The university has invested heavily in the new dairy research and development station adding to the dairy assets it already has in the 160ha Lincoln University Dairy Farm and 75ha Lincoln University Research Dairy Farm.
The Ashley Dene conversion is large-scale with infrastructure that far outweighs what 550 cows would typically require.
But Lincoln University professor of dairy production Grant Edwards says the facilities, which include five feed lanes and five standoff areas, provide an opportunity to run numerous trials at once across both the milking and wintering seasons.
Its proximity to Lincoln and size of the farm mean it can be used by all the Lincoln Hub partners including the university, DairyNZ, AgResearch, Landcare Research and Plant and Food Research, as well as the university’s students.
“Ashley Dene’s size allows research at a larger farm systems scale compared to the research dairy farm which carries out smaller component scale studies. The lighter soils here at Ashley Dene are also very relevant for our Canterbury dairy farms,” he says.
“What we have here in Ashley Dene, with this scale and the infrastructure we’ve built, is an outstanding venue for research for us and all of our Lincoln Hub partners.”
The research station is set to milk 450 spring-calving cows and about 100 autumn-calvers through the 54-bail rotary dairy that’s fitted out with Waikato Milking Systems plant and Afimilk milk meters and herd management system.
All the cows are high breeding worth Friesian-Jerseys. The 450 spring-calving cows are being grazed on 80ha of the 140ha irrigated area while the autumn-calving cow study will look at a system that essentially turns the typical Canterbury dairying system on its head – using no irrigation on the milking platform area and milking through the winter.
The autumn-calvers will run at a stocking rate of 2.5 cows a hectare, grazing 36ha of stony, dryland that includes a 20ha stand of lucerne as well as an area of annual ryegrass and small area of permanent pasture.
Grazing times will be controlled with cows spending up to six hours off the paddock on the standoff and feedpad areas.
Milking through winter, the autumn-calvers will be fed supplement on the feedpad. The supplement will be grown through the coming summer on Ashley Dene under irrigation and will include maize, lucerne and grass silages.
Shaun Back – the scale of new infrastructure will allow multiple studies to run simultaneously.
Farms in the Selwyn-Waihora zone, where Ashley Dene is located, must keep nitrogen losses at or below their baseline loss level and then begin reducing losses from 2017.
“We’ll be operating within the same nutrient constraints as other dairy farms in the Selwyn-Waihora zone and we’ll be using strategies such as controlled duration grazing, the feedpads and standoffs to make sure of that,” Edwards says.
The ability to operate the research station as a self-contained unit apart from young stock, which are grazed off, means the whole farm system can be studied. Financial, physical and environmental studies would all be possible, he says.
A simple wet and dry laboratory will allow researchers to do some of their analysis onsite and a seminar room will mean groups can be hosted.
Opus International has overseen the development and design of the feedpad, standoff pads, concreted silage storage area and effluent system while Ashburton-based building company Dave McCrae Building built the farm dairy and associated buildings.
The developments have been supported by suppliers including Landpower, PGG Wrightson Seeds, Genetic technologies, Ian Densom Contracting and Rainer Irrigation. Opus South Island rural business leader Shaun Back says about 1600 cubic metres (m3) of concrete were poured to complete the conversion.
The standoff pad has a 550-cow capacity based on 10m2/cow while the feedpad can hold up to 600 cows. The effluent system is essentially a large-scale, two-pond system with a total capacity of 4500m3. Effluent will be pumped out and spread on the farm via the centre pivot irrigators through an under-slung system that’s separate to the water irrigation line.
Back says a solids separator could be retrofitted at a later date but wasn’t deemed necessary, because solids on the feedpad will be scraped uphill to a concreted collection area.
The standoff area has been designed so any drainage is directed to the main effluent system.
