Plantain partner farm, Steve and Paula Holdem (Rotorua)

Background

Farming in the Lake Rotorua catchment means meeting challenging N-loss targets. Knowing they had to do their bit for the environment, Steve and Paula Holdem began looking at tools to reduce their N-loss from their farm.

In 2018 they started incorporating plantain into their farm system. By 2023, there was plantain present across 92% of the milking platform of Holdem Farm.

Key learnings

• The Holdem’s have successfully incorporated plantain across the majority of their farm by broadcasting seed with their fertiliser.
• Using plantain has allowed the Holdem’s to run 2.7 cows per hectare and meet their regional rules for N-loss. Without plantain they would have to drop to 1.9 cows per hectare with associated negative impacts on production and profit.
• The Holdem’s have found plantain grows easily on their farm, and while they haven’t faced any challenges when using plantain, they have noted that it generally takes a full season for the plantain to appear after broadcasting.

Farm profile

Steve and Paula Holdem farm on the Mamaku plateau, overlooking Lake Rotorua. They operate a 265 effective hectare dairy farm, which they bought with Steve’s parents, Jeff and Glenys in 2017. The Holdem’s have been using plantain since, as it helps them run a profitable farm system while caring for the environment and building a sustainable future.

Nitrogen-loss goal

Holdem Farm falls under the regional council rules for the Lake Rotorua catchment. Steve and Paula are required to achieve a 29% N-loss reduction by 2032, down to 41 kg N/ha/year. The average N-loss reduction required for the Lake Rotorua catchment is 35%.

As part of the partner farm project, three scenarios were modelled that achieve the target N-loss for Holdem Farm. The base farm model includes young stock and cows wintered within the system and no plantain use.

Scenario 1: Plantain +

• Including 30% plantain content in pastures
• 300 cows wintered off-farm, earlier autumn culling
• 7% less autumn N fertiliser use
• 7% lower stocking rate and 37% less imported feed

Scenario 2: Fewer cows

• No plantain
• 31% lower stocking rate, no imported feed and surplus silage sold
• 300 cows wintered off-farm, earlier autumn culling
• 7% less autumn N fertiliser use

Scenario 3: Stand-off pad

• No plantain
• Stand-off pad added and used in autumn and winter, increased effluent area
• 30 ha of less productive land converted to forestry
• 27% less autumn N fertiliser use
• 5% lower stocking rate, earlier autumn culling

Plantain establishment

Regrassing is not a common practice for the Holdem’s, so Steve and Paula mostly incorporate plantain by spreading the seed with their fertiliser. They started off by doing this at a rate of 8 kg/ha (4 kg/ha equivalent bare seed), with 100 ha of the farm broadcast with Ecotain seed in 2018/19. Over the following year, plantain was broadcast across the rest of the farm and some areas were undersown with 2 kg/ha of bare Ecotain seed.

Over time the Holdem’s saw plantain content decrease across their farm. To maintain plantain, the Holdem’s now broadcast 4 kg of coated Ecotain seed per hectare with their fertiliser. This has allowed the Holdem’s to achieve plantain presence across 92% of their platform.

The Holdem’s have found plantain grows better in less fertile areas.

Plantain management

Using plantain has been very simple and easy for the Holdem’s – “it just grows” Steve says. The Holdem’s haven’t had to make any changes to their farm system to manage the plantain, although it has required some patience.

Steve says farmers looking to incorporate plantain into their system need to have realistic expectations around establishing plantain, and its lifespan. Although they sometimes see spring-sown seed growing by the following autumn, the Holdem’s have found that it generally takes a full season to see the plantain after the seed is broadcasted.

“Be patient,” says Steve. “Don’t expect it to be there in six months. And it won’t be there forever, you have to keep topping it up every year or two.”

N-loss tool

Using plantain is an attractive N-loss mitigation tool for the Holdem’s when compared with the effects that reducing their herd by 200 cows would have on their business. They have reduced their N-loss by 12% in OverseerFM through using plantain, while increasing their milk production, achieving over 300,000 kg MS in the 2020/21 season.

Summer feed

Steve and Paula find that during the long summers, plantain is a reliable feed source on their farm and it consistently out-performs ryegrass in the right conditions. “Pastures with plantain are first to recover after a dry spell,” Steve says.

Talking Dairy Podcasts

Rotorua farm owner Steve Holdem joins us to share his experience with Ecotain plantain: what’s worked well, what he and wife Paula have learned about maintaining it, and how it’s saving them from reducing their stocking numbers. Also on the podcast is DairyNZ’s Kate Fransen, who’ll give a clear overview of what a decade’s research has taught us about plantain. New results show even better than expected leaching reductions can be achieved.