Business Rural South

Spring 2016

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Tim’s 40-year milestone It’s 40 years since Tim McPherson took over running his family dairy farm. The property, which has been in his family for 143 years, was originally run in conjunction with a butcher’s shop. Tim and his wife, Carol, have been living in a former dairy factory for the last 10 years. Story: page 5.

Business Rural

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12 The answer lies in the soil

25 Kiwis sign up to A+accreditation

A new sustainability programme, A+, has been launched by Aquaculture NZ in the hope of making improvements in the industry. ‘The aim is to engage communities and demonstrate that we are doing a good job,’ says NZ Salmon Farmers’ Association chair Mark Preece.

‘Healthy soils, heathy cows’ is Richard (left) and Alan Crowe’s dairying mantra. Get the sod of soil right, and your grass will be right, and so will your cows, they say. It was good enough to win them a Ballance soil-management award

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62 Aussies add sparkle to wool

The ultimate proving ground

Over the last 11 years the Satterthwaites of Muller Station have imported nine Australian rams with the aim of improving the quality of their wool. And the family is in no doubt that these genetics have done the trick.

Jane and Blair Smith deal daily with the challenges of the North Otago hill country, but say the harsh conditions create the perfect environment to push the capabilities of their high-performing perendale genetics.

73 Health, safety top fencing agenda

Health and safety were a couple of prime topics at this year’s Fencing Contractors’ Association of New Zealand. A special workshop concentrated on how fencing contractors can operate efficiently and safely within the legislation.

PUBLISHER James Lynch GENERAL MANAGER Rex Lynch

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81 A TUATARA like no other

Geoff Hill reckons there’s nothing to match the “highly functional, amazingly robust and versatile machine” off-road machine he has come up with. It’ll cope with just about anything anywhere – farming, hunting, commercial activities, pure recreation.

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Spring 2016

www.waterfordpress.co.nz

Tim’s 40-year milestone It’s 40 years since Tim McPherson took over running his family dairy farm. The property, which has been in his family for 143 years, was originally run in conjunction with a butcher’s shop. Tim and his wife, Carol, have been living in a former dairy factory for the last 10 years. Story: page 5.

RURAL PEOPLE » East Lane

Business Rural

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Expansion with low input Kim Newth Sheep and beef farmer James Moore is working hard to expand the family property – and is keeping costs low as he does so.

James, a fifth-generation farmer, and his father, Tim, run the 1000-hectare East Lane property, in the Kekerengu area between Kaikoura and Blenheim. Tim also leases another 1000ha property, Parakawa, and has just bought the 500ha Napoleon property. The three are within 10 kilometres of one another.

The family business has around 4000 corriedales, 1000 ewe hoggets, 250 beef cows (predominantly angus but breeding towards straight hereford for dairy-sire bulls). They buy in 100 yearling jersey bulls each year and finish all lambs, as well as beef calves, in a normal season.

Drought has had an impact, with the farms currently running 7000 stock units, a few thousand lower than in a normal year.

At Napoleon, development is in full swing, but James is determined to improve the new property to make it economic and sustainable in the long term. That means growing grass and forage and minimising reliance on supplements.

“We’re doing the basics right; applying superphosphate, tapping into natural water springs and seeing to fences. What I am learning is to keep it simple and not strive for absolute perfection. Iin farming 80 per cent is a given but you can spend 80% of your time trying to achieve the last 20%.”

On the lease block, low-fertility flatland areas have been transformed into productive lucerne paddocks.

Over the three farms, the land ranges from flat farmland to rolling hills and steep mountain country (with elevations from sea level to 900 metres.

“In terms of terrain, we have a bit of everything here; it is mostly what I’d call Marlborough hill country. We have some rough stuff, but it is pretty well balanced with some flat. It’s a beautiful setting with ocean to mountain views, though the farming practicalities can be challenging.”

Over winter, he often grazes corriedales at vineyards in Marlborough and also finishes lambs between the vines. It is an approach that works well, particularly in drought years.

“By doing this, I build up a feed bank of grass: I save my properties for lambing and give the farm a spell to rest. It means I don’t have to buy supplement or feed out, so I keep a low-cost system.”

James appreciates the corriedale’s all-purpose characteristics, which include good fertility (consistently up to 150% pregnancy-scanning in ewes), good feet and fine wool (23-26 microns).

“For 20 years, we’ve been getting rams from a stud-breeder who has been working hard on feet. Good genetics makes such a difference. The corriedale tends to get a hard time over fertility, feet and mothering, but a lot depends on how they are managed. If you feed your corriedale well and it’s well bred, you’ll get good results.

“What I generally like about our sheep is that they are low-input. They are easy to muster, easy on fences and are a low-key, productive animal.”

As well as the sheep, he keeps a close eye on the cattle and beef side of the family farm, which is a lucrative part of the business and growing steadily.

Summer and winter rape is grown to support developments on the farm.

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James was relieved to have had some good rain in late August.

“It has been a bit of a drought breaker. We bought the new farm last year and we haven’t gone up in stock numbers at all because it has been so dry.

Fax 03 57 88452 8 Liverpool St, Riverlands Blenheim heagney.bros@xtra.co.nz

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Proud To Support East Lane Co Ltd Richard Newton Local Agent – 0274 730 805 Anthony Cox Stud Stock – 0272 083 071 Donald Cooke Livestock Manager – 0274 730 854

RURAL PEOPLE » Grant Brothers Partnership

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Business Rural

The father-and-sons Grant team...sons Cameron (left) with the tractor and Robert (right) on the phone, Father Peter (centre) with cattle and grandchildren.

‘Lean and clean’ does the trick Russell Fredric Farming lean and clean sums up Grant Brothers Partnership’s large-scale Southland sheep-and-beef operation.

The partnership comprises patriarch, Peter Grant, a Gore district councillor, and sons Cameron and Robert Grant, farming four properties totalling 4229 hectares.

The 174ha Croydon block on the eastern, Gore side of the Hokonui Hills, is the home of Peter Grant and has been in the family since 1900.

Cameron Grant, wife Bronnie and their family live on the 2267ha Campbells’ block, rolling hill country in the Otamita Valley on the western side of the Hokonui Hills, while Robert Grant, wife

Lyn and their family are five kilometres away on a 882ha block, dubbed Tin House (which includes 316ha added in March 2015. A 906ha property further west in the Otapiri Gorge was bought in March 2014. Apart from this, the properties are all generational family farms.

“The last time we bought land was in 1954 and that was Campbells’ block,” Cameron Grant says.

Croydon and Tin House trade as Grant Brothers Partnership, Campbells’ is a stand-alone business, and Otapiri is a partnership of these two entities so that expenditure there, particularly for development, can be tracked.

Stock units across the four properties comprise “in round figures” 20,000 ewes, 6800 hoggets, 970 beef cattle and 820 calves. Six to seven staff are employed on the farms, including a tractor driver

and a digger driver; a small contracting business runs as part of the partnership.

With so much land and livestock, a variety of skilled workers is essential – 35-40 dogs are used on the farms.

Over the past 10-12 years there has been significant development of the western farms’ hillcountry blocks. Drainage, fencing and conversion of tussock blocks into swedes, choumolier and grass over a three-year cycle raised production and raised stock-unit capacity by 9000.

The development has been done with careful consideration to minimise the impact on land and waterways, and to retain tussock. In 2014 the Grant Brothers Partnership was the recipient of three Ballance Southland farm environment awards – for energy excellence, new new livestock, and harvest.

“It’s not all about hugging trees,” says Cameron Grant. “Its about your whole business and how you conduct yourself and your plans.”

The past summer and autumn has been the best for years, he says, up to the shortest day in June is the mildest winter he remembers in decades, resulting in lambs around 19.5 kilograms carcass weight, “a good kilo ahead of where they were this time last year”.

Improving production has involved a two-fold approach encompassing both pasture development and genetics. While the lambing percentage for the season – 141 per cent from 19,500 ewes and from 28,000 lambs tailed – was similar to the previous year, Cameron reveals the big picture.

• To page 5

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Proud to support Grant Brothers Above: Cameron (left) and Peter Grant drench hereford-cross cattle. Below: Sheep on the hills.

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RURAL PEOPLE » Tim & Carol McPherson

Business Rural

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Dalmore: family farm steeped in history Sue Russell It’s 40 years since Tim McPherson took over ownership and running of the family dairy farm. The farm, 15 kilometres west of Riverton in Southland, has been in the family for 143 years.

Originally run in conjunction with a butcher’s shop in Orepuki during the goldmining era, and Tim says Maori settlements in the area also traded flax and potatoes with Sydney.

The property was named Dalmore after the farm Tim’s great-grandfather, Archie McPherson, worked on in Kintyre, Scotland before coming to New Zealand in 1963.

The 277-hectare farm tracks over flat land with some gullies, and carries a 160ha milking platform, with with 60ha used for winter cropping and young stock. Drainage is an issue on parts of the property.

The farm is owned under a family trust and the farming business is the day-to-day responsibility of Tim and Carol McPherson’s son, Matthew. This frees up to concentrate on his passion for breeding.

“Carol and I have lived in the old dairy factory for the last 10 years,” says Tim. “Eight years ago a property adjoining the farm was purchased just after Matthew returned.”

The original herd was a shorthorn-cross-type cow, then ayrshires in 1953; in 1967 the herd was moved to predominantly friesian.

“From the 1990s there has been a move to crossbreds as a result of mating heifers to jersey sires for ease of calving. The kiwicross animal is better at coping with the walking distances and the condition of some of the farm’s races.”

Dalmore has used herd testing for about 90 years and AB since 1960, while heifers have been mated to AI and traits (other than production) recorded since 1973.

About 20 bulls have been sold to AI companies

PHOTOS Left: The Dalmore herd has moved from a shorthorn-cross type cow to ayshires in 1953, then predominantly friesian in 1967 and then a move to kiwicross from the 1990s.

Below: The view west from Dalmore to the mountains of Fiordland.

with three – Dalmore PK Kai, Dalmore Kryptonite and Dalmore TEF Lima – going on to be widely used.

The lower payout has forced some adjustments: “We used to rear quite a bit of extra stock, but now we are just rearing our own replacements.”

