The Muster- Peter Gardyne: Early Positives For June

Peter Gardyne looks at un-seasonally mild weather for the start of the winter cycle, although he says it is always a case of change being around the corner regarding the season.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This interview is brought to you by Agricenter South Branches
in Lawnville, Gore, Cromwell, Milton and Ranfurly. Drop by your
local Agricenter South Branch today.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Haya Guarda and Farms at Napdale Sheep beef farmer Arable
in his operation as well. Pete, good afternoon. It's a
mild Thursday for June.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
She's at cracking Good June. It has been a great May.
And I think one of your correspondents may have predicted
that quite possibly.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm trying to think now, well likes a Duley irregular
or someone.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
I don't know who it was, and I think they
said that the saw was nice and dry, so we're
probably going to have a good May so grass growth.
So I think it was yea, if we can have
every maid like this, I'd order that up straight.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Away, absolutely so. Soil ground conditions out at your way.
How's it been then, Oh.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
It's great, understood. We've got the dairyles turning up. We
just went through a handful of dairy for a farm
that's two farms away and they're walking in and they're
just walking straight onto the brakes and it's just amazing.
A so long long mate, continue and I think that's
something that will offend Dean ravage but south and they'll
get you down, but it won't let you down. We

(01:16):
had a really dry summer autumn here at Napdale, but
we're reaping the benefits of it now and it is
that balancing out of you know, the sail was dry,
so we've kicked into winds quite nicely. So yeah, thanks,
pretty happy out out on the farm.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, I'm waiting for a message from Glenham pretty much
as we're speaking at the moment. So how does the
change of thinking as to what we've had recently or
does it? You just got to stay in the mind
frame of the time of year.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
I think it's around for us kem it's stock manager
of myself. At the end of the day yesterday we
did a bit of a window feed budget just for
crops and how many sheep each cropple first, and how
many cattle each cropple first and that sort of thing,
and you know, we came back with that and our
pasture covers reach sitting pretty good. So we take a
bit of lambs into this time a year and take

(02:04):
them up to good weights. So we'll just keep ticking
them over and instead of panicking and killing them at
Laha weights, we'll just keep hanging on and keeping our
weights up. And then same on the kettle front. Things
are looking positive. We've got the grassroom males. We'll just
squeeze those two more dollars out of the season, and
we can do that without threatening next season, which is
obviously the bee or and indoors don't stuff next season.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, now we catch you on the spray today, are
you saying slug could slugs might be a problem.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, So we've got one of the guys out putting
a bit more slug made out, especially down at the
sort of mcname cookerle into things where the slugs cycled
a bit more. They weren't they weren't as dry in
the summer. And then what I'm doing is tidying up
some weeds and a grass seed crop because they're nice
and small and easy to get at the stage. And
then some beans that have regrown into a wheat paddock

(02:55):
and there's a little bit of greasy cut where them
in that paddic two, which we're going to tidy up
because we don't need any little too many things eating
crops for trying to grow, especially when they're young, and
just establishing. No, it's good, it's positive. Yep. We've done
the budget for next year. It's looking good. I mean
incomes are looking strong, but costs are also looking strong too,
so we're just going to keep on top of that.

(03:16):
One of the things we are doing to keep on
top of that is we are going to all predictiss
the farm at home again this year, and we're playing
around with some soil probes to an instant read on
that front, and I've gone through a calibration process, so
that's looking pretty pretty exciting. And we'll also be leaning
into the cameras we've got on air tractor which measure

(03:36):
the notrogen content of their crops, and then that controls
the UREA spreader. So we're really optimizing what it needs
and saving what doesn't need to go on, which is
great for the bank balance, but also it's great for
the environment.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
It's incredible you talk like that, because not that many
years ago, cruising around to the four to five thousand
with a two and a half time bulky on the
back and just going by your marks and the peddock
by the eye appraisal It shows you how times change.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Oh definitely, And to be fair when you're rare, was
not that long ago, you're there was five hundred bucks
a ton. To be fair, if you're if you're a
bit worried about whether it needed or five hundred bucks
a ton, you just put it on. So the higher
prices of your ear especially and all the other nutrients
may need to be smarter.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
So fuel prices was seen. It come back down. I
think I poked A peaked at four dollars here in
Gore the same station currently off the top of my
head around three dollars seventeen sour as the being discount
there you go to the pump. It just eases the
pain on the world a web it.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, you know, we're we're with a fuel company that
have served us well for a long period of time,
and you know we had no plans on changing that,
and I've looked after us right through this period. But yeah,
we've definitely rode the roller coaster, shall we say. April's
tul bill was pretty alchy with the amount that we
used and the price that it was. It was up

(04:55):
to I think we've rolled up about two dollars and
then come back about dollar. So we're a dollar off
the peak roughly at the moment, but we're also a
dollar above where we started, and so that is what
it is. Hopefully the world can sort itself out at
one stage, because yeah, what they do over doesn't put
us down here. And it's interesting. I don't want to

(05:18):
age myself too badly here, Andy, But when I was
working my first job on a farm, I made seven
dollars an hour, and I was petrol was a dollar
thirty five alter to put them a week car. And
then I went to Lincoln the next year and it
broke two dollars a liter, And of course I wasn't
earning very much at Lincoln, so that hurt pretty hard.
So I'd argue that the income versus petrol price back

(05:42):
in those old days was actually, you know, that was
two thousand and six, it went to two dollars a liter.
That's actually worse than it is right now. When you
take wages versus fuel, well back.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
In the late at nineties, for goodness sake, about eighty
seven cents a liter.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah. Well, I'm not quite as old as you, Andy.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
That's for sure, But it just shows you how it's
all just relative to what it was back then. We're
just seeing it. We've talked about fertilizer, We've talked about diesel.
But the other concerning thing, I suppose Pete is the
US wanting to implement perhaps a twelve percent twelve and
a half percent tariff on countries that they're saying are
using these countries that enforce slave labor. So whether this

(06:24):
comes on, that's another factor. But it's just I don't know,
America trying to find excuses to make money.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah, I kind of see as being in a bit
of a bit of a sticky situation as a country.
They've got a lot of debts. The dollar has been
the world reserve country, you know, you reserve currency for
a long time, and they have been the world's superpower,
and I think potentially that coming to the end of that.
And I think, yeah, they're but like you know, shuder

(06:54):
duck and they do a lot of flapping on the
way down, and you know, yeah, I think he's making
a lot of noise and he's running around and shouting,
and hard to know with Trump what will happen and
what won't happen. So I'm not losing too much sleep
on at the moment, and I think the meat needs,
you know, for all the shortcomings. I think they of
reactor relevents and respining markets that they supply into, and

(07:17):
I think they'll ye, I think they'll deal with it.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Greg ericson my Canadian correspondence is exactly the same thing, Pete.
The fact that all these threats came through from the US,
but after about a week they just kind of shrugged
it off, saying He's not.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Going to do that.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, And I think I think that seems to be
Trump's sort of tactic, and I think it's actually served
them pretty well for a period of time. But I
think now everybody's starting to realize that's just how he operates,
and they're probably not as streets as they used to
be about it.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, interesting times. Hey, good on your Pete. Will let
you carry on this afternoon. Don't forget the sundown.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Lation No, it's great when the weather's like this. Long
mat continue.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Pet gade based out a nap. This is the master
in Hakanuie. Olivia Wetherburn joins us next from beef Let,
New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
M hmm.