We were joined by Waitaki Boys' Year 11 Ag class for a day out talking to farmers and NOIC about the importance of farming types of where they are located.

So the day started out with visiting the NOIC irrigation scheme pump shed, we were joined by Ben Startford who is the Manager of Operations in NOIC. He talked about the importance of irrigation to North Otago and how land use in the district has changed with the new scheme being introduced. This had helped us a lot with our geographic distribution internally when we talked about rainfall and irrigation and why its is needed on farms such as dairy.

After the Pump Station we then went to Peter and Sandra Mitchell’s cropping farm on Springhill road. Peter talked to us about his experience with having a cropping farm and what he does with the crops he grows. Peter grows a wide range of crops to add to his crop rotation, these crops include Barley, Wheat, Maize, bird seed (for topflite), rape and grass seed.

Peter also talked to us about the creek that runs through his farm, he has been taking multiple different tests each month on his creek this is because he wants to make sure he isn't adding anything bad into the water e.g. nitrogen, phosphorus.

Next farm we visited was Nick and Kate Webster and their team's dairy farm at Hillbrook Dairies. They have a 200 hectare farm with 700 milking cows and have been farming for the past 7 seasons. They talked to us about their soil and what is important in soil structure for the crops that they grow for the cows fed. It is important to understand this as it can affect milk production and profits. They also showed us around their cow shed which is a 54 bale rotary. The things that we took from this farm visit was about the importance of soil and what is included in the dairy farming industry, this is helpful also for our internals as to understand physical, climate and market factors.

Our last stop for the day was Ian and Dianne McNaughton’s Sheep and Beef farm. Ian on Dianne farm Angus cattle and Romney & South Suffolk. They shear 8000 sheep per year, this includes a pre lamb shear in may. They grow lucerne for balayage and grow turnips for winter feed. Irrigation is a very important part of farming for the McNaughton’s as it helps to improve the quality of crops, this then has an impact on the stock health. This was very helpful for our internal as some of us choose to focus on sheep and beef, which this gave us lots of helpful information for.

On behalf of Waitaki girls Year 11 Ag class we would like to say a big thank you to all the farmers and NOIC for the day. We have used the information that we learnt from the day and will be used all throughout the year in agriculture. Also a big thank you to Noslam for organising the day out for us, and lastly fonterra for putting on lunch, this was greatly appre