There has also been a shift in the type of cropping the farm does to supplement pasture feed with a move away from swedes and brassica vegetables toward growing fodder beet, which Tim says is a very versatile crop.

“It produces twice the yield as the traditional brassica lines and because it has a high energy content, you can put the weight on and maintain condition through autumn and winter.”

He describes the Riverton district as the Riviera of the South with a strong dairying sector likely to grow.

His interest in breeding has given Tim the chance to see the immense gains from developing tidy, efficient and productive cows that are easy to manage.

He thinks dairying’s current unsettled times will become the norm and the sector will have to adjust.

“When I began farming, there was certainty in that products kept being produced and stock-piled.

Now it is a very different situation with significant changes in Europe affecting markets we can sell to.

It will be a case of it working its way to outcomes on supplier farms. I’m not optimistic things will improve quickly.”

However, he feels his own farming has been most enjoyable and rewarding: “It has been a privilege to have been involved over my lifetime.”

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• From page 4 “Before we started this development we were struggling to get 120% lambing.”

The farms’ produce 120,000 to 130,000kg of wool from two clips a year, in February and August.

Although Cameron says their hogget and ewe wool is too strong at 36 to 39 microns, and lamb’s wool similarly strong at 32 microns, “at the end of the day, bulk still seems to be winning at the moment”.

A total of 950 hereford-cross beef cows are run on Campbells, Tin House and Otapiri. Cameron has a pragmatic approach to their role.

03 225 5899 Pukemaori 03 234 8120 Riverton

“They’ve got to do a job. They do a lot of our topping. They’re there for pasture quality. I think, cows, when people look at their bottom line, are underestimated on their value for tidying up, pasture quality and parasite management.”

The management of such a large operation is helped by the brothers’ good relationship, and the reassurance that if one is away, the other is around to make decisions and deal with issues.

Today, their roles largely involve management and organisation, rather than hands-on work.

“It’s about managing you time and your people, and trying to get the best out of both of those,” says Cameron.

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RURAL PEOPLE » Geoff & Nicola McAtamney

Business Rural

Fodder-beet crop proving its worth Sue Russell Geoff and Nicola McAtamney operate a sheep and beef farm at Omakau, 20 minutes from Alexandra in Central Otago.

The 750-hectare farm carries 1000 friesian rising one-year-old and rising two-year-old bulls, 1500 halfbred ewes and 450 hoggets. It’s a busy operation that Geoff oversees mostly singlehandledly (he has the help of a casual farmhand at busy times).

Each year on November 1 Geoff receives 100-kilogram bull calves, contracted in by a professional rearer.

Ewes are shorn in mid-pregnancy, and fertility within the flock runs at an average of 140 per cent lambing. Lambing starts on September 20 and weaning is over three months later.

Around a third of the lambs are sent to the works straight off weaning at 18kg-plus weight.

Following weaning the ewes are pastured on the hill blocks while the remaining lambs remain on the flat to gain further weight.

Cattle are fed on fodder beet, which is grown over 50 hectares.

Traditionally the stock have been fed a mix of kale and pasture silage, but Geoff says his experiences of feeding fodder beet have been very successful.

“The fodder beet is going well. It is an extremely cost-efficient, high-energy food. Whereas silage was costing us 25-30 cents per kilogram dry matter, fodderbeet is 10c per kilo.

“But there is groundwork to be done to ensure the crop grows well. You need to choose your paddocks for growing it carefully, and it needs to be well irrigated.”

Fodder beet is sown around Labour weekend and is ready to be eaten by the end of April/early May. The beet is not harvested, but is left growing for the stock to eat Geoff says he has received a lot of support with the doffer beet from agronomist Patrick Davis, from Wholesale Seeds.

“You have to transition the stock slowly on to it through the first 10 to 20 days. If too much is consumed too soon, the stock run the risk of contracting acidosis because of to the rich sugars in the plants. This can be fatal” The sheep are halfbred merino/romney and produce 4.7kg of wool per sheep each year.

Geoff has farmed all his life in the Central Otago area.

While the area is known for its dry climate, Geoff says it is developing a reputation as the fattening capital.

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Omakau sheep and beef farmer Geoff and Nicola McAtamney with children Milly and Wade.

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“All you have to do is add water and everything grows here.”

He says they have “seized opportunities as they have presented through our farming journey, having sold land, leased, bought, sold and bought again to get to where we are now”.

He describes the sheep industry as being in good health, and says success in both dry stock and sheep farming comes down to spending wisely and living within your means.

The farm is a mix of flat to rolling country, with 280ha of it fenced for deer.

“It is set up to potentially supply us with seven sources of income – beef, wool, lamb, velvet, venison, grazing and selling crops we grow.

“I think that is really important in terms of future-proofing the business.”

Nicola helps with the administration of the couple’s farming business, while their children, six-year-old Wade and eight-year-old Milly go to the local primary school.

“If you really work hard to get the maximum potential from the land, then farming offers a wonderful lifestyle,” says Geoff.

The fodder beet is going well. It is an extremely cost-efficient high-energy food. Whereas silage was costing us 25-30 cents per kilogram dry matter, fodder beet is 10c per kilo.

But there is groundwork to be done to ensure the crop grows well.

Phone: 03 447 4080 Mobile: 027 224 7540 Email: tim@dac.net.nz from our farm gate to yours

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RURAL PEOPLE » Bruce & Hamish Westgarth

Business Rural

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PHOTOS: Left: Rams in the shed ready for shearing. Right: Amanda and Hamish Westgarth with children Finley (left) and Samuel.

Two farms, two climates, two generations Karen Phelps South Canterbury farmer Bruce Westgarth is approaching 64, so he says it’s time to “let the next generation get into it.”

Bruce and wife Rosa farm two blocks of land, totaling 566 hectares, near Cave and Timaru in partnership with son Hamish and daughter-in-law Amanda, who bought the stock and plant, and took over operations last year.

Even though the farms are just a 30-minute drive apart, they have distinct climates. When the Cave farm, which rises to 500 metres above sea level, is covered in snow, the Timaru farm, which bounds coast and Timaru city, can be clear.

It’s a diverse operation that runs 4000 commercial ewes and 1200 ewe hoggets, and takes around 200 ram hoggets through winter.

Before the drought the Westgarths also fattened around 100 cattle a year, but have cut that back to just 20, although the ingtention is to re-establish numbers. They also breed 200 boer goats, which go to the works, with their meat destined for overseas markets.

Although a seemingly mixed operation it works in synergy, says Bruce Westgarth.

“The goats tidy up the thistles and weeds, and the cattle improve the pasture for the sheep,” he says.

A few years ago the business diversified further, but this time partly for pleasure. The purchase of

The view out to the Cave farm from the Kellands Hill property.

Coryston sheep stud, previously owned by Peter Darling, was driven partly by a desire to keep coopdale, suffolk and suffolk cross rams in the region.

“We didn’t want to see the stud disappear,” says Bruce. “We’re very passionate about sheep, so we bought it.”

Bruce and Hamish have worked to maintain relationships with Peter Darling’s customers, while Amanda enters ram data into a central repository for ranking based on wool weight, lamb survival rates, weight gain, and other measures.

The stud is run from the Cave farm, and the day BusinessRural South made contact the sheep were standing in snow, which is okay by Bruce.

They also winter the ram hoggets for two or

three months on the Hunter Hills at the back of the Timaru block – harder country yet again.

And the Westgarths view two recent years as a blessing in disguise.

“We want tough sheep,” says Bruce. “We don’t drench the ewes, so the ones that couldn’t handle the conditions went to the works, and that improved the stud. The stud sires are DNAed so that we can gain more progress with our breeding, and all of our ewes are unshepherded at lambing. ” Each year they sell around 100 rams bred from

their 400 coopdale stud ewes and around 60 rams bred from their 200 suffolk ewes. Bruce says it won’t make them rich, but it gives them more control over breeding rams for their own purposes.

Although people can get a bit down about the sheep industry, he says it has treated them pretty well. He also points out that larger weights are achievable now, which helps offset other challenges.

“When I started, 12-kilogram lambs were normal, but last year we averaged 19.5kg.”

Born and bred in Timaru, he worked as a shearer before buying the Cave farm, which he started farming in 1979. Rosa also comes from farming stock – the Timaru block at Kellands Hill is owned by her family and leased by the Westgarths.

Bruce says that since Hamish and Amanda took the helm, it has been business as usual – everyone works together and makes decisions as a team.

The change has allowed Bruce to get away to dog trials more often, travelling around the South Island with a group of mates to compete.

He predicts the next generation might continue to expand the business, carrying on with what he and Rosa have started.

“That’s what it’s all about.”

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RURAL PEOPLE » Daniel & Amanda Schat

Business Rural

Time off the farm ‘important’ Karen Phelps It’s tough times for dairy farmers at the moment but Central Canterbury farmers Amanda and Daniel Schat are seeking to make the best of things. The couple realise the importance of taking time out when they can and getting off farm.

“It’s always at the back of your mind that you are spending money you don’t have at the moment,” says Daniel Schat.

“But it is important to get away as you have to take care of yourself psychologically as well. You can make better decisions when you are refreshed.”

The couple has just completed their third season as 50:50 sharemilkers for Daniel’s parents, Harry and Gail Schat,on Haglea Farm, a 224-hectare (effective) unit at Te Pirita. They peak-milk 770-795 holstein friesian cows.

Daniel’s brother, Michael, milks on a nearby farm, also owned by Harry and Gail. Both farms are supported by a 120ha run-off used to grow silage and winter feed. Young stock are grazed off farm.

Daniel and Amanda did manage to make a profit from the farm last year, but say making a living as a 50:50 sharemilker right now is tough. They acknowledge they are fortunate to have job security and say their bank has been supportive.

They are cutting costs where possible. For example, they have cut back on investing in genetics to improve their herd, whereas they were bringing in top cows from around the country to do embryo-transfer work. Through this work they will be calving their first embryo transfer heifers this year.

They are also involved in Sulana Enterprises, a syndicate with a high-breeding-worth cow in which they have owned a 25 per cent share for several years. The cow has already been used for embryo transfer and is milking on a farm in Hamilton.

