North Canterbury News: March 31, 2022

RURAL LIFE
22 North Canterbury News, March 31, 2022
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Poultry club embraces technology
By DAVID HILL
North Canterbury’s poultry club is
embracing technology to overcome
Covid­19.
The North Canterbury Poultry and
Pigeon Club is co­hosting New Zealand’s
first virtual young bird show during
Easter with the Christchurch Poultry,
Bantam and Pigeon Club.
The club is also adopting the latest
technology as it prepares to host the
national poultry show in Rangiora next
year as part of its 125th jubilee.
Assistant secretary Sarah Wyllie says
with the uncertainty of Covid­19, moving
the young bird show online made sense.
‘‘There was just so much uncertainty of
whether we were going to be able to hold
the young bird show and then hold our
winter shows, so we thought we would try
avirtual show.
‘‘It gives us aplatform in case we need
to move our winter show online at short
notice.
‘‘You’ve got far more flexibility and it’s
far easier for people outside the area to
enter.’’
The two clubs introduced the young
bird show in 2019 as away of educating
people new to breeding chooks and
encouraging new exhibitors.
The 2019 and 2021 young bird shows
were held at the Rangiora Showgrounds
and attracted between 200 and 300
entries, around half the entries at the
club’s annual North Canterbury Winter
Show.
Ms Wyllie says there has been lots of
interest already from North Island
exhibitors and from breeders throughout
the South Island.
But she admits it is not the same as a
real show.
The club hopes to be back at the
Rangiora Showgrounds for the North
Canterbury Winter Show from May 27 to
28.
For that show the club will be using the
showday.online platform for the first
time as atrial run before next year’s
national show.
Acellphone app is also being
developed that will enable stewards to
enter results instantly as soon as judges
make their decisions.
As the Christchurch club’s secretary,
Sarah Wyllie
Ms Wyllie already has experience
organising the 2017 national poultry
show.
‘‘I was new on the committee then, but
we did astella job.’’
Christchurch club president Mark
Lilley and his wife Jenny have joined Ms
Wyllie on a2023 national show
committee to help the North Canterbury
club prepare.
Ms Wyllie also hopes to create an
online platform with resources to help
new poultry breeders.
‘‘There’s so many people out there with
chooks and we get so many questions on
Facebook, so there’s aneed for educating
them on the care of chooks and problem
solving.’’
Entries for the virtual poultry show
close on April 10 with judging over
Easter. Some of the classes will be
judged by public vote on Facebook.
Entry is free, with exhibitors
submitting photos of their birds. Details
are available on the North Canterbury
Poultry and Pigeon Club’s page on
Facebook.
Arable season of two halves
By TIM CRONSHAW
Canterbury’s soggy harvest is shaping up to
be agame of twohalves for arable farmers.
Unrelentingrain lastmonth interrupted
harvesting, causing major headachesinthe
shape of sprouting, flattenedcrops, boggy
paddocks,increaseddemand for drying
facilitiesand qualityissues.
One estimate is that the whiteclover seed
crop is down by about athird as aresultof
seeds germinating,while the worst of the
milling wheat and othercrops have been
abandoned.
In contrast, grainand seedcrops brought
in before late January haveperformed well
and even above­averageinsome cases.
The Foundationfor ArableResearch has
come across the same gap in its trial crops.
Cereals senior researcher Jo Drummond
said this harvest had challenged growers
on many levelsand cultivar performance
trialswere no exception.
She said therewas abig difference
between crop yields, depending on when
they wereharvested.
This was shownwith acoded cultivar
calledKWW83Byielding 15.3 tonnes of
feed wheat ahectare at an irrigated site in
Wakanui whichwouldbehard to beat, she
said.
‘‘Thatwas an outstanding result
considering the season we have had. The
crops look OK for farmers who wereable to
harvest in the windowfrom early to late
January.
‘‘If things were harvested late January
onwards then that is where they have
started to struggle.
‘‘Whenthe school holidays finished the
harvest became more challenging.’’
The top cultivar was followedbyLG
Tapestry on 14.9t/haand Graham on
14.6t/ha at atrial sowninearly April on a
Jo Drummond
paddock previouslygrowingChinese
cabbage and harvestedonFebruary 18.
Average yields were 14.3t/ha, the same as
last season, and similar to the four­year
mean of 14.7 t/ha.
Ms Drummond said some farmers were
still getting theirlate crops in so all the
results had yet to come through.
‘‘The cream had alreadybeen takenoff in
Novemberand December when we had
reduced sunshine for the grain fill period.
‘‘Anything that matured from late
January onwards is strugglinginthe
harvest conditions.’’
She said farmerswho were having to
harvest grain with ahigher moisture
content were still dealing with adrying
backlog and weremaking decisions about
which crops should get the priority.
This was made moredifficult for those
who did nothave accesstodrying facilities.
Milling wheat cropsweren’tmeeting
targets as aresult of low falling numbers
because of high moisture and weren’t
hitting protein levels or testweights, she
said.