Week one in NZ

I have been in NZ for a week now and thankfully come to terms with driving on the left again. Having driven on the "right" side of the road all my life it seems ironic that I had to start and think about driving there again after my time in the USA on the "wrong" side.
Having been in Pakaraka for a few days I headed south again to the Waikato area famous as being the home of dairying in NZ but also the home of the majority of beef cows in NZ. Why? The Waikato region is a basin being very fertile with gentle rolling hills just like Co Antrim, or Down or Armagh for that matter. At one point I thought I was driving along the coast road around Bushmills it was so similar. Its little wonder that so many NI and UK people make trek down here to compare notes of farming or to live. Its not just the countryside thats similar. Phrases, food, architecture all have a strong British feel about them.
I have been concentrating on grass production and quizing as many people as possible about efficient grass utilisation despite my study topic. It really is amazing how much performance can be grazed out of a field with causing it any detriment. I visited LIC in Hamilton on Thursday, visiting their bull stud and finding out how they use MAS to screen the young dairy bulls they are going to progeny test. They use a secret "potion" to produce liquid semen which has a shelf life of 4 days as its not frozen. This is peak breeding season here. The bulls on stud will be jumped several times a week to ensure continuity of supply with the semen trucked or flown out daily to the technicians to use staright away. WHy you might ask? Normal frozen semen (which they do also produce) has about 10million spern/1/4ccdose compared to liquid with only 2million sperm per dose. The viability is good because its not frozen and each jump by the bull goes further!
I also got to Visit Agresearch to visit their ET research unit and transgenic dairy herd as well as meet the researchers involved with their marker studies.
Hopefully I will get some pictures on here soon. The countryside is absolutely beautiful. It is a struggle working out the seasons in the southern hemisphere. Summer is December and winter is June. Compound this with year round grass growth and it starts to get confusing.