One thing we’re quickly learning about spring in the Waikato is just how quickly the plan can change.

A few warm days, some decent rain and suddenly the grass is moving.  Another wet spell and paddocks that were perfectly accessible a week ago might be too wet to put a truck on.  Then there are cows, contractors, silage, fertiliser, spraying, mating and everything else that seems to happen at once at this time of year.

We see quite a bit of this just through organising our own jobs.

Someone might book spreading a week ahead, then ring to change the product, the paddocks, the timing, or all three. A paddock that was going to be spread might suddenly be shut up for silage. Another area might need doing first. Or the weather simply changes the plan altogether.

None of that is a problem. It’s just spring.

We’re learning that planning at this time of year is probably less about having everything locked in and more about keeping each other up to date when things change.

That’s particularly useful for us because we can change the job in our system before the truck arrives. We can update the paddocks, maps and instructions so the operator is working from the latest information rather than what was planned a fortnight ago.

And it works both ways.

If conditions aren’t right when we get there, our operators will say so. Sometimes a paddock needs to be left for another day, or there’s a better way to get the job done.

There are enough moving parts on a dairy farm in spring without making things harder by working from old information.

So we’ll keep making plans.

We just won’t be too surprised when they change.