AgResearch's new farm pushing for cleaner dairying

Manager of AgResearch's Tokanui farm Allan MacManus.

New Zealand's newest dairy research facility, the Tokanui Dairy Research Farm is about to start 2010 with a mission of making our dairy industry greener and cleaner.

The farm, opened in late November, is owned by AgResearch, the largest of the Government owned Crown Research Institutes.

It hopes the farm will be at the forefront of developing methods and guidelines farmers may one day use to work the land in a more sustainable way.

With 800 cows, the 200-hectare farm near Te Awamutu is one of the biggest dairy research facilities in New Zealand.

The conversion of the farm into a research facility required an investment of $6.5 million, which came out of Ag Research's retained profits.

AgResearch chief financial officer Geoff Balme says: "We set up our farms to farm them commercially, but we try to attract science to effectively substitute that."

Balme says scientific research on the farm will require some external funding over time.

"Be it through partial growth partnership funding or commercial funding from the [agricultural] industry itself."

One of the main aims of Tokanui is to reduce nitrogen runoff from farms by 15-20 kg per hectare by 2020.

AgResearch environmental scientist Mark Shepherd says a system is being used at Tokanui where effluent is collected from cows in the milking shed and placed in ponds.

The effluent in the ponds then separates, with the thin liquid on top being applied to the pastures through an irrigation system.

This method provides the flexibility to apply effluent to pasture only when the soil is dry enough to handle it. Placing effluent on dry soil avoids the nutrient runoff that can pollute waterways.

Shepherd says many farms in New Zealand still use sumps to collect effluent from milking sheds, which need to be pumped out onto the pasture "almost immediately" to avoid overflow.

"With a pond system you've got weeks of storage - you can hold the material in the pond until the soil is in a good enough condition to accept it."

Shepherd's team is also developing guidelines for measuring the moisture content of soil - so farmers can be advised when and when not to apply effluent to pasture.

Methods for reducing greenhouse gas emissions - such as nitrous oxide and methane - are also being investigated at Tokanui.

Shepherd says a nitrification inhibitor can be applied to pastures. When the animal's urine hits the inhibitor, nitrogen transformations are slowed down and gaseous nitrous oxide emissions reduced.

Methane emissions can be reduced through more efficient animal feeds, which Shepherd says are being trialed at Tokanui.

"The better quality the feed the more will be put into production in the animal, rather than being burped out."

Agricultural scientist and forage specialist Warren King is investigating ways in which better quality - "more persistent" - pastures could benefit the environment.

"Obviously, if [pastures] are more persistent then those pastures will require resowing less frequently, so there are less cultivation events.

"With each cultivation event you get a loss of soil carbon and soil structure, so we are aiming for fewer cultivation events through the lifetime of those pastures."

Farm Manager Allan MacManus says farmers will be keen to use the guidelines the scientists establish at Tokanui, provided they are financially viable.

"Dairy farmers are really keen to look after the environment because they want to be here for the long term through good sustainable business practices."

MacManus adds that Tokanui is a working farm as well as a sprawling laboratory.

Fonterra collects the milk collected from the herd and the money earned goes back into Ag Research's collective funds.

"It's a business - research is a business - so it's important for us to pay our bills," he says. "The cows are helping us to do that."