“Genetics is slow gain and slow to get payback,” says Daniel. “But it’s a bit like Lotto – if you don’t have a ticket, you’re not going to win.”

The couple plan to rear extra bull calves to capitalise on beef prices and generate cashflow.

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It’s always at the back of your mind that you are spending money you don’t have at the moment. But it is important to get away as you have to take care of yourself psychologically as well. You can make better decisions when you are refreshed.

“We are actually better to take milk out of the silo and put it into a calf,” says Daniel. “We’re looking at different ways we can make money.”

They are also trying to use grass to the max, and will buy in 200 tonnes of grain this season as well as use 200 tonnes of grass silage from the run-off block.

The focus will be on using feed strategically through calving and mating.

“We breed cows for milk, not breeding worth, and we can’t afford to throw extra grain at them at the moment to make milk.

“We do realise that the the payout has a flow-on effect though the industry, such as on grain and embryo-transfer companies. I don’t feel good about it, but the reality is everyone is taking a bit of a hit at the moment.”

The top end of the farm has been re-grassed and, last season was the first in which the Scats benefited from the water as part of the Central Plains water scheme, Although Daniel says it didn’t save them money because the Rakaia River levels were low and they had to buy in stored water, it will give them security of supply compared to the two bore wells on the farm.

The water scheme is helping them develop more

• To page 9

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Alexis Schat helps out with the calves on her parents’ farm at Te Pirita.

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RURAL PEOPLE» Tony Redmond

Business Rural

|9

Improved soil quality has seen Canterbury cropping farmer Tony Redmond increase his barley yield from an average of 10 tonnes to the hectare to 12 tonnes.

Crop farmer boosts lamb-trading arm Kelly Deeks Tony Redmond has responded to the changing demand for store lambs by adding 82 hectares of lease land to his 160ha Canterbury cropping and lamb-finishing property. This has allowed him to increase his lamb numbers from 4000 to 6000 a year.

Tony took up the lease on the block (owned by South Island Field Days) directly across the road from his farm 12 months ago.

His lamb-trading operation is simple.

The lambs come on to the property in January just after harvest, and are taken through the winter and fattened from store weight to a finishing weight of 22 to 25 kilograms.

“When the crops are harvested, we put quite a bit of the farm back into green feed and grass,” Tony says.

“We run a full cropping programme, growing barley, grasses, and peas. Most of them are certified seeds.”

The wider Redmond family’s mixed arable and dry-stock business at Kirwee, west of Christchurch, includes Tony’s farm, Waverlea, the original

We dont’ try to shoot for the moon. We limit our inputs to what the soil actually requires. We match the water demand to the crop’s needs, using neutron probes family property that was farmed by his father and grandfather.

The Redmonds were pioneers of direct drilling in the South Island more than 20 years ago, first using the New Zealand-developed Cross Slot machine, and now the Great Plains drill from the United States, which requires less horsepower and fuel, and operates more efficiently.

“We don’t do any cultivation here, it’s all direct drilled,” Tony says.

He aims for environmentally sustainable and achievable cropping yields.

“We don’t try to shoot for the moon. We limit our inputs to what the soil actually requires. We match the water demand to the crop’s needs, using neutron probes from Hydro Services. We target achievable yields, and we are able to finish every crop to a high standard.”

In the past two years, he has precision-mapped most of the farm, getting information on soil depth, organic matter, water-holding capacity, and nutrient requirements.

“Now every 12 square metres gets what it needss. It’s beneficial for the soil, the environment and the back pocket. We’re seeing more profitable and consistent yields across the farm, our barley has gone from an average of 10 tonnes to the hectare to 12 tonnes.”

Tony is always on the look-out for ways to improve efficiency, to lower costs and to improve soil quality.

“Like much arable land, this farm was once heavily cropped. However, it has gone from dismal to almost as good as pasture, and is still improving.

Ag Research has been testing our soil quality here for 20 years and says we’re doing great.”

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Te Pirita sharemilkers Daniel and Amanda Schat.

Water scheme helps production • From page 8 grass, which is especially important in these tough times.

The herd is milked through a 50-bail rotary shed with MilkHub. Last season the Schats produced 364,000 kilograms of milksolids as they cut cow numbers back slightly because of unfavourable weather at the start of the season.

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This season they are targeting 375,000-380,000 kg. Their overall target is 400,000kg.

The couple – who have two daughters, Alexis, five, and Harper, two – say that despite the tough times, they remain dedicated to dairying: “There’s no doubt that one day milk prices will go up,” says Daniel. “it’s just a matter of when.”

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10 |

RURAL PEOPLE » Nathan & Marilyn Parris

Business Rural

Pilot farmers co-operate in quest for meat Neil Grant Collaboration between the Government and the red meat sector has produced the Red Meat Profit Partnership (RMPP) programme. Its aim is to increase profitability and productivity in sheep and beef farming by working with capable and, especially, young farmers. Successful farmers, industry leaders and advisers offer help, and with access to high-level data and technology, it is hoped participants will become more profitable and efficient in ways they, as farmers, can control.

Nathan and Marilyn Parris and their two little daughters farm near Tuatapere. Marilyn is the fourth

DARIN FORDE SHEARING

generation of her family on the property. The couple met at Lincoln University, worked in Canterbury for six years, went overseas, and came back to the farm when her parents decided to retire.

They are part of a group of farming families in Southland on RMPP pilot farms. All want to grow more meat, so there is a strong element of cooperation in their involvement. They meet monthly, often with industry leaders who have some of the best knowledge available and are good at what they do, Nathan Parris says.

The farm is basically a sheep farm with some trading beef cattle. Generally, cattle are bought in September and sold in March and April. Previously the farm ran 30 cattle a year, and they were taken through winter. The Parrises have changed that so that they can run an all-grass system.

“Four years ago we went away from growing winter crops,” says Nathan Parris. “When we started lambing hoggets, we couldn’t grow crops and grow the hoggets as we wanted to. People said it wouldn’t work.

“However, I had a gut feeling we didn’t need crops because we always came through the winter

with surplus grass. We are conscious of building up grass in the autumn, so have to make sure all the lambs are gone by then. We get the grass measured every fortnight, and use these figures to do a feed budget. We carry extra balage made on the farm as insurance, which we can generally sell if we don’t need it.”

The new system has seen ewe numbers increase by 600, and the Parrises still have surplus grass this year.

About 40 hectares are regrassed each year – grass to grass, which is not typical in the region.

A bonus of this is that every paddock becomes available for lambing.

Marilyn’s father had run a coopworth stud and commercial flock, but when, in recent years, stud

PHOTOS Above: Nathan and Marilyn Parris and their two daughters.

Below left: The Parrises say that abandoning winter crops has not affected the quality of their hoggets.

Below: Riparian fencing carried on the Parris property

• To page 11

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RURAL PEOPLE Âť Jonathan & Marion Breach

Business Rural

| 11

Staff top priority for family-oriented farm Karen Phelps

Barbecues for breakfast in the cowshed and staff boat-trips are not an unusual occurrence on the farm where Jonathan and Marion Breach are lowerorder sharemilkers. The couple, who are in their eighth season on a 400-hectare (effective) unit at Heddon Bush, near Winton, say looking after staff is a top priority. “We’re a small, family-oriented farm and we have staff who have been here so long they have seen our kids grow up,� says Jonathan. “Small things show our staff that they are very much appreciated.�

They are also big believers in encouraging staff to progress. Staff have the opportunity to complete AgITO courses. Neel Chand, who has worked on the farm for six years, has completed his level-four production management certificate, and Wade Hendricks, who has been there nearly as long, is due to start on the same qualification.

Marion comes off sheep and beef farms in North

Canterbury and Southland. Jonathan grew up in Rangiora, and became interested in a dairy-industry career while doing an agricultural course at high school, which included work experience on farms.

PHOTOS – Above, left: Jonathan and Marion Breach seek to make every day sunny on their Heddon Bush farm.

Above right: Silage harvest in progress.

Left, Some of the 1150 crossbred cows on the Preston farm.

Pilot farmers work together • From page 10

ram sales decreased as composites become more popular, they closed the stud. Over the last four years they have been breeding towards a flock of a coopworth/texel cross.

Things are currently a bit more complicated as the straight coopworths are being phased out.

The Parrises have an A and B line of ewes. The A line of straight coopworths gets a straight texel ram over them initially. The A coopworth/texels get a coopworth/texel over them. The B line gets a suffolk/texel ram. In the second cycle, all ewes have a suffolk/texel over them. Replacements all come from the first cycle.

This year the farm has produced 470 more lambs than previously; the average kill date has come forward a month, which brings it to a more advantageous time in the schedule, and lambs are 1kg heavier than before.

The Parrises attribute these gains to constant farm development, spraying cobalt on the lambfattening pastures, and better feed management.

A farm mentor and an adviser through RMPP are providing advice, which is also helping drive production.

Marilyn’s parents return to Birchgrove at busy times, and especially at lambing. “John and Susan are our impact players,�

Nathan says. “He helps train new shepherds, and checks ewes that aren’t due to lamb. He keeps the farm ticking over while the younger team are dealing with the lambing ewes.�

Together John, Susan and Marilyn look after the pet lambs before they are adopted onto spare ewes.

Nathan says he is fortunate to have second-incommand Blayne de Vries. He worked on the farm for five years, went overseas for two years, and is now back filling a major role.

Nathan’s competitive streak has seen him take part in a range of Young Farmers competitions over the years.

This year the Parrises won the Southland recognition award in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards. The judges noted their effort in fencing off waterways, looking after soils through their all-grass wintering programme, direct drilling where possible, and seeking information to sustainably improve farm production. “Increasing farm production has been a massive learning curve, but it has been good,� he says.

By the age of 24 he was managing a run-off for a large-scale dairy farm in North Canterbury.

After two years with Landcorp as an assistant herd manager, he worked on a 1000-cow farm at Oxford for a year.

The couple then moved to Southland where he was a herd manager on a 1150-cow farm for two years, winning the Southland Dairy Trainee of the Year title in 2008.

Next came their present position with farmowners Sheree and Russell Preston. The Breaches are milking 1250 crossbred cows this season through a 64-bail rotary shed with automatic cup removers, automatic teat spraying, and Protrack.

