A LIFETIME of hard work certainly hasn't hurt Charles Taylor of Raleigh, whose dairy on the banks of the Bellinger River is one of the most productive in the district.
Born nearly 80 years ago in a slab hut at Hydes Creek, north of Bellingen, Mr Taylor's family moved to Southgate downriver from Grafton in 1947 where they took up dairying. But the eventual loss of Sydney market access and declining profitability saw the family of 11 branch out into new directions.
Charles, the eldest, took up logging - driving his D4 where no D7 dared to go – and he did well, provided he worked hard.
He raised enough capital to buy part of an old dairy farm on the banks of the Bellinger River: Up at 3am to milk 132 cows, with his wife Marj by his side, and after the bales were cleared he headed bush to fell, de-bark and measure an average of 83cubic metres of timber a day, snigging it all out with his D4, before hustling back to the dairy for an afternoon milk.
"I don't need much sleep," Mr Taylor confesses.
These days the Taylor family milks 180 cows, half Friesan and the rest Friesen cross with a smatttering of pure Jersey.
They are grazed on 42ha of pasture, full of deep-rooted chickory and sprouting rye grass with root balls the size of a footy, supplemented with corn silage grown on another 27ha which Mr Taylor leases at Valerie, across the river.
From this rich country each cow returns about 6400 litres annually and the family expects to send a million litres to Norco this financial year.
Mr Taylor is most proud of the fact that the family have kept inputs down - much of it through allowing his pastures to do what they do best - naturally.
As a result of the efforts sustained by the Taylor family, which now includes son Keith and daughter Catherine, Norco has awarded them a superior milk quality certificate two years running. The latest award was handed to them the month before Christmas.
Back to nature
The Taylors' farming system is based on a biological approach.
Mr Taylor gave up on glyphosate years ago, about the time he nearly garnered a pasture disaster from spreading too much urea.
"On a fact-finding trip to New Zealand the Kiwis told me to put more chemical on the farm," he said. "They're mad."
And after a period of three years nutrients were locked up in the soil and pastures declined in density.
"Our milk production went up initially and then it went down again," he said.
Following a biological approach to soil rejuvenation, and employing the Steiner-trained Bavarian-born Ludwig Mueller, an agronomist from Telegraph Point near Port Macquarie, Charles has only moved forward.
These days he also leases 27ha at Valerie, right across the river, where he grows corn silage for his herd, to supplement their diet of rygrass and chicory, which they contentedly graze in well-managed paddocks.
It was in the corn paddock that Mr Taylor first trialed Mr Mueller's biological inputs and was pleased with the results, eventually achieving a corn harvest of 14t/ha.
He says the basis for his soil success began with mineralised inputs and after trialing other brands he gave Ludwig's recommendations a go - a mixture which included fused calcium magnesium and phosphate applied at up to 200kg/ha which equates to $162/ha.
The fused mixture also contains 40pc silica, crucial to plant resilience.
Mr Taylor includes 'sleeping microbes' in his biological routine at the rate of 25kg/ha or $66/ha and allows his cows access to nutrient rich lick blocks.
But previously, when Mr Taylor adhered to elemental weights of 100kg of potassium/ha, 200kg sulphur/ha and 200kg potash/ha plus urea his annual costs were much higher - about $1450/ha plus urea.
"Across my 42ha I save about $54,000 a year," Mr Taylor said. "And I use a quarter of the urea I was using before."
"Now I only bring in about $430 worth of supplements per cow each year. That's about a tonne per cow, or 3.5kg a day."
Another important tool on the farm is a three-bladed yeoman's plough, which Mr Taylor sinks 600mm deep, right to the crossbar, in order to let the long flat foot of each tyne lift and aerate compacted soils.
The result allows microbes to travel deep into the soil and grass roots are able to follow the moisture profile to new depths.
These days Mr Taylor never sees Kikuyu Yellow on his farm.
So too has he used a rotation of chickory and diploid ryegrass to kick along his paddock production.
The result, he says, has helped create paddocks that allow plenty of of root growth, and the passage of earthworms - which litter his ground, as a single spadeful will reveal.
A bit of history
Mr Mueller, who represents company TNN, comes to biological farming as an established authority, having studied biodynamics from the very disciples of Steiner himself - the first German landlords to adopt a biological approach to farming.
Mr Mueller recalls that after WWI German farmers rushed to take advantage of the new 'salt and pepper' style of farming, which required liberal doses of urea, their pellets white against the dirt, and black-coloured pellets of phosphorous gleaned from the steel making process.
Agriculture blossomed for six years until the soil fell out of balance.
Those early water soluble fertiliser applications were not adjusted to varying soil types, crops or knowledge with its use and the industrially-sourced phosphorous was not processed enough to remove heavy metals like cadmium, mercury, lead and flouride.
The landlords sought the advice of Rudolf Steiner and his biological knowledge and in later years, when they were about Charles Taylor's age, they taught Mr Mueller with an enthusiasm that he still finds inspirational.