On a beatifully sunny Sunday on 28 April, 14 people met at John Noakes (Noksee’s) farm in the Motueka Valley to learn about fencing. John is a fencing contractor and is a certified guru when it comes to farm fencing.
Participants were shown all around John’s farm where he demonstrated many types of fencing and explained how and why different fences should be constructed, what to avoid, and what to use where. For example, he says:
“Rule of thumb, posts should be 1.8m, 600mm in the ground, out of the ground 1200mm. Posts that are 400mm in the ground just fall over. Strainers are mostly 1200mm in, 1200mm out of the ground. You’ve got to use good posts otherwise they will bend on you.”
“Fencing should always be 90 degrees to the ground. This applies on sloping ground. Don’t have them put straight up and down, it lowers your fence and it doesn’t look right.”
“No nails for fencing. They just pull out. Bugle heads. I usually use 100s but sometimes I need to use 125s or 150s. The timber isn’t like it used to be.”
In terms of electric fencing which he uses extensively he says:
“You need to link all your hot wires at the strainer at each end. You should clamp everything or crimp. With electrics, you can usully spread your posts alot further, and you don’t pull the wires as tight – pull them up to 100kg of force.”
“With earthing, use proper galvanised rods. You can run your earth 1km away from your unit. Alot of dry areas you’re not getting earthing. You need moisture for earthing. Always put your earths on the south side to keep them apart. I go 5 metres apart for your earths”.
John has fenced off both sides of a stream running through his property, John advised:
“If you’ve got drains and creeks, wetlands, keep fences away from the banks, otherwise the fence will keep slipping in.”
“One thing I’d say is that if you’re planting flaxes, and you’ve got got hot wires, keep the fences well away from them. Flaxes and hot wires don’t go well together”.
Here’s a video of Noksee giving advice of how to put up wire netting – https://vimeo.com/819684067. Noksee also gave participants a newly published book on all things fencing.
Mark and Lisa Quinn who attended the event have a property just up over the Alexandra Bluff Bridge. They talked about how their fencing was taken out by Gita when a big flood came through and levelled most of their fences. Noksee came and repaired all their fences, and he was a good worker. They were planning to construct a wetland, supported by MCC and would likely need to fence that.
Another couple, Dave and Ai have just moved to the Motueka Valley from Queenstown for better growing in the warmer weather. They said based on John’s advice they’ll need to change most of their fencing as the set up isn’t right.
We’re very grateful to John Noakes for offering such alot of his knowledge and wisdom about fencing to community members. Ngā mihi nui John!