The emphasis this season is on reducing the somatic cell count, increasing production, and lowering costs, says Jonathan. He says it has been challenging to get the large herd through the shed and he has worked hard on staff training.

The Breaches trialled a new DeLaval lactic acid-based teat spray last year, and say it helped them drop somatic-cell counts from an average of 175,000 to 125,000; they plan to use this spray more this season.

The herd empty rate was 7.6 per cent last season, which gave them the ability to cull a lot of poorer performing cows.

They are also targeting better use of grass to reduce input costs on the farm, and hoping this will

mean they do not need to buy in feed in the coming eason. They will grow 200 tonnes of barley on farm, assisted by the expertise of Russell Preston, who has a cropping background.

The farm has its own silage chopper and baler wrapper, and is supported by three run-offs (totalling around 193ha) used for running young stock. The herd is wintered on the next-door farm, which is owned by the Prestons’ son.

Despite the dairy downturn, the Prestons have continued to invest in the farm’ They have added a 100ha block of land and installed a 270-day, effluent-storage pond to replace a lower-application system with virtually no storage capacity.

Jonathan Breach says this should enable them to irrigate in summer when the farm gets dry.

Last season the farm produced 487,000 kilograms of milksolids from 1180 cows; this season’s target is 500,000kg.

The Breaches are increasing their equity by rearing heifer calves and leasing them back to the farm as cows. Building their stock numbers will assist them in their quest for farm ownership. “When you are a lower-order sharemilker on a farm of this size, farm ownership is certainly a possible next step,� says Jonathan. “That’s what we’re looking at – either by ourselves or in an equity partnership.�

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Nathan and Marilyn Parris

12 |

RURAL PEOPLE » Karalea

Business Rural

Healthy soils, heathy cows...

Richard (left) and Alan Crowe say this photos sums up their approach. Get the sod of soil right, then your grass will be right, and so will your cows.

‘Everything starts with soil’ Kim Newth Implementing a nutrient management programme that challenges conventional practices has brought significant improvements in soil, pasture and animal health for equity partnership Karalea Ltd, winner of the 2016 Ballance Agri-Nutrients soil management award.

Making up the partnership are long-time dairy farmers Alan and Marion Crowe – who moved to Bankside, north of Rakaia, 17 years ago – and their son, Richard and his wife, Sharon, who manage the farm on a day-to-day basis. Annalea holstein friesian stud cows are milked on the 218-hectare dairy platform, which is part of a 387ha operation that also includes two run-offs.

The story of how this farm has been improved – literally from the ground up – is remarkable. When Alan and Marion arrived at Bankside and converted what was a fairly worn-out sheep farm to dairy, they spent a few years applying standard recommended fertilisers.

As Alan recalls, the net result was “pretty much continual chaos” for both their land and animals, with soil-compaction problems on the one hand, and laminitis and bloat issues on the other.

“The soil was so tight and hard it was terrible to plough, and every time we irrigated, you’d get these man-made lakes appearing. We had to dig

The soil was so tight and hard it was terrible to plough, and every time we irrigated, you’d get these man-made lakes ... soak-holes to drain them! Soil-microbe activity had simply closed down.”

Attending a seminar on biological farming systems in 2007 and other seminars proved a game changer, ushering in a new approach to nutrient management based on the Albrecht system.

William A. Albrecht was an American soil scientist who spent his life investigating connections between soil and animal health. He blamed declining soil fertility on a lack of organic material, key elements and trace minerals, and rejected the efficacy of NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) formulas in agriculture.

The Crowes say the fundamental strength of the Albrecht system is that it treats soil as a living thing.

At Bankside, normal solid granular fertiliser products are combined with microbe feeders, such as seaweed and growth-promoting humate (a salt

form of humic acids). “Humates stimulate seed germination, root growth and the proliferation of desirable microorganisms,” says Alan Crowe.

“They solubilise and make available to plants materials, such as rock phosphate. that are otherwise unavailable.

“Humates possess extremely high ion exchange capacities, and this enables better retention and use of fertilisers by preventing excessive leaching away from the root zones and ultimately releasing them to the growing plants as needed.”

At Bankside the application of humates has seen, from sowing, white clover putting down roots over 100 millimetres deep in six weeks and grass growing 200mm roots over the same period.

Well-established tetraploid pasture has a root depth of 1.1 metres. To achieve these growth rates, care was taken to ensure sufficient calcium and

• To page 13

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Examples of Karalea feed...tetraploid ryegrass (above) and white clover (below).

RURAL PEOPLE » Karalea

Business Rural

| 13

• From page 12 magnesium was present and very low levels of other important trace elements were improved.

Over recent years, total annual pasture grown on the farm has increased from 17,000 kilograms of dry matter per hectare to 19,000kgDM. Alan suggests the ideal ratio required to maximise crop yields is 25 per cent water, 25% oxygen, 45% plant available nutrient and 5% mineral. Based on the Crowes’ experience, this is also a recipe for solving soil compaction, improving water and plant nutrient-holding capacities, and boosting forage nutrient values, along with improved feed conversion to meat and milk.

The Crowes say they are reaping the benefits through better milk quality, improved animal health and minimal damage to pasture from pests.

“And the big one is that we believe we have minimal nutrient leaching, if any,” says Alan. “There is this natural recycling of nutrient is taking place.

Our strategy has changed from feeding the plant from above to feeding the soil so that the soil, in turn, feeds the plant.”

As he puts it, the closer they get to the ideal base-saturation percentages, the better the land performs. Annual nitrogen applications per hectare have dropped from 200 units to 80 in 10 years.

“This year, we had our highest production season ever and our cow production on herd test was the best to date with 631 kilograms of milksolids in 286 days, and a somatic cell count of 70.”

For other farmers thinking about switching to a biological farming system, he advises seeking help from someone who understands how it all works – and he urges patience.

“It takes three years to turn a bad situation into a good one: be confident and stay focused; measure, monitor, observe, and learn what it is that you are looking at. Don’t give up – it will work.”

As well as working to improve soil quality, the Crowes have worked hard to re-grass the farm with tetraploids that have a much more robust

Above: Sixteen-month heifers on one of the Crowes’ two run-offs.

The textroid ryegrass and clover was established in nine months.

“The issue of pasture quality has been a learning curve for us,” says Allan Crowe. “We’re outside the square on the use of tetraploids too, in terms of using it right across the farm and run-offs.”

Left: Balage and pasture on a run-off

• To page 14

Family works on personal service Transport Enquiries Contact Eddie 0274 328 429 • Brad 027 250 1166

Contracting Enquiries Contact Eddie 0274 328 429 • Stephen 027 325 8344

Proud to support Karalea Farm Ltd. office@edswain.nz www.edswain.co.nz

393 Frasers Rd, Dunsandel 7682

Being a small, dedicated, family owned and operated business means that E.D.Swain Ltd can offer its clients a very personal service, says company owner Eddie Swain. The company specializes in grass contracting – baling and individual or tube wrapping – as well as offering a cartage service.

Eddie has a lifetime of experience to offer the business. He was born and bred on a sheep and beef farm in Southland and moved to Canterbury when he was 16 to work on farms and later for a transport company. He started E.D.Swain Ltd in 1987 with one truck. In 2006 grass contracting was added to the services when Eddie, who owns and leases 220ha in Canterbury used for mixed cropping, bull beef and dairy grazing, realized he needed a more reliable service for his own farm. He bought his own baler and before long people started requesting him to do the grass contracting on their own farms and the rest is history.

Today E.D.Swain Ltd offers its services in the central Canterbury region where the company is based, anywhere between the Selwyn and Rakaia Rivers, from the hills to the sea, says Eddie. Trucks, which mainly cart livestock, go South Island wide.

The company also buys and sells baleage and straw.

“We offer our clients a very personal service and turn up when they want us to turn up. We aim to deliver a quality job at a competitive price,” says Eddie. “When it comes to grass contracting timing is everything. By keeping my finger on the pulse I make sure the crop is harvesting at the right time – not too green, not too dry. We keep our equipment

up to date and have two new balers and a new tractor arriving this year. This is important so we can offer a reliable and efficient service as delays can affect our customers’ crops. For example with lucerne, on a hot day, the time from right to too late to harvest can be as little as hours. We need to be there at the right time doing the job.”

Eddie says having both sides to the business enables E.D.Swain Ltd to stay busy all year.

E.D.Swain Ltd runs five truck and trailer livestock units and also a bulk unit, for carting grain, fertilizer etc, with a 30 tonne payload. The company also offers a curtain sider unit for general freight and, in particular, carting potatoes in the region.

Livestock drivers have been hand picked by Eddie and specially trained.

“Dairy farmers’ cows are valuable and need to be treated right when they are being on and off loaded so we put a big effort into training our staff,” he explains.

The company has eight staff dedicated to contracting and six in the trucking side of the business. Son Brad works in the trucking company full time as a driver while son Stephen is involved in the contracting operation. Daughter Anna works in the office with Eddie’s wife Sandra. Both Eddie and Sandra oversee the business.

Eddie says he plans to maintain the business as is but hints there could also be a few more trucks added to the fleet to meet demand.

“The kids are keen to be part of things and continue the family business. We have new clients coming on board all the time.”

14 |

RURAL PEOPLE » Karalea/Fraser & Shelley Avery

‘We’re outside the square in use of teraploids’ • From page 13 root structure, produce better quality pasture and higher ME for their animals, and, by extension, are producing a much higher protein-to-fat ratio of milk than normal and higher milk quality.

“The issue of pasture quality has been a learning curve for us,” says Allan. “We’re outside the square on the use of tetraploids too, in terms of using it right across the farm and run-offs.”

Well-maintained shelter belts further encourage good grass growth on the farm: “They effectively take the power out of the wind, so are of great value.”

At the Ballance awards, the judges noted that while the Crowes’ fertiliser programme challenged

conventional practices, their pastures and soils were healthy with a flow-on effect into cow health, and the family’s herd was high producing.

The judges commended the Crowes’ obvious passion for both their land and their stock, and said they had a deep appreciation of the work of soil microbes, the value of organic matter, and the importance of optimising soil-micronutrient balance and ratio.

