Country: South Africa
Farm Size: 250ha
Main Enterprise: Grapes
Other Enterprises: Cotton, seed onions, maize, lucerne
Team Size: 5
Andre Oberholzer started his farming career in 1987 on the Orange River in Northern Cape of South Africa. In the early days, he farmed mostly cash crops across their 250ha, but later transitioned to grapes for wine making and raisins. Never one to be left behind, Andre continuously looks forward to find ways he can innovate, explaining “if you get in a groove, somewhere down the line you will find there is a problem. You have to always look for something new because in 3 years time, everyone will catch up”.
The main crop on the farm has been the vines for raisins, however the last 3-5 years haven’t seen favourable outcomes for the enterprise. In response Andre is reducing the area of vines and has cleared 57ha of the farm for cash crops including cotton, seed onions, maize and lucerne. His aim is to grow as many high-value crops as possible and the seed onions are becoming an integral part of Andre’s rotation thanks to the lucrative returns.
Andre has also experimented with cover crops over the last couple of years. He started off planting them between the rows in the vineyards, and even designed his own drill that could plant the cover crops beneath the trees in the vineyard so that the benefits would go to the roots of the vines. Having experimented with different varieties, there are now eight different species of cover crops planted in the vineyard, and after five years, it’s starting to reduce the requirement for fertilisers.
Five years ago, Andre used 250-270kg potassium per hectare but has now reduced that by almost half, to 130kg, and he can see the change in the grapes. He is also using less nitrogen fertiliser. The crops use what is fixed by the cover crops plus around 30kg/ha in the season, a third of what other local farmers are using. Andre is able to see the improvement in his soil samples, which show increased organic matter, and hopes to reduce his use of fertilisers by half as much again over the next 5-10 years.
To keep costs low, Andre makes his own cover crop mixtures as the seed is very expensive. He buys oats and rye from other farmers and combines this with Japanese tillage radish, nemablock radish and rocket. This is mixed along with canola legumes such as peas and beans to bind nitrogen into the soil. Nematode management is a big influencer of the species used in the cover crop mix, Andre is also seeing secondary benefits such as increased pollinators. Last year he planted a crop of seed onions near to a block cover crop, Andre could see bees going between the canola in the cover crop and the onions, resulting in good pollination.
Cover crops have also given him increased flexibility in when he can do field work thanks to the protection they offer the soil. Last year they had a huge rain storm, with 67mm of rain in one night. Because of thick layer of material from the cover crops they could go straight on with the tractor to spray the vines very soon afterwards while other farmers had to wait 4 days for the ground to dry. This meant they were able to get the optimal spray window to treat the vines and control the botrytis risk.
Andre plans to introduce cover crops in more of the rotation. He is looking to trial them with cotton to reduce the length of time soil is left bare. Cotton is planted in September and harvested April-May, so he would grow a mix of radish and barley to keep the soil covered, and maybe add the nemablock radish to reduce pest pressure.
When it came to keeping track of his wide array of crops, Andre struggled finding a system where he could record vines and ‘broad acre’ fields until he came across fieldmargin. He finds data very interesting and loves to analyse spreadsheets. Andre has found fieldmargin “very quick” to use and loves that he can access it while on the move. He even plans to spend a few days away by the sea. This is only possible because he can keep an eye on things at home and check which blocks have been worked.
Andre frequently adds spray and fertiliser Field Jobs for his team to complete and highlights the simplicity of the instructions, which he has found much easier to use than other programs.
Thinking long-term, sustainability is key to Andre. He is keen to build and maintain soil health so that his children can take over the farm one day. Long-term survival with lower costs and better efficiency is more important to him than the short-term financial return.
Many farmers in South Africa are thinking about a more a regenerative approach to their farming practices because of increasing costs such as fertiliser and labour.
“We have to do something to regenerate the soils. I want my kids to be on the farm 50 years from now”
While there has been talk of premiums for regenerative farming practices in South Africa, nothing has come of it so far. Andre signed up for GlobalGAP around seven years ago, but has yet to see a price premium for participating. However Andre is committed to sustainable farming practices because of the other benefits he is seeing.
His motivation for long-term sustainability is his children – he wants them to have the opportunity to be on the farm 50 years from now. With this in mind, maximising financial returns is not his top priority; instead he prefers to measure success in the form of a better harvest, higher quality crops and an increased number of earthworms in his soils.
Andre recently had his soil quality tested and they asked if his farm was run on an organic system because of the quantity of earthworms in the samples. Everyone’s buzzword is ‘organic’ which, unsurprisingly, Andre has dabbled in. Having given it a go, he could see the finances would never stack up and the risk was not worth the reward. The biological approach which he now has in place has proved itself to be the best fit for his farm now and for the future.
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