July 21, 2026 • 9 mins
Nigel Johnston says why he keeps a simplistic approach to his farming system ahead of calving.
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Sunset away to Mabel Bush this afternoon on the must
catching out of Nigel Johnston Dairy Farming out there way, Nigel,
Good afternoon. The song is Merrakish Express Express by Crosby,
Stills and Nest. Try and say that five times quickly,
but it's a song that captures the excitement of leaving
behind a restrictive, mundane life for the vibrant freedom hippie
(00:37):
trail of the nineteen sixties and leaving a first class
carriage from casser Blanket Amerkeish and getting on a lively,
chaotic third class carriage to complete the journey. How does
that sound for opening? Good afternoon?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Great? Any thanks for that. I wasn't expecting that theme song,
but it reminds me of my overseas travel. I've actually
done them. Midnight Trained Marrakish, of course you have. And
the bit that sticks in my mind is when you
said on the toilet there was no containment on the
bottom of it. You could actually see the sleeper's rocking pass.
(01:11):
So owe, how things have changed in the last twenty years.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
That's like India, exactly the same thing. You know, you
go to the lore, it's going on the tracks, but
the craziest site was pulling up to train station, probably
seeing an excess of three hundred people using a railway
line as urinal.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, actually, and it was a little bit, a little
bit and unsettling. I got offered three camels in a
bale of hay, I think, or in exchange for Mandy.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
How do Mandy feel about the situation?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
We decided to come home. Then it made see up
and look like a great place to live. And certainly
it has been this one day, hasn't it?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
For sure? We'll talk a bit as shop carving's not
far away, but the situation where you were based, it's
a supposed a winter. How would you have found it?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, it has been a good typical south and winter.
So we've had probably two or three of those two
or three day storms and they're easy to cope with.
You know, we're wintering cows on grass and baylors, so
the plan is just to move them all through that
rough weather and it's worked well. So we've fed a
few more bales. We ended up keeping a few more
(02:20):
cows than we have in previous years. But the feed
budget looks like it's going to work perfectly, and the
grass has grown so I just ran around this morning.
It looks like we've grown over ten a day for
June and July, sitting at sort of twenty four hundred cover,
So things are looking rosy.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
When do you start carving?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Officially, we're not due to all the fourteenth. What we
found milking once a day was that we had a
reasonably condensed carving. Often we've been at our halfway point
seven days from the planned start of carving, so we
tend to carve a bit later rather than putting supplementing.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
So everything's not really in a Russia. You were placed
in your position pretty.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Well, and that's how I lived my life. Yeah, once
it's going, it's all hectic, but I try not to
go too often.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You want to talk today about when you guys have
had you've talked about possum control before you're involved with
the local catchment group. It sounds like a good wind there.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah. So I'm part of the head choke Makarea catchment group.
We come up with an idea that there's a few
of us that are anti possums in the group. We
come up with an idea we'd get a better result
rather than just just poisoning possums on our own farms
if we did the whole catchment at once. So, as
(03:43):
part of the catchment group is a significant area of
land there is a PCA, so environments so often have
some control areas we've referred to as PCA. So about
a quarter of our catchment group has already in a PCA,
and we approach them about expanding or creating another one.
We thought we'd done a good job getting sort of
(04:05):
two thousand hectares of contiguous land as an opportunity to
control possums, and they said we needed more land, and
within three days we got it up to ten thousand hectares.
And that makes it viable for them and makes it
really easy for the council because we've already got landowners
warmed up. The important bit about this partnership is the
(04:27):
council does the initial work in terms of establishing bait
stations and getting possum numbers low, and all they ask
for us landowners is that ongoing commitment. So we fund
the ongoing possum control numbers once they were reduced.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
As have you seen a real lut taken possum numbers
over the past couple of seasons Nigel.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
There do seem to be a lot of possums around
at the moment, so we started we put bait stations
on our place last winter. We've got that ten there's
a native bush the middle of the farm and it
was it was quite obvious that we were losing losing
some young trees to possums, so we wanted to get
on top of it. And I guess that made it
(05:11):
really topical that I wanted to be part of something
bigger than just our farming operation and see if we
could get the larger partners of the community sorted well.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
The whole TV situation as well, I mean testing and
that is it's not as strenuous of what it used
to be. You'll know this as much as anybody. Is
it a concern going forward regarding the TV status and that.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah. So the way I've been lucky enough to be
part of the of the Farmer Osbury Committee for nearly
fifteen years now. But it's the way the TV control
works is that when Osprey or previously the Animal Health
Board were in the area poisoning possums is if they
suppress potsum numbers low enough, the TV stops circulating in
(05:55):
the possum population, and therefore the possums that are here
give TV to our domesticated animals. So the problem. So
the issue we've got now is Southland's deemed to be
TV free, so Osprey is no longer doing possum control
in Southland. So that's why the numbers have lifted up.