The judges commented on the Crowes’ outstanding understanding of their soils, well researched soil management and considered nutrient application, their excellent use of planting for shelterbelts, their considerable measurement, analysis and data to formulate management plans, and their winter milking as a good use of resources.

Business Rural

Lucerne proves Kelly Deeks Fraser and Shelley Avery make the most of what they’ve got at Bonavaree, their 2200-hectare sheep and beef, breeding and finishing, dairy support, and cropping farm at Lake Grassmere, Marlborough, where the average district rainfall is 573 millilitres and ranges between 300ml to 900ml.

“The 900 is harder to deal with,” Fraser says.

“The stock do incredibly well when it’s dry. We grow forages to make the most of limited moisture, including 440ha of lucerne which is a very good converter of moisture to dry matter. For every mil of rain during the spring time, we grow 30 kilograms of dry matter.”

The Averys have grown lucerne for the 98 years Bonavaree has been in the family.

“We used it for hay and seed production, and for the past 15 years we’ve used it for animal production as well, and realised how powerful it is,” Fraser says. “We now have an average weaning weight of 40 to 42kg and 90 to 93 per cent of our lambs are gone at weaning time with a carcass weight around 20kg or better.”

With a focus on per animal performance, the Averys ensure every animal gets the opportunity to express itself and reach its potential.

Fraser is the fourth generation of the Avery family to farm in Grassmere; it started with a 200ha property owned by his great grandfather.

The business has grown substantially, particularly over the past 10 years with him and his father, Doug, both working away at and implementing systems for farming in their climate and environment.

Doug is still involved at board level with Bonavaree, but it’s Fraser running the farm while Doug now travels around New Zealand with his Resilient Farmer campaign, sharing his experience of how he transformed his drought-ridden farm into a huge economic and environmental success.

Fraser continues to develop the business, and has recently expanded again with the purchase of another 500ha property.

“We’ve got better at dealing with the ‘dry’s,” he says. “We’re still technically in two years of drought, but things are looking quite good with the systems we have in place. It’s still tough, but we’ve still been able to grow.”

The Averys have recently changed their stocking policy. They used to run a high percentage of capital stock with very few trading stock, but now have a 50:50 split.

“When it’s dry, we can sell a lot of stock because they’re not capital stock.,” says Fraser. “In the summer we don’t run a lot of stock, so we can go on holiday. We’ve got that flexibility. Farmers can be particularly bad at doing what they’ve always done, and getting out of it what they’ve always got out.”

There is normally a bit of dairy grazing at Bonavaree, which winters about 800 cows. But, at the moment, dairy farmers are not putting their cows out for grazing.

However, the relationships with these farmers will continue.

“Relationships are a huge part of our business,” Fraser says.

“We spend a lot of effort building relationships with all sorts of people, and we’ve always valued the people we deal with. When times are tough, it’s amazing how having these strong relationships can help.”

He says this has been one of his major emphases on the farm, as it’s important to him.

“I’ve always valued people. Good, sound relationships present better business opportunities, and clear communication ensures everyone understands what is going on. I’ve got a big team of staff with five full-timers under me, and it’s important they can consider the whole picture. They know what we’re trying to achieve, and how they play their role in that.”

Relationships are a huge part of our business. We spend a lot of effort building relationships with all sorts of people, and we’ve always valued the people we deal with. When times are tough, it’s amazing how having these strong relationships can help.

Winter milkers enjoy their breakfast.

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RURAL PEOPLE » Fraser & Shelley Avery

Business Rural

| 15

vital crop on Grassmere farm

Lucerne is a key crop for Marlborough farmer Fraser Avery: “For every millilitre of rain during the spring time, we grow 30 kilograms of dry matter.

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16 |

RURAL PEOPLE » Adam & Jenny Waite

Business Rural

PHOTO Right: Jenna and Adam Waite, with their sons, Bayden (left) and Kieran. The Waites who contract-milk at Seaward Downs. near Invercargill, remain hopeful of selling down their stock this season and buying into the property.

Steve Clements Ph. 027 233 6700

112 Otatara Road RD 9 Invercargill

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Southland contract milkers Adam and Jenna Waite are holding to a positive view of the dairy industry, both globally and nationally and for their personal business aspirations.

Adam was among those at the South Island Dairy Event in Invercargill in June who heard varied views from dairy farmers and industry experts on the international situation and outlook for dairying.

However, he remains personally optimistic about the outlook: “We had such a range of views – some people were extremely optimistic and some were still quite pessimistic about the state of the international dairy scene.”

“The world is demanding protein, so somewhere along the line, they are going to require it. We are hoping European Union production will start to decrease in the next three or four months and that

Having access to the wintering barn is significant for Adam and Jenny Waite.

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a lot of those areas that have been stockpiling will diminish their stocks.”

Regardless of the big picture, he says he and Jenna are fortunate to have the experience and loyalty of their farm’s owners, Kevin and Debbie Hall, behind them.

“They have faced these sorts of adversities before, so have been supportive. We contract-milk which gives us a lot of certainty over our payment.

We are not having to worry about it as much as, possibly the variability that lower-order sharemilkers or 50:50 operators have.”

The Waites peak-milk about 460 cows on 150 hectares at Seaward Downs, 20 kilometres east of Invercargill. After contract-milking for the Halls at Browns, in Central Southland over three seasons until 2014, they were happy to move with them. The Halls now milk about 480 cows on 145ha “almost right across the road” at Seaward Downs.

One of the big plusses of the move from Central Southland is that the farms are considerably closer to a 180ha run-off block, 16km away at Waimahaka, where about 700 cows and young stock are wintered.

Last season about 120 tonnes of palm kernel was bought for the Waites’ farm while 90 tonnes of silage was also harvested from the property.

Further support is provided by a Redpath shelter on the run-off used for wintering 700 the mixed-age cows – which are “anything that’s not a heifer”.

Having access to the wintering barn is significant, Adam says. “We are probably more confident in turning out a better conditioned cow at the end of the winter than if we were grazing on chou or swedes or fodder beet.”

The Waites’ 220 cows range from calves to mixed-age cows. For the past two years, they have leased 80 in-calf heifers to the farm’s equity partnership; another 95 are leased in North Otago.

Despite the benefits of the combined farm system, along with the couple’s excellent relationship with the Halls and Adam’s optimism, present cow prices have forced the Waites to reconsider plans for an equity partnership in the farm this year.

“Stock values decreased, we lost a lot of equity, and it just didn’t feel right so we didn’t pursue it,” says Adam. “If stock values increase this season – and we’re hopeful things will go that way – we hope to sell down and buy into this farm

Business Rural

RURAL PEOPLE » Paul & Tracey Ruddenklau

| 17

Crop consultancy yields farm-data portal Sue Russell Paul and Tracey Ruddenklau moved to manage Kilbrannan Farm, owned by James and Fiona Macdonald, in 2003. The farm is at The Key, near the base of the Takitimu Ranges in the Te Anau area.

Two years later they began converting the farm to organic practices and in 2008, the 358-hectare sheep-and-beef farm gained full ‘Biogro’ accreditation.

“We have always farmed with minimal chemicals and believed in using natural fertilisers, so to achieve Biogro status really came down more to dealing with a whole lot of paperwork than substantially altering our practice,” Paul says.

The farm’s lamb, beef and wool are marketed through Organic Futures Paul says the company is very proactive in supporting farmers attain official organic status and in finding markets for New Zealand organic products which carry premium value overseas.

“They will source feed for you if you’re running low and also help get rid of excess stock to sell to other organic farms to keep them in the system.”

Through gaining experience and understanding in soil chemistry, Paul established a consultancy business supporting 30 farmers (mostly conventional), who for the last seven years, have been receiving advice from him on how to grow crops efficiently.

Through this farm-consultancy work, Paul saw a need for a way that he, his clients and contractors could gather and share information. A chance meeting with Agrimap chief executive officer Andy Lowe subsequently led to the co-founding and development of Agri360, a sophisticated yet very user-friendly software program farmers can buy to record, store and share real-time farm data from their computers and smart phones.

“We found at the time that the farm-system and data recording software was far too complex and didn’t offer enough ability to link one set of data with another easily. So, between Andy and I scraped together enough to employ a tech genius, Matt Gilbert, to create software that would revolutionise and simplify how farmers could input, access and share farm-performance information.”

Agri360 has been on the market for 18 months now and sales have been phenomenal, says Paul.

Before it was launched, the software package was “tested” by the 30 farmers Paul consulted for.

“These were clever farmers but not computer geeks, so they were ideal to test the system on,” says Paul. “The feedback we got confirmed that we had something special.”

Having information easily accessible allows farmers to get more value from data, he says.

And having key information available at key times

Key to the product’s success is that the software has deliberately not been built ‘narrow’. It is open to linking with other data-software systems.

Paul Ruddenklau and Agrimap chief executive officer Andy Lowe, founders of the Agri360 software program that records, stores and shares farm data. leads to more informed decisions. The ability to filter this information quickly is also an advantage, especially with the increasing number of regulatory requirements farmers are having to meet.

He says thousands of users have come on board, straddling 18 countries. With growth in sales sky-rocketing, Andy and Paul have taken on 10 staff.

“The program is so adaptable and appropriate for almost all forms of farming, not just traditional sheep, beef and dairy. We even have a fish farmer in Thailand recording, storing and sharing his farm’s data through the Agri360 programme.”

Key to the product’s success is that the software has deliberately not been built “narrow”.

By that, Paul means it is open to linking with other data-software systems.

“It is so wide at the base that it will be able to operate in partnership with other software, making Agri360 a portal through which any and all farming data can be recorded, stored and shared.”

Always looking for new ways to improve their farm’s performance, the Ruddenklaus decided to grow fodder beet. Their crop yielded 19.5 tonnes at a cost of $1400 per hectare.

“Another one of our big successes is in understanding the farm’s strengths and weaknesses,” says Paul.

“We have 90 hectares of gravel ground where crops won’t grow, so we planted lucerne which yielded 15-20 tonnes of dry matter compared to seve or eight tonnes of grass on the same ground.”

