Be Like Bill – A Bit of Kiwi Ingenuity Goes a Long Way

Bill’s stopped using synthetic fertilisers on his dairy farm, and his cows are happier and healthier than ever…so are his pockets!

Bill’s farm in South Taranaki has gone synthetic fertiliser free. Using a little Kiwi inginuity, Bill came up with the idea of connecting a tap to his pond filling station which runs into a drum which containing seaweed and additives. It’s then mixed with the effluent so he can spread everything evenly and at the same time.

‘We’ve tried a few things over the years, but this seems to work well’
-Bill, Dairy Farmer, South Taranaki

Bill’s 250 cow farm uses a feedpad to collect the effluent, and a in-ground pond for storage. He says with his current set up it’s important to have a good stirrer. The secret is to stir regularly.

The effluent is stored in the pond during wet seasons until the ground is dry enough to use the tanker, with a Nevada Rainwave™ attached for spreading. The seaweed fertiliser is added to every load of effluent in the tanker. This saves an additional job of putting liquid fertiliser and soil conditioner onto the pasture separately.

Now that the grass has grown a bit over Spring, Bill’s been able to reduce feeding to once a day.

‘This is our first Spring with the pad and it worked out well. Good to see no waste.’

If you’d like to find out more about how you could be like Bill and eliminate your use of synthetic fertilisers, call us on 0800 464 393, email [email protected] or send us a message on Facebook!