just for the moisture reasonings,
What are you thinking, because well, I would have said
it's just depending on where you're based in what you
farm types like, it's.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Absolutely I mean a farmer who's been on a farm
for a number of years or no, the risk involved
with later sewings. And you know, James has obviously got
an issue with dry conditions there and he's got to
get them early to get leaft cover, get the roots
down so they can scavenge for the moisture. But there's
a bit of theory around sewing dates for kale in particular.
(03:22):
Probably applies to swede too, But Carla has got a
bit of root foraging system and swedge. Then I'm suffering
from break. You haven't got a screwdriver in the studios
and I haven't got one. Just hold on to it.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
You're just gonna have to hang on to it, sir. Continue.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
The basic driver of Brassica crops for winter is your
average daily temperature, which relates to growing degree days. That's
the that's the critical bit. So what so in theory,
here's here's what happens. You take the number of days
in a month, your average daily temperature for that month,
and a neiba has all that information as far as
(03:58):
south and is concerned. You have a base temperature below
which nothing happens, which in the case of brassicas somewhere
between four and a half degrees and five degrees. So
you're growing degree days is your average temperature for the
month less your base temperature, that's your growing degree days,
and you multiply that by the days in the month
(04:18):
and you get growing degree days for the month. Now,
for every growing degree day that you have, you should
grow about ten kgrees of dry matter and kale. So
there's a theoretical formula there you can work out just
what crop yield you're going to get. So I've actually
done that. One of the things you've got to take
into account is that for the first twenty odd days,
(04:39):
not a lot's happening, So you've got to take twenty
days off your growing degree days. This is a great
exercise for Excel. You can put all this stuff and
it comes up with great answers. So anyway, if you
are sewing first of December in the Gore area, with
all the growing degree days in what have you, in theory,
you should have an accumulated growth by the end of
May of just under twelve ton. Now that's like, it's
(05:02):
pretty much what happens in practice. Early December, growing first
of December, good growing condition, You've got a twelve ton crop.
That sounds pretty reasonable. So what I did after I
had all that set up in Excel, I said, Okay,
if we delay it to mid December, if we delay
it to mid January, or if we delay it to
the first of February. What sort of impact on yields
(05:22):
do we likely have now, the impact from going first
to December to fifteenth of December a two week delay
is only about a five degree or five percent drop
in the yield. So we go from just under twelve
ton to about eleven point four ton, So not a
huge impact by delaying that two weeks from first to December.
If we go to mid January, from mid December to
(05:46):
mid January, delay a month, and some people are looking
at that sort of proposition, there's a thirty four percent
drop in yield, so we drop to about seven and
a half ton. Now, seven and a half ton is
still a reasonably useful yield to carry into the winter,
it's not out of the question. If we go to
the first of February two week delay, we get to
under five ton. Now those sorts of yields look like
(06:11):
what happens on farm, But these this calculation depends on
having significant moisture, not significant adequate moisture, adequate fertility, good
plant population, good establishment, and that often doesn't happen on farm.
So I would have thought that getting it in by
Christmas times quite important. If you're delayed till mid January,
(06:34):
you're still in with a chance of getting a useful crop.
If you're getting into late January early February, you've got
to think of other options.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Well said, Hey, just finally as well, you want to
comment on the schedule price at the moment, you're showing
me some store figures before far out.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, that's the stork microphone.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Microphone, you've got a budget in here here, we have.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, Typically, over the past few years, the perkilo price
for stall lambs live weight is about forty eight or
mid forties to forty eight percent of the schedule value.
Right now it's hovering around fifty percent, which is sort
of an historic high. So you know, there's there's a
lot of good things happening in farming at the moment.
(07:17):
The schedules haven't been dropping like they would usually be
doing this time of the year, and we've we've got
some pretty high shedul prices as well, so they are
pretty good. Store price is good. Works price hopefully will
carry on to be good. And we've got the RMA
which is going to make it easy for farming so
we can sort of offset wet springs and winds out
(07:37):
of that good news.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
A lot of happy feely topics for the end of
a year growing. Everything's honky dory.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, it's looking forward to next year.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Good on your Graham, enjoy the holidays. We'll catch you
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Absolutely, and the same to you.
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