Jeff Bellamy

Coming from a 180 hectare system 5 farm in the Waikato, with 850 cows scaled down to about 750, to a 50 hectare effective, 70 hectare total block in Mokoia, South Taranaki running 150 cows, was a change that Jeff and Petri Bellamy were not expecting when they decided they wanted to purchase and run their own farm.

Originally, they had wanted to stay in the Waikato, however prices were prohibitive for entering into owning your own farm. Their bank manager suggested they look at the West Coast of the South Island instead.

Down on the West Coast, Jeff and Petri spent nine to ten months looking for their perfect farm. While searching, Jeff was also looking at fert spreaders and came across the Tow and Fert, possibly through a YouTube video, he isn’t sure which.

Jeff says “I think it was a YouTube video that started our journey down the rabbit hole of Tow and Fert.”

They got in touch with Mike, who visited them in Hokitika where they were staying at the time. Jeff describes that visit this way: “That was a real eye opener, a wealth of information, and it really started our thought pattern somewhere different to where we had been. It wasn’t necessarily the Tow and Fert in total that had done that, but it was a catalyst to thinking outside of where we had normally been. It was almost like the timing for it was secondary, as far as the machine itself, to the thinking behind why we wanted to go down there.”

The West Coast farm fell through, so they began looking closer to home in Taranaki for something suitable. By then the machine was already settled in their minds. “When we ended up committing to this place, that whole procedure started again, so we were looking at gear and what we were going to need to run the place, and the Tow and Fert was the first cab off the ranks. We’d already decided that was where we wanted to be.”

Now at home on the farm in Mokoia, South Taranaki, their farm is an open book. Both Jeff and Petri have had to learn farming all over again due to the complete change in system. On this farm they walked onto a clean slate. It had minimal inputs over the years, so there were no preordained input systems or products to follow or wean the property off. Instead, Jeff and Petri have been able to begin a journey to a different type of dairy farming.

In Jeff’s words, “In the end, no matter which system we decided to run, we locked in on the Tow and Fert.”

He has not even used the Tow and Fert Multi 1000 for urea. “On our farm here we had no history of fertiliser input. This has meant that we are able to start with a clean slate.”

Mag oxide and lime flour, applied through the machine

Jeff has done everything but urea application with the Tow and Fert. Instead, they have been applying mag oxide, lime flour and molasses onto the grass, spread evenly across the whole paddock in one pass.

For the springers, Jeff says, “We only had one springer herd, we put in mag chloride and mag oxide and just spread that onto the paddocks. We had zero down cows, we didn’t use any bags, nothing was shaky at all.”

Lime flour went on for the milkers as well. “It followed on from that… We’ve had such a calm herd in the cowshed… no unsettled animals at all putting the mag oxide through the Tow and Fert.”

Petri adds “It’s been so good to be able to spread the whole paddock for the milkers, or colostrums, and to know they are going to get whatever they get eating the grass there. There’s not going to be one patch of white and one patch of nothing.”

Jeff puts it this way: “The animal health side of it has been a real unexpected bonus, and I think it just highlights the versatility of the machine, because we feel like we’re still only scratching the tip of the iceberg for what it can do.”

He sums up the first season like this: “But for now, just the animal health side of things has been mind-blowing. We’re six times less cost than where we were before per cow, just for animal health. And even if it was only to do that for us, it would still be worth our investment in having the machine.”

Looking after the ground

They have also started using a product called FishIt, along with molasses. Jeff calls FishIt “a little bit of a long-term game for us, we think.”

Where that is heading, in his words: “Our goal or our plan moving forward is probably not so much to just deal with the here and now of let’s chuck some urea on and grow some grass. We’re actually wanting to feed the ground and look after the biology of what’s in there… there’s so many untapped things that are left for us to do there.”

And he is clear they are early on. “I’ve been to field days and heard other farmers using Tow and Fert machines talk about what they are doing with their machine, so we know we are only at the start of our journey, and we are excited about what it can still do for us.”