Issue 50 / Autumn / April 2014

Hi #subname#

Welcome to the April edition of Specialty Seed's SeedData Newsletter.

It seems like only yesterday it was the start of the New Year and look at it now, its Easter already!

On my last trip to the North Island the farmers in the Waikato were in the middle of a very dry patch. This has continued a lot longer than has been wished for. However in Canterbury I still see that some crop's still need to be harvested. This must also be of concern to the farmers affected. Then in other parts of New Zealand, farmers are enjoying a very reasonable season to date. I'd hate to be in charge of the weather!

During my last trip to the Waikato there was a large amount of interest in Lucerne. Particularly the role it may have in a dairy situation. This is understandable given the second dry Autumn in a row that farmers have endured in this region.

In this month's Seedata newsletter we are looking very much at new and useful technologies available to us these include a very useful Lucerne management tool, a new soil activator and a new e-book from Agriseeds.

• Lucerne management
• Agriseeds new Pasture and Forage E-Book a must
• TM Ag Soil Activator

Lucerne management


Lucerne (Medicago sativa), or as most people overseas know it as Alfalfa, is the one of the most used pastoral products in most temperate climates throughout the world.

This is no accident. It truly is a remarkable plant in the way it can convert moisture into high quality feed, even in very dry situations.

To get the very best from your Lucerne it requires careful planning at establishment and then timely maintenance. The Specialty Seeds has an informative download that will help you how how to get a Lucerne paddock established.

Specialty Seed's are pleased to also be able to inform you of a very useful Lucerne maintenance service run by Aaron Meikle and the team at Beef + Lamb NZ.

This free service will send you timely reminders via text messaging on the best practice for maintaining your Lucerne stand. To join simply email Aaron and he will get you added to the list of recipients. We are all busy people, running our respective businesses, so I find prompts like this to be very useful. Aaron can be contacted on: aaron.meikle@beeflambnz.com


Contact Link: Contact Specialty Seeds for more information or if you have any Lucerne questions.




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Agriseeds new Pasture and Forage E-Book a must


For many years Specialty Seeds have been supplied each year with NZ Agriseeds excellent Pasture and Forage Manual.

Having compiled some of these types of publication's I can appreciate the huge amount of effort that Agriseeds must put into producing such an excellent manual.

To Agriseeds credit they not only discuss the merits of their product range but also pass comment on most of the cultivars that are in today's market place as well as tips on best practice establishment methods, weed & pest identification and much, much more.

And now this manual is available to all, as Agriseeds have produced the manual as an e book which can either be viewed online or you can download a copy to your computer/mobile device/tablet, after which it can be accessed even when you do not have internet access.

To check it out click the following link: http://www.agriseeds.co.nz/2014-pasture-manual-ebook.htm

Help downloading the Agriseeds Ebook:

1. Once you arrived on the home page click on the "New- Agriseeds Pasture manual E Book "and you will see you have three options they are either , View EBook online, Download E book for Mac or Download E book for PC. I found the view on line as a good option and for future reference just add it to your favourites
2. As it's a very big file to download (around 100 MB) it will take a long time to download should you want offline access to it. Also if you have an iPad it will only be available on line as at this stage you can't download it onto them.

It will be a very good source of pastoral information for you and we urge you to go have a look.


Download Link: Download the Agriseeds Pasture and Forage Ebook.
Contact Link: Contact Specialty Seeds for any other questions.

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TM Ag Soil Activator


For the last couple of years I've been keeping my eye on a product called TM soil activator from a company called Best Environment Technologies which is now available in New Zealand.

Best Environmental Technlogies was established in Edmonton, Canada in 1999 and has expanded its operation throughout Canada, North America, Europe, Africa, Australia and now New Zealand. It's in in Australia that I first ran into TM as Specialty Seeds Australia ltd have an agency for it.

I'm normally a bit of a sceptic of these sorts of products however whenever I visited Australia I kept getting consistent stories of how successful the product has been on all farms it has been used on.

In addition to this anecdotal evidence there has been some very good study results in New Zealand. Some of the points for discussion following this study have included, improved germination and pasture establishment, higher cropping and forage crop yields, increased ryegrass tiller numbers and improved soil structure.

Much the same comments I have received from our Australian farmer clients, who would also include better insect protection in their comments.

What is TM Ag?

TM Ag is a low cost soil ameliorant designed to kick start and increase beneficial biological activity in the soil, beginning with the bacteria and fungi that all other soil life depends on. Although TM Ag contains natural trace nutrients, its primary aim is to stimulate the vast array of indigenous soil organisms to do their work.

Who and how is TM being used?

TM is currently being used by many farmers in the countries, mentioned above, in arable cropping, forage cropping and pastoral situations.

Best results are achieved when TM is applied (@250 mls / hectare) 2-8 weeks prior to planting and in cropping (arable and forage) situations a second application (@250 mls / hectare) is recommended 6-10 weeks after crop establishment. TM can be mixed with most herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers has no stock withholding period for animals and can be applied in the rain.

During the next few months I'll be talking more about TM soil activator. Until then if you want more information on TM please follow these links or contact us.


Download Link: Download the TM Agricultural Soil Activator brochure.
Download Link: Download the Evaluation of TM Soil Amendment report.
Contact Link: Contact Specialty Seeds for any enquiries.


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As always, we hope this issue has been of some value to you. If you have a comment on this newsletter or anything on our website, please give us a call on our Freephone: 0800 727 8873, send us an email at: mail@specseed.co.nz.


Kind Regards



Stephen Finch & David Percival
Specialty Seeds - New Zealand