(06:17):
Possums have always been land owner responsibility, but I know
in my history here in Southland most of the possum
control works been done by Osprey because TV had been
so bad. Now it's not I guess we call it
first world problems. It comes back to us. But if
we let possum numbers grow, there's that biodiversity effect in
(06:37):
terms of killing plants. But if TV did come back
into the district, it would circulate again in the possums
and we'd be back to square up one where we
were in the nineties.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
As far as brader faction, do you use that? Does
that use on your property? In in the bating process.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I'd probably lead this conversation for the experts. But there's
a They choose the poison best use set for the habitat,
so you can use different different poisons if you still
want to, like if you're shooting deer and harvesting them
for use, so that there's no withhold and it's about
(07:19):
possum numbers in speed of knockdown. If you're interested in
this stuff or no. Dave Burgess is always on the
radio quoting to call him. So the Environment South, of course,
they've been a real pleasure to work with. There's there's
a lot of knowledge there and the king to share it.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Just finally as well, the GDT is slight rise over night, Nigel,
that's a good we bump.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, I must have it. I have found a little
bit of amusement in this recently. Is there's a newspaper headline,
you know that did Fonterra drop their predicted forecast for
this current season that we haven't even started supplying yet
to whatever it was nine dollars fifty of it and
and people were talking about it like it was a concern. Yeah,
(08:03):
I know in our business, I'd like the milk toast
to stay above six dollars and so so anything with
a nine And that's pretty rocking along quite nicely.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Ready, Hey, just finally when you got off of those
camels and that, hey for your wife, wasn't looser and
hey was it would you have considered it as a
bit of looser and or was it off the table?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Well, I was eighteen thousand k's from home. The freight
would have blown it out. Maybe I already had flights box,
so I think coming home was the best stop.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Hey good only Nigel. Always appreciate your time, mate, Thanking.
Digah Johnston of Mabel Bush had the chance to be
a camel farmer but chose not to. I'm sure his
wife me and he is really appreciative of that as well.
We're away to Garston next, catching up with James McNamee
of Gaston. Gaston Hops the hot season, how the harvesting
(08:58):
seasons been and gone?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Is a guy
Sunset away to Mabel Bush this afternoon on the must
catching out of Nigel Johnston Dairy Farming out there way, Nigel,
Good afternoon. The song is Merrakish Express Express by Crosby,
Stills and Nest. Try and say that five times quickly,
but it's a song that captures the excitement of leaving
behind a restrictive, mundane life for the vibrant freedom hippie
(00:37):
trail of the nineteen sixties and leaving a first class
carriage from casser Blanket Amerkeish and getting on a lively,
chaotic third class carriage to complete the journey. How does
that sound for opening? Good afternoon?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Great? Any thanks for that. I wasn't expecting that theme song,
but it reminds me of my overseas travel. I've actually
done them. Midnight Trained Marrakish, of course you have. And
the bit that sticks in my mind is when you
said on the toilet there was no containment on the
bottom of it. You could actually see the sleeper's rocking pass.
(01:11):
So owe, how things have changed in the last twenty years.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
That's like India, exactly the same thing. You know, you
go to the lore, it's going on the tracks, but
the craziest site was pulling up to train station, probably
seeing an excess of three hundred people using a railway
line as urinal.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, actually, and it was a little bit, a little
bit and unsettling. I got offered three camels in a
bale of hay, I think, or in exchange for Mandy.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
How do Mandy feel about the situation?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
We decided to come home. Then it made see up
and look like a great place to live. And certainly
it has been this one day, hasn't it?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
For sure? We'll talk a bit as shop carving's not
far away, but the situation where you were based, it's
a supposed a winter. How would you have found it?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, it has been a good typical south and winter.
So we've had probably two or three of those two
or three day storms and they're easy to cope with.
You know, we're wintering cows on grass and baylors, so
the plan is just to move them all through that
rough weather and it's worked well. So we've fed a
few more bales. We ended up keeping a few more
(02:20):
cows than we have in previous years. But the feed
budget looks like it's going to work perfectly, and the
grass has grown so I just ran around this morning.
