Cleancrop™ Case Studies

Chris Stewart owns Glenrannoch Farm in Dipton, an 800 hectare (ha) farm with 680 ha of this effective land. Dave Stuart manages the stock. They have been using both traditional swede (Clutha Gold) along with Cleancrop™  Hawkestone swede and kale. This year they decided to plant Cleancrop™ Hawkestone swede alongside Kestrel kale. In total on the farm there is 40 ha of crop, with 36 of this being swedes. As per best practice, the Hawkestone was pre-emerge sprayed with Telar^® and the Kestrel had Trifluralin applied. Cleancrop™ Hawkestone controlled a wide variety of weeds such as fathen, wild turnip, willow weed (red shank), Shepherd’s Purse and spurrey (yarr). Dave says “We found Cleancrop™ Hawkestone much easier to use than traditional brassica crops, and have found that the subsequent second crop brassica and new pasture following Cleancrop™ is significantly cleaner of weeds.”

Andrew and Sarah Currie are operating a 637 hectare (ha) farm near Gore in Southland. Their farm is made up of sheep and beef as well as dairy support. Their current stock numbers on the sheep and beef side are made up of 2500 breeding ewes, 750 hoggets and 170 beef. The dairy support side currently includes stock of 140 dairy heifers and 700 dairy cows.

Andrew and Sarah have been growing Cleancrop™ Firely kale for their winter feed since they first planted in spring 2017. The decision was made to utilise the benefits of the Cleancrop™ Brassica System through the use of Cleancrop™ Firefly kale after they experienced a failed conventional kale crop. They purchased their Firefly seed with Ultrastrike^®  brassica seed treatment to support the establishment of the crop in the early stages against insects and fungal diseases.

“We have found that Cleancrop™ Firefly kale provides us with excellent weed control against wild turnip, Shepherd’s Purse, Californian thistle and rayless chamomile which have proven to be issues on our farm in the past” says Andrew and Sarah.

The Firefly was sown late November 2018 and is set to be grazed through winter by their beef calves. They have also found that this crop is a great option to control weeds following fodder beet. Cleancrop™  Hawkestone swede is another variety of the Cleancrop™  Brassica System they use in their rotation, they’ve found the system performs well for them and plan to continue using Cleancrop™ varieties.

Owl Farm are pleased with the results from their summer brassicas. “We wanted to get the best value out of the crop,” says Jo Sheridan, Owl Farm’s Demonstration Manager. “Producing a good crop costs as much as a poor crop, so it was important we looked after the crops to maximise yield.”

Growing a cultivar that maximises yield in a short time frame, such as Cleancrop™ Toto turnip, is a great way to reduce the cost per kilogram of dry matter. Owl Farm yielded the crops on 17 December 2019, 55 days after sowing, and interestingly, Cleancrop™ Toto turnip had yielded around 25% more tonnes of dry matter (DM) per hectare (ha) than Barkant^® turnip.

Tom Buckley, Owl Farm’s Farm Manager, was impressed with these results. “Even with the extremely dry conditions this summer the crop was valuable. We managed to get eleven weeks of feed out of our eleven hectares of crop - that was 3 kgDM/cow/day from crops that yielded, on average, 10 tDM/ha.”  Compare this with Barkant® turnip, which had only yielded around 8 tDM/ha in the same paddock.