paul bardoul, ohaupo

“We’ve been working with Kiwi Fertiliser’s Marg Addison for five years and we feel we are now starting to realise good results.

We had some common pasture weeds that were being controlled with spraying, and Marg suggested we try Total Replacement Therapy to balance the soil and discourage weeds from growing.

We agreed to trial Total Replacement Therapy on 50ha of the farm, with the hopes of increasing soil biology while reducing weed growth and synthetic nitrogen use. 

We increased that area this season by 50ha, then treated another 50ha this autumn, and now currently have 150ha under the Total Replacement Therapy programme.

We didn’t see an immediate change, but we are now seeing observable, significant results.

We no longer use chemical sprays and we have less weeds than previously, with a continuing declining weed population, so we believe it is having an effect.  

Our pasture is denser, with more clover, and the herd grazes the paddocks more evenly. 

We have also reduced synthetic nitrogen from 250kg/ha five years ago to 93kg/ha today.”