Canterbury dairy farm wins grant for injecting beneficial bacteria and fungi in soil
A Selwyn District farm is defying convention.
The 435-hectare Dewhirst Land with 1700 cows uses no synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, mostly diverse pasture species and now it is set to test the use of beneficial bacteria and fungi in the soil.
The farm's bid to improve soil health was one of 12 projects in Southland and Canterbury to win up to $35,000 each from A2 Milk Company's Sustainability Fund for 2025.
Managing director Isaac Williams said the grant would subsidise about a third of a $90,000 trial which was all about improving soil health.
"We've got 40 hectares of paddocks that we'll be taking out and putting in a new pasture and that will be dairy mix from RespondBio," Williams said.
"As they are drilling that seed they're also injecting direct pressure injection of living fungi and bacteria into the soil at the same time along with the seed.
"They've had some really promising results from the North Island, but nothing in the South Island, so we're really keen to get an understanding of how that works on the Canterbury soils."
Once the new planting was carried out around October, coming into spring, the one-year trial would use multi-species diverse paddocks as a control, comparing results with the paddocks injected with bacteria and fungi.
The method was considered a way to improve soil health, enhance plant growth and reduce the environmental impact, but using the power of microorganisms to decompose organic matter.
Now into the third season without synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, Williams said the farm had better than average pasture yields for Canterbury thanks to careful soil and herbage management with lots of testing along the way.
He said testing throughout the year-long trial will be key to gathering evidence about its long-term benefits.
"Through that year, after every grading round, we'll do a pasture cut, we'll do a herbage test, a plant sap test and then look at the dry matter yields and obviously plate metering as well.
"So we'll start to get a really good feel, and then by the end of the year, we can figure out how much each paddock is giving us and the quality of the feed, and then starting to look at other things as well, like production and how the cows are doing off of it as well."
Williams said the new trial will add to other research projects carried out at the farm with support from Synlait and AgResearch into pasture species and reducing fertiliser use.
"The soil health, it's ultimately the foundation, the backbone of everything that we do," Williams said.
A2 Milk Company chief sustainability officer Jaron McVicar said it was encouraging to see such a diverse range of applications, and the impact the fund was having on-farm.
"We've had farmers awarded funding over multiple rounds, building on their projects year-on-year, as well as farmers applying for the first time," he said.
"It's great that we can support positive environmental outcomes on-farm for those who are early in their sustainability journey and those who already have long-term plans in place to improve their farming practices."
There were 12 farms supplying A2 Milk that were supported in New Zealand by the Fund and seven in Australia, equating to $575,000 in total for this year.
Other projects included replacing diesel farm machinery with electric run by solar and building sheds to protect cattle.
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