Managers Paul and Tracey Ruddenklau started converting Kilbrannan Farm, near Te Anau, to organic practices in 2005. The 358-hectare sheep-and-beef farm gained full Biogro accreditation in 2008.

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18 |

RURAL PEOPLE » Duncraigen Farm

Business Rural

A haven for angus genetics Neil Grant The bridge across the Waiau River, just south of Manapouri township, enabled Landcorp to open up its Duncraigen Farm. Previously, stock either had to be rowed across the river, or persuaded to wade if flows were low enough.

Access has allowed the property to develop and it is now the only South Island Landcorp farm breeding angus cattle – Duncraigen is a breeding partner for Focus Genetics,.

The farm has a total area of 1346 hectares, 1180ha of it effective, and 700ha of that cultivatable flat to rolling. The rest is in Queen Elizabeth 2 Trust covenants and bush, or is wasteland.

Farm manager Greg Crombie says he and his staff seek to use the latest systems and processes to maximise performance, minimise environmental footprint, and maintain a healthy, work/life balance.

“We supply more than 200 bulls to the dairy and beef industries. We are a provider of genetics.

There was a change in Landcorp’s business model – it wanted to sell genetics outside the company to give external farmers the opportunity to be involved.

“Our herd is in the top 10 per cent in New Zealand in the Angus Pure Index, which accounts for the maternal characteristics as well as the carcass (eating quality).”

As dairying has pushed beef cows further into the hill country, cows that will produce heifer calves with good lifetime performance and easy calving are important, he says.

“Our genetics are now in 17,000 beef cows in the South and North Island. With Landcorp’s new farm management system, FMS (Farm IQ), we are constantly gathering data that enables us to set objectives to achieve continuous improvement in our commercial breeding and finishing cattle programmes.

“Our bulls go to Otago, Molesworth, the West Coast, Southland and the North Island. They are tested under harsh conditions on places with large herds with thousands of cows.”

It is also important that the cattle are functional and structurally sound, he says.

Above: Bridge access has allowed Duncraigen Farm near Manapouri to become Landcorp’s only South Island farm to breed angus cattle.

Right: All Duncraigen calves are weighed within the first 24 hours, then at 200, 400 and 600 days.

“We want to know that once bulls have left Duncraigen, they not only deliver to the purchaser’s expectations, but also to the consumer of the progeny in regards to taste and consistency of desired product. This completes the genetic package. We strive to get things right, and we are continually measuring to achieve our benchmarks.”

• To page 19

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RURAL PEOPLE » Garrad Haden & Megan Linton

Business Rural

| 19

Fodder Beet key to 1million kg goal Karen Phelps

Concept Farm managers Megan Linton and Garrad Haden are in charge of a 2400-cow farm at Maniototo for owners Greg and Kelly Kirkwood.

With nearly one million milk solids under their belt and managing 20 staff, Garrad Haden and Megan Linton have doubled their responsibilities in the past 13 months. Garrad was previously managing a 1150 cow unit in South Canterbury before taking charge of a 2400 cow farm called Concept Farms at Maniototo for owners Greg and Kelly Kirkwood.

“The increase in numbers of staff has been the biggest change,” says Garrad. “They are a vital and integral part of the business and we can’t do it without them so it’s been a matter of gaining an understanding of each individual in order to see them reach their potential and achieve the desired outcome for the business.”

Concept Farms has three dairy platforms and the lease of Edenbank, a 450ha support block used to winter cows and rear 700 R1 and 700 R2 heifers. Concept milks 2500 Friesian Jersey crossbred cows at peak on 750ha of irrigatable land. The land is split into three farms: Roseneath, Ryders Terrace and Vance with a dairy shed on each farm: two forty aside herringbones and a new 60 bail rotary. Garrad says the new shed on Vance will increase efficiencies across all three sheds. It will enable them to milk up to 1300 cows through the new shed and reduce herd numbers from 750 to 600 through the other sheds thereby increasing staff efficiency.

During winter cows are split into calving groups for simplicity at calving. The cows calve and are milked through one herringbone shed as colostrum cows before being separated and milked through the other two sheds. Roseneath milks the late calving cows from the end of calving on. Each farm has a manager who is in charge of the day to day running of the farm. Garrad takes an overall view of the operation and resources such as machinery and staff shared when need be.

The farm has nine centre pivots meaning 700ha of the farm and 400ha of the run-off are under irrigation. Fodder beet has proved an efficient and cheap feed and this season they will plant 80ha of

the farm and 140ha of the run-off in the crop.

“We’ve found cows are in better condition and we can keep that condition on for longer with fodder beet than we have with other crops. The growing season is shorter than we’ve been used to but during some of this growing season pasture supply far exceeds demand and traditionally silage has been cut. Having around ten per cent of the milking platform in fodder beet that surplus is reduced and is simple to manage. It’s been a cheap and high source of energy provided we get a decent crop, costing 9.5 cents/kilogram of dry matter. We need to average 25 tonnes per hectare to make it work for us,” says Garrad.

With a target of one million milk solids in their sight fodder beet will be a key part of achieving this.

Garrad and the team break-feed milking cows on fodder beet in the autumn, which gives them the ability to keep condition on cows and stretch days in milk. This also means the cows are transitioned on arrival to the wintering block. The focus for the coming season is to keep day-to-day management simple and costs to a minimum. With 2500 cows and the target 400 kilograms of milk solids per cow one million solids should be achievable. The sensitivity around this target is around 50,000 kilograms of milk solids in January/February when irrigation tends to come under pressure. Garrad has identified that he needs to push production before Christmas to mitigate this potential dry spell over summer. They will do this while cutting costs as much as possible with a target of $3.80 farm working costs after achieving $4 the previous season.

The couple see their new position on Concept Farms as a real opportunity. Megan takes care of the administration, health and safety and calf rearing aspects of the business. Their overall ambition is farm ownership.

“This is something we believe we can certainly realise in this region compared with Canterbury as land prices are more attractive here. We will focus on keeping things simple, running a low input system and keeping farm working costs down while still achieving good production.”

Duncraigen ‘provider of genetics • From page 18 The farm has 550 recorded cows (250 first- and second-calvers). The calving percentage ranges between 94 and 96 (all cows must rear their first calf as a two-year-old to have a chance to stay in the herd) and the dry rate is three to five per cent..

“We wean approximately 200 days from birth and target to do an average of 1.2 kilograms of liveweight per day,” says Greg Crombie.

“We typically cull between 150 to 170 in-calf females a year, which gives us huge selection pressure. This really rockets the genetic progress of the herd.”

All calves are weighed within the first 24 hours, then at 200, 400 and 600 days, and cows are weighed at weaning time. They are also eye-muscle scanned and carcase-analysed.

Landcorp believes overseas chefs wanting consistency of taste and appearance and local shoppers interested in buying ethically produced product are prepared to pay more.

Landcorp uses the Pamu brand for products with guaranteed provenance. So far, this has applied only to deer products in New Zealand, but the aim is to extend it to the company’s beef, lamb and dairy products.

Duncraigen also runs 2800 commercial ewes; trial terminal sires and 600 of the ewes are ;progeny-tested for eating quality looking for gene markers. Eighty per cent of the lambs are killed off their mums at 18.5 kilograms, and 4000 lambs are bought in for finishing at 17.5-18kg. The target is 8000 lambs a year.

“The first rule in business is to stay in business,” says Greg Crombie.

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20 |

RURAL PEOPLE Âť Midddlehurst Station

Business Rural

Irrigation ensures winter feed supply Karen Phelps Willie and Sue Macdonald have alleviated some of the risk associated with summer farming in Marlborough by installing 60 hectares of irrigation over the past few years.

The gravity-fed system ensures they will have winter feed for their station, Middlehurst, which is at the head of the Awatere Valley where average annual rainfall is around 600 millilitres.

They will grow 15 hectares of swede this year and 5ha of fodder beet - a successful trial will see them triple their fodder-beet production next year. Fodder beet is currently fed to heifer calves, but next year it will also be fed to cattle and some hoggets.

Middlehurst’s 18,212 hectares ranges in height from 600 to 2238 metres. It carries 5000 merino ewes, winters 4000 hoggets, and 1000 cattle.

A block at Cheviot is used to finish surplus ewe hoggets and all wethers, and all young cattle. The Macdonalds are currently subdividing paddocks to give better control of grazing management and smaller-sized lambing mobs; the aim is to increase survivability.

The couple havedeveloped a diverse business, which, they say, has proved a good mix. They have survived the vagaries of the wool and meat markets by securing fixed contracts, facilitated through The New Zealand Merino Company, running years in advance. Sue says fixed contracts, such as what they have with Icebreaker, gives their farm clear direction when sourcing genetics and for their breeding programme. “It definitely simplifies things because we are growing product for a specific market. When we pick rams, we always choose for these

• To page 22

Sue and Willie Macdonald, who farm Middlehurst Station, in Marlborough’s Upper Awatere Valley.

(CTO$WKNF FQGU TWTCN DWKNFU FKHHGTGPVN[

+V U GUUGPVKCN HQT TWTCN FGUKIP CPF DWKNF Ć“TOU VQ WPFGTUVCPF HCTOKPI RTQEGUUGU 9JKNG OCP[ DWKNFKPI EQORCPKGU UKORN[ CRRN[ UVCPFCTF TGUKFGPVKCN FGUKIP CPF EQPUVTWEVKQP VGEJPKSWGU VQ TWTCN RTQLGEVU (CTO$WKNF KU FKHHGTGPV “We have 70 years' experience working with agricultural farmers,â€? says Colin Gregg, FarmBuild's Managing Director. His business partner Patrick McCarthy, Managing Director of FarmBuild South, is adding extensive scope throughout the lower South Island. He adds, “We know their processes, because our team has been around them for their whole lives.â€?

This experience has been applied at Middlehurst Station, in the Inland Kaikoura Ranges. “We've done a lot of work in isolated areas, and in fact nothing is too 'remote' for us,� says Colin Gregg, who has taken on projects only accessible by boat, helicopter, and in Middlehurst Station's case, rugged high country terrain which ranges in altitude from 550 to 2500 metres.