It looks like we've grown over ten a day for
June and July, sitting at sort of twenty four hundred cover,
So things are looking rosy.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
When do you start carving?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Officially, we're not due to all the fourteenth. What we
found milking once a day was that we had a
reasonably condensed carving. Often we've been at our halfway point
seven days from the planned start of carving, so we
tend to carve a bit later rather than putting supplementing.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
So everything's not really in a Russia. You were placed
in your position pretty.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Well, and that's how I lived my life. Yeah, once
it's going, it's all hectic, but I try not to
go too often.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You want to talk today about when you guys have
had you've talked about possum control before you're involved with
the local catchment group. It sounds like a good wind there.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah. So I'm part of the head choke Makarea catchment group.
We come up with an idea that there's a few
of us that are anti possums in the group. We
come up with an idea we'd get a better result
rather than just just poisoning possums on our own farms
if we did the whole catchment at once. So, as
(03:43):
part of the catchment group is a significant area of
land there is a PCA, so environments so often have
some control areas we've referred to as PCA. So about
a quarter of our catchment group has already in a PCA,
and we approach them about expanding or creating another one.
We thought we'd done a good job getting sort of
(04:05):
two thousand hectares of contiguous land as an opportunity to
control possums, and they said we needed more land, and
within three days we got it up to ten thousand hectares.
And that makes it viable for them and makes it
really easy for the council because we've already got landowners
warmed up. The important bit about this partnership is the
(04:27):
council does the initial work in terms of establishing bait
stations and getting possum numbers low, and all they ask
for us landowners is that ongoing commitment. So we fund
the ongoing possum control numbers once they were reduced.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
As have you seen a real lut taken possum numbers
over the past couple of seasons Nigel.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
There do seem to be a lot of possums around
at the moment, so we started we put bait stations
on our place last winter. We've got that ten there's
a native bush the middle of the farm and it
was it was quite obvious that we were losing losing
some young trees to possums, so we wanted to get
on top of it. And I guess that made it
(05:11):
really topical that I wanted to be part of something
bigger than just our farming operation and see if we
could get the larger partners of the community sorted well.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
The whole TV situation as well, I mean testing and
that is it's not as strenuous of what it used
to be. You'll know this as much as anybody. Is
it a concern going forward regarding the TV status and that.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah. So the way I've been lucky enough to be
part of the of the Farmer Osbury Committee for nearly
fifteen years now. But it's the way the TV control
works is that when Osprey or previously the Animal Health
Board were in the area poisoning possums is if they
suppress potsum numbers low enough, the TV stops circulating in
(05:55):
the possum population, and therefore the possums that are here
give TV to our domesticated animals. So the problem. So
the issue we've got now is Southland's deemed to be
TV free, so Osprey is no longer doing possum control
in Southland. So that's why the numbers have lifted up.
(06:17):
Possums have always been land owner responsibility, but I know
in my history here in Southland most of the possum
control works been done by Osprey because TV had been
so bad. Now it's not I guess we call it
first world problems. It comes back to us. But if
we let possum numbers grow, there's that biodiversity effect in
(06:37):
terms of killing plants. But if TV did come back
into the district, it would circulate again in the possums
and we'd be back to square up one where we
were in the nineties.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
As far as brader faction, do you use that? Does
that use on your property? In in the bating process.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I'd probably lead this conversation for the experts. But there's
a They choose the poison best use set for the habitat,
so you can use different different poisons if you still
want to, like if you're shooting deer and harvesting them
for use, so that there's no withhold and it's about
(07:19):
possum numbers in speed of knockdown. If you're interested in
this stuff or no. Dave Burgess is always on the
radio quoting to call him. So the Environment South, of course,
they've been a real pleasure to work with. There's there's
a lot of knowledge there and the king to share it.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Just finally as well, the GDT is slight rise over night, Nigel,
that's a good we bump.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, I must have it. I have found a little
bit of amusement in this recently. Is there's a newspaper headline,
you know that did Fonterra drop their predicted forecast for
this current season that we haven't even started supplying yet
to whatever it was nine dollars fifty of it and
and people were talking about it like it was a concern. Yeah,
(08:03):
I know in our business, I'd like the milk toast
to stay above six dollars and so so anything with
a nine And that's pretty rocking along quite nicely.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Ready, Hey, just finally when you got off of those
camels and that, hey for your wife, wasn't looser and
hey was it would you have considered it as a
bit of looser and or was it off the table?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Well, I was eighteen thousand k's from home. The freight
would have blown it out. Maybe I already had flights box,
so I think coming home was the best stop.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Hey good only Nigel. Always appreciate your time, mate, Thanking.
Digah Johnston of Mabel Bush had the chance to be
a camel farmer but chose not to. I'm sure his
wife me and he is really appreciative of that as well.
We're away to Garston next, catching up with James McNamee
of Gaston. Gaston Hops the hot season, how the harvesting
(08:58):
seasons been and gone?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Is a guy
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