2013

OAD

• OAD milking and Christine Finnigan's farm system in the Manawatu.

Tall fescue

• Our notes on establishing and managing tall fescue.
• Chris Glassey. Managing tall fescue pastures.
• Errol Thom. Establishing tall fescue.

Energy Day

• Jim Miller looked at how you can make energy savings and utilise energy efficiently on farm. His paper, Some Observations on Saving Electricity on the Farm, contains a lot of practical tips.
• Stephan Heubeck examined on farm renewable energy sources and talked about what would work best for smaller herd farmers.

Robots and mastitis

• John Fisher shared the lessons learned setting up and running AMS, while Adrian Joe and Mark Blackwell gave pointers on how you can achieve less than 100,000 SCC and 10% mastitis and the new SmartSAMM system. Notes here.
• How to achieve 100,000 SCC and 10% mastitis - Adrian Joe.

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2012

Conferences 2012

Some papers from the day

• Hayley Moynihan from Rabobank examined future trends in the world dairy market in her paper Efficient Market Outlook Assessment. 

• Milking Smarter not Harder. Find out how to make improvements to your milking routine and dairy which will make your life easier and your routine flow smoothly next season. Mel Eden and Josh Wheeler will give you practical ideas which you can immediately put into action on your farm. Here is Mel and Josh's paper from the conference, plus some more great ideas for how you can improve your milking procedures.

• Mel and Josh's paper. Milking Smarter not Harder.
• More great hints on how to improve your milking routine. Quick Fixes to Improve Cow Flow.
• Bob McDavitt and Dan Corbett from Metservice looked at the weather and how it will affect your farming operation.

Strategic Planning Workshops

The 2011 SMASH conference included a very successful session on strategic planning, using DairyNZ’s QuickPlan. SMASH invited Lynaire Ryan to lead another session as a follow-up to this. There were 3 main topics for the day: developing a bucket list, strategic planning using DairyNZ's QuickPlan and using a decision making matrix. Here are Lynaire's notes which will give you some excellent ideas to help you to get started on the process.

Once a Day Milking

Full Season OAD Milking Systems: Successful methods and farm performance. (Prof Colin Holmes)

Effect of Nutrition on Production in whole or part season OAD systems. (Claire Phyn)

Focus group notes

• Fonterra's Dairy Diary
• Successful Office Management. (Lindsay Blake)
• Investments in other farm ventures, what to look for in investment partners and how to proceed. Equity Partnerships. (Nick Hoogeveen - accountant)
• Financial planning and off-farm investing. Our notes from the day, Shane and Mike's powerpoint presentation. (Shane Downey, Mike Frogley - financial advisors)

2011

West Coast event

• Lameness and the Healthy Hoof. Anna's presentation, information about the Healthy Hoof program and photos to help you identify and avoid situations which could cause lameness. (Anna Cleeve - DairyNZ)
• Mastitis: prevention and control. (Ian Hodge - PureMilk)

Conferences 2011

• The Truth about Farmers and Emissions Trading. (Jacqueline Rowarth - Massey University)
• How people's way of functioning affects their work and personal relationships.Successful Relationships. (Allan and Sue Baker - Kiwisense)
• How to design your own strategic plan. Design your own Formula for Success. (Lynaire Ryan, Paul Bird, Wade Bell - DairyNZ)
• SMASH's current activities and where farmers have signalled they would like SMASH to go in the future. SMASH: What Now and What Next?. (Ian Tarbotton - DairyNZ).
• Using herd homes on a Walton farm in the Waikato. Creating Choices in a Pasture Based Dairy Farm with Herd Homes. (Grant Wills - farmer)
• Our careers in the dairy industry and how we have built a successful business. The Capteins' Formula for Success. (Clem and Patricia Captein - farmers)
• Building a sustainable farming business. A Sustainable Farming Business. (Martin Bennett - farmer)
• Julie Jonker talked about the role of the Rural Support Trust in Northland. Rural Support Trust

Waikato Field Days 2011

The field days looked at a variety of farm systems in detail. If you are interested in finding out more see our field day notes (below).

• Once a Day Milking - Neil Bateup, Ohinewai. A description of Neil's business, a farm summary sheet and Colin Holmes talks about OAD.
• High Input Farming - Noldy Rust, Te Pahu. A description of Noldy's business, a farm summary sheet and Ian Williams talks about making and feeding silage and getting supplements right.
• Organic Farming - George Moss, Tokoroa. A description of George's business, a farm summary sheet and Greg Walters talks about Fonterra's stance on organic milk.