FarmBuild has a dedicated history of designing many different types of rural buildings, from traditional country homesteads to workshops, covered yards, sheds, and stables. Dating right back to 1939, however, is FarmBuild's experience in building woolsheds of exceptional design and quality, like the one the team recently built at Middlehurst Station. “It's not just a woolshed, it's a beautiful building,â€? say Middlehurst Station owners Willie and Sue /CEFQPCNF QH VJGKT Ć“XG UVCPF UVGGN CPF VKODGT

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woolshed, which was designed in combination with FarmBuild's existing plans from previous woolsheds, and the Macdonald's individual needs. “The key thing is, it's absolutely functional,â€? says Willie. “With some woolsheds, the sheep LWUV FQP V Ć”QY KP DWV DGECWUG QH (CTO$WKNF U MPQYNGFIG QH UVQEM Ć”QY CPF JCPFNKPI VJKU KU outstanding.â€?

The FarmBuild team have built a reputation on no job being “too big, too small, or too far away�.

They also excel at meeting deadlines, no matter the weather. The Middlehurst Station woolshed, for example, was completed during one winter, and ready in time for the shearing season to open in September. Consistent with FarmBuild's history, the woolshed was delivered on time and within budget. “I give them 10 out of 10 for serious organisational skills,� Willie adds.

Maintaining an open and ongoing relationship is integral in FarmBuild's process and is hugely important to Colin, Patrick and their VGCO ŏ9G TG C JCPFU QP VGCO ŏ9G NKXG CPF breathe every project while we're onsite,� they UC[ ŏ#PF CHVGT ƓPCN JCPFQXGT QH VJG MG[U we provide ongoing support – even on the smallest matters.�

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RURAL PEOPLE » Middlehurst Station

Business Rural

068-Shepherd Plus Advert 180x130.pdf

Top left: A four-wheel-drive club weaves its way through tussock country at Middlehurst Station in the Upper Awatere valley. Other photos: Middlehurst is tough country – temperatures fluctuate from -10 degrees celsius to above 40 degrees, there’s an average of 200 frosts a year, and snow can occur at any time.

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RURAL PEOPLE » Middlehurst Station

Business Rural

Middlehurst Station is one of New Zealand’s original high-country runs, situated in the Upper Awatere Valley, Marlborough. The station extends right to the top of the rugged Inland Kaikoura range. It’s classic high country, ranging in altitude from 550 metres to nearly 2500m...ideal merino country.

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characteristics. With fixed contracts, we can budget much more accurately because we know what we’re going to get for our wool several years from now.”

The MacDonalds have their own merino stud and started importing genetics from Australia in 1998 when they took over Middlehurst.

“When we came here, we appreciated the size and constitution of the sheep but the wool on their backs was not very nice – strong and harsh handling. We looked around New Zealand for genetics, but there was nothing we really wanted as we were aiming to breed a dual-purpose merino,” This year they did AI on 300 ewes with imported semen from studs in Australia. While aiming to keep all the traits in balance, they are always keeping an eye on where improvements can be made as they breed towards better fat and muscle, and lamb survivability.

“Our wool attributes are good, so it’s about constantly shifting the goalpost,” says Willie.

With fixed contracts, we can budget much more accurately because we know what we’re going to get for our wool several years from now...Our wool attributes are good, so it’s about constantly shifting the goalpost They sell up to 100 rams each year privately. In addition to the merino stud, the MacDonalds run 500 crossbred cows.

Calves are weaned in May/June and, depending on pasture levels, may be sent to the Cheviot block.

If replacement heifers are sent to Cheviot, they return in calf the following autumn.

Both of the MacDonalds come from farming backgrounds.

Willie’s family farmed in the Te Anau basin and he worked on high-country farms before they bought Middlehurst, in 1998. Sue grew up on Halfway Bay Station, near Queenstown, and has a Certificate in Wool qualification from Lincoln

University. She has worked as a shepherd and wool certifier.

In 2004 the MacDonalds won the Lincoln University Foundation Rabobank Farmer of the Year competition.

They have children Sophie, 22, Henry, 21, Lucy, 19 and Skye, 17. Sophie is ground-crew manager for Sounds Air and Skye is in her last year at Rangi Ruru Girls’ School.

But with Henry working as head shepherd at Okari Station in the North Island, and Lucy on a cattle station in Australia, it is looking fairly certain the next generation will be carrying on the family farm one day.

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SECTION Âť Feature

PGG Wrightson Water Open New Flagship Location in Rangiora PGG Wrightson will officially open their new flagship facility in Rangiora on the 15th of September, completing the transition from their previous Ohoka site.

The new facility houses the water divisions head office, main warehouse and fabrication workshop for the country as well as the sales, service and operations teams that support the North Canterbury region.

The new, purpose built facility continues a long and proud history for the water division who have been delivering irrigation solutions to the rural, horticulture and viticulture sectors for over forty years.

The business has expanded over that time and outgrown their old site in Ohoka, which started the project to design a new facility that could support the business through its next forty years.

The new site houses the main warehousing for the country which now occupies 6,000 square meters of sealed yard and 560 square meters of internal warehouse. As the main logistics hub for the country, the site holds the bulk of the stock that supports the regional branches around the country and also assembles the materials for new project builds and dispatches the job lots out to farm.

The extent of the stockholding reflects the wide diversity of irrigation projects that the PGG Wrightson team undertake. These can range from small lifestyle projects right through to multi-million dollar large scale farm conversions and everything in between.

To support the sales and design teams across the country, the Rangiora site also houses the main fabrication workshop where the team of

highly skilled welders and fabricators construct the headworks for new projects. The team have now moved into a new facility complete with all the equipment needed to carry out this fabrication work efficiently, safely and to the exacting standards that the industry requires.

The sales design team based at the new facility is the largest of the regionally based teams and is supported by the engineering standards team also based in Rangiora.The team of qualified sales designers have a depth of experience and industry knowledge that enables them to provide solutions to any irrigation requirements that customers may have, with the added advantage of the installation teams to support these designs through to completion.

The facility also houses the service team that covers the North Canterbury region, providing the vital aftersales support through winter service programs and breakdown service.

PGG Wrightson Water have formed alliances with market leading brands over the years including Valley pivot and linear and OCMIS hard-hose irrigators along with a wide range of key suppliers of irrigation fittings and equipment.

The overall combination of market leading brands, extensive industry experience and the connection to the wider PGG Wrightson network, ensures that the water business are able to provide the best solutions to meet their customer’s needs.

The new facility is located on Southern Cross Road in Rangiora where the team are ready to assist with any irrigation requirements and to show off their new facility.

24 |

RURAL PEOPLE» Des & Lynda Ford

Business Rural

Balfour Deer Improvement farm managers Des and Lynda Ford have picked up the Ballance 2016 Massey University innovation award on the back of genetic gains and improved sustainability.

Genetics delivers ‘outstanding results’ Russell Fredric Genetic gains for venison production and improved sustainability were two of the reasons Deer Improvement Ltd and farm managers Des and Lynda Ford won the Ballance 2016 Massey University innovation award. Deer Improvement has donated the $1000 award prize to nearby Northern Southland College, in Lumsden.

The Fords have managed a 400-hectare property at Balfour, in Northern Southland, since it was bought in 2005 and set up as a base for LIC’s Deer Improvement Ltd red-deer breeding programme.

Up to 2200 deer are wintered on the farm’s

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effective 333 hectares – a mix of breeding hinds, rising one-year-old weaners, rising two-year-old stags, hinds retained for breeding or sale, and elite mixed-age stags used in breeding programmes.

The farm is in two blocks of easy rolling to hill country; a road divides the blocks.

Two age groups of stags and the main farm are on one side of the road; the other side is known as the “isolation block” – for bio-security reasons, and to safeguard against Johne’s disease. It has not had a live animal on it since its original hinds.

The farm’s genetics programme is delivering outstanding results, says Des Ford.

Deer Improvement sires dominate the New Zealand DEERSelect rankings for red-deer breeding values relating to growth and carcass weights and indexes for early-kill and terminal-sire performance.

Geneticist Jake Chardon makes the decisions on genetics for the farm’s herds.

“We use embryo transfer over the very best of our 18-month hinds and they are AIed to the best of our spikers each year,” Des Ford says.

This short-generation process means genetic gains are achieved rapidly: “Every year we are selling better and better animals to the industry.”

The net effect is that the national deer herd is “most definitely” being improved, he says.

“We have clients who have been following us from day one, and are very loyal and excited about the animals they are growing, and their production.”

All fawns are weighed eight times in their first year, as well as being eye-muscle scanned and DNA-tested.

Selection traits include the foetal age of hinds (because the younger they get in calf, the more fertile they are) and conception date (because “some blood lines will breed earlier”).

The farm is about to adopt the CARLA (carbohydrate larval antigen) saliva test, which the deer industry could use to select animals for resistance/resilience to parasites. It measures antibodies triggered when animals ingest internal parasites. A saliva test for the antibody, developed

A planting plan established in 2005 has seen all waterways and gullies on the 400ha Balfour Farm fenced or double fenced and planted out. for sheep by AgResearch scientists at the Hopkirk Institute, has been trialled successfully with deer.

Initial DEEResearch trials in deer found that high CARLA levels in autumn and spring, in response to greater parasite challenge, were correlated to lower parasite burdens. This makes CARLA a useful predictor of resistance to parasites in farmed deer, says Des Ford.

Looking after the environment is also part of the farm managers DNA.

Bruce McGregor

027 233 2063 bmcgregor@deerimprovement.co.nz www.deerimprovement.co.nz

A planting plan was established in 2005, and all waterways and gullies have been fenced or doublefenced and planted out. Considerable investment has also been made in creating a wetland area that includes native and riparian plantings.

“There’s very little water that flows on to the farm,” says Des Ford.

“It all flows off, so we’re pretty conscious of trying to make sure it leaves the farm in a good clean state.”

SALMON FARMING

Business Rural

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Kiwis sign up to A+ scheme Karen Phelps A new sustainability programme, known as A+, has been launched by Aquaculture New Zealand with the aim of continuous improvement for the local industry “It’s an industry led initiative to engage our communities and demonstrate that we are doing a good job,” says New Zealand Salmon Farmers’ Association chair Mark Preece.

The programme provides a framework of environmental standards, performance indicators, a self-reporting system and third-party audits to give markets confidence in the environmental integrity of the industry, he says.

It concentrates on a number of areas, including healthy ecology, water quality, responsible waste management, efficient use of resources, guarantee of food safety, and enhancement of communities.

The key elements of A+ include care of people and place through clear environmental objectives and best-management practices, proof of sustainability through a system of self-reporting and third-party assessments and regular reviewing of progress, and identifying new ways to of sustainable management for the industry.

Mark Preece says the sustainability trend is being led from users, such as customers in restaurants: “People are becoming much more responsible about what they put in their mouths. They want to know how the salmon has been grown and where it has come from. It’s not just about eating any more – it’s about eating responsibly.”

He says the New Zealand Salmon Farmers’ Association has had a good sign-up of members to the programme.

“As an industry we are also developing codes of practice that our members can use to become compliant. We will continue to develop these.

Aquaculture New Zealand has launched a new sustainability programme focusing on a number of areas including healthy ecology, water quality, waste management, and guarantee of food safety.

The programme will involve the industry working together, and the result will be a better industry.”

The association represents the producers of more than 98 per cent of all salmon farmed in New Zealand.

Members include active freshwater and seawater salmon farmers, salmon processors, and service/product suppliers to the industry.

Mark Preece says that the salmon industry in New Zealand is worth $60 million in export earnings each year. New Zealand has a distinct advantage

It’s an incredibly high-value product, like the champagne of wine...As an industry in New Zealand, we can maintain a price point many times higher than the usual prices of other species of salmon,

internationally as it is the only producer in the world breeding the sought-after king salmon.

“As a species king salmon represents less than half a per cent of the salmon market globally, and New Zealand produces 80% of this,” he says.

“It’s an incredibly high-value product, like the champagne of wines. In all the top Michelin restaurants king salmon is on the menu. It’s high in omega-3 fatty acids and has a soft, buttery texture.

“As an industry in New Zealand, we can maintain a price point many times higher than the usual price of other species of salmon.”

That New Zealand selected to breed king salmon was largely a matter of chance, he says. All salmon species were originally introduced to New Zealand, but, whereas the rest of the world chose to breed Atlantic varieties, the New Zealand industry concentrated on king salmon.

It’s harder to grow, but over three decades the Kiwi industry has developed techniques to counter the difficulties the breed represents, he says.

New Zealand’s salmon-farming industry has evolved from a group of innovative pioneers to a professional, specialised and quality-food, production sector focused on environmental sustainability, food safety and value-added marketing, he says.

New Zealand salmon is now exported to 30 countries and last year the salmon industry generated $128 million in revenue and provided employment for hundreds of Kiwis.

He says there is tremendous potential for growth as the New Zealand industry cannot meet current, international demand for the product: “We are presently around a 12,000-tonne per annum industry in New Zealand.

“We are working with both local and central government to gain more water space to increase production. In turn, this will create much needed regional jobs both in aquaculture and for activities that supply the sector, and generate significant export earnings.”

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26 |

SALMON FARMING

Kapaua..one of two new salmon farms operated by NZ King Salmon in Pelorus Sound.

Business Rural

Two harvested Ora King Salmon.

New farms break nine-year spell Two new salmon farms operated by New Zealand King Salmon have been opened in Pelorus Sound, the first new space allocated for salmon in the Marlborough Sounds in nine years. The farms are at Waitata and Kopaua. A third farm (Ngamahau) has also begun operating in the Tory Channel.

The new farms will enable New Zealand King Salmon to virtually double salmon production from around 6000 metric tonnes to 12,000 over the next few years. The company has four other farms in Queen Charlotte Sound and the Tory Channel.

The extra production is destined for international markets, particularly North America. The first harvest from the Waitata farm took place in July and produced salmon averaging more than four kilograms in size. The farms are in cool, deep water with high flow.

NZ King Salmon chief executive officer Grant Rosewarne says it will be up to 16 years before the new sites are in the first stage of farming, with small increases allowed every three years in accordance with resource consents and environmental conditions.

“Once fully operational, salmon farming in Marlborough will generate around $230 million in direct revenues plus flow-on business for companies supporting the industry. These include transport operators, engineering firms, science providers, tourism operators, local contractors and retail shops.”

Both farms have been built to blend with the environment with nautical-style barges and muted camouflage colours.

The pens are a new Wavemaster design with a lower profile. They are flexible so that they can cope with the seas in the more exposed sites of Pelorus Sound. The pens measure between a third and two thirds of a hectare (a rugby field is about one hectare) and sit in water 35 to 55 metres deep.

From left, Environment minister Nick Smith eyes fillets at the opening of the new Kopaua salmon farm in Pelorus Sound. From left, filleter Ricky McLaren, NZ King Salmon’s general manager of marketing, Jemma McCowan, and chief executive officer, Grant Rosewarne.

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SALMON F ARMING » Mt Cook Alpine Salmon

Business Rural

| 27

Mt Cook Alpine Salmon produces around 1000 tonnes annually from three sites, the Tekapo and Ohau canals, and Lake Ruataniwha’s exit canal (Ohau B). It takes two years for freshwater king salmon to reach the right weight for market, about four kilograms.

Premium water, premium product Kim Newth Clean, cold, fast flowing water – along with a premium diet – is producing some of the planet’s best salmon, according to Mt Cook Alpine Salmon compliance and assets manager Rick Ramsay “Effectively we are farming on quite substantial rivers that are very clean and high oxygenated. It’s a unique combination of nature and nurture that allows us to produce this salmon. It would be hard to replicate anywhere else.”

He says a combination of minimal human intervention, low stocking densities and some of the best water in the world is producing naturally healthy fish, prized for both taste and texture.

The aquaculture producer runs a raft farm system on three sites in the Mackenzie Country: the Tekapo and Ohau canals, and Lake Ruataniwha’s exit canal (Ohau B).

Annual production is around 1000 tonnes, and poised to rise over the next year or two as the farm grows.

The company installed its first trial raft in the 1990s, and, says its three rafts in the Ohau B outlet set the standard for what can be achieved in modern, freshwater aquaculture.

Each raft is a fully enclosed net supported by a floating structure, with the net being around 115m long and subdivided into 10 or 11 pens. It takes two years for freshwater king salmon to reach the right size (roughly four kilograms) for market and most will spend that time in one raft.

“In late September to early October, we start

It’s a unique combination of nature and nurture that allows us to produce this salmon. It would be hard to replicate anywhere else. getting the new generation of smolt coming in,” says Rick Ramsay.

Stocking rates are kept low and in scale with net specifications that vary according to canal depth, (the deepest nets are 4.5 metres at Ohau B). Feed, sourced from an international supplier, is sustainable and certified GM-free, he says. Staff hand-feed salmon and keep a close eye on fish growth and health.

The company, the first such farm in Australasia to receive best aquaculture practice certification, continues to meet audit standards.

‘Last year, it was recognised as one of the most sustainable salmon farming operations in the world, earning a Best Choice (green) rating from Seafood Watch, operated by the US-based Monterey Bay Aquarium.

“We have just gained our BAP certification again for the third year,” says Ramsay. “They look at every aspect of what we do, from water quality through to how we look after our staff.”

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28 |

IRRIGATION » North Otago Irrigation Company

Business Rural

Pipeline target date revised Karen Phelps About 70 of 110 kilometres of the pipeline involved in the expansion of the North Otago Irrigation Company scheme has been completed.

“We have nine crews working on pipe-laying,” says company chief executive Robyn Wells.

“They are aiming for an average combined rate of around 4000 metres a week, increasing as we get down to the smaller diameters.”

The scheme takes water from the Waitaki River, pumps it from Borton’s Pond (at the intake of the Lower Waitaki Irrigation Scheme) into a canal, and through two pump stations lifting it to a head pond at a scheme high-point.

Pumped side-lines take water from the canal or head pond to two Duntroon lines, a Glen Settlement line and two Tilverstowe lines.

From the head pond, a gravity line takes about two-thirds of just over 4 cumecs down into the Waiareka Valley.

A share in the scheme provides 0.4 litres per second to be spread over at least a hectare, which is the equivalent of 25mm per week. Water is delivered to farmers’ properties via an off-take box, which is part of the scheme infrastructure.

The off-take contains isolating and pressurereducing valves, and a flow meter which regulates the pressure and the amount of water that can be delivered to individual properties.

A major benefit of the scheme is that the water is delivered under pressure to most of the farms involved and, in almost every case, no further pumping is needed on the farm, says Robyn Wells.

The expansion capacity brings the total allocation to 8 cumecs.

This is delivered from the head pond in a

separate main gravity spine, except for some load balancing from the original stage-one infrastructure through three sets of cross-connections.

Pump stations and booster stations have been upgraded as part of the expansion, and four new booster stations have been added.

The expansion also includes tripling the head pond to accommodate maximum capacity within a four-hectare area, and installation of piped distribution extensions from the new pipeline spine.

Robyn Wells says up to 700 litres per second of water is consented to go into Waiareka Creek for use by irrigators downstream. To service these shareholders, the exception to the resource-consent condition, the irrigation company has to ensure

a minimum flow of 100 litres per second at the confluence to the Kakanui River to improve the habitat of the creek.

The company’s technical manager, Ben Stratford, says that because the expansion has to be integrated into the original infrastructure, the project has been programmed so that certain work will be completed in the non-irrigation season.

Design and construction has proceeded on a staged basis to preserve reliability for shareholders.

The expected completion date of September 1 has been pushed out to early December, though staff are working towards staged commissioning so that some completed areas may get their water earlier.

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Business Rural

IRRIGATION » North Otago Irrigation Company

| 29

Five earn grants for environment Representatives of five farms involved in the North Otago irrigation scheme have been recognised for their environmental management in the 2015-16 season. Each of the farms – operated by Callum and Twyla Kingan, Grant and Becca Isbister, and Francois Tillard – won a North Otago Irrigation Company grant of $1000 for use in native or riparian planting.

“Despite challenging times for farmers, the five farms maintained a high priority for environmental stewardship,” says company chairman Leigh Hamilton. Special mention should also be made of the recipients’ on-farm staff, he says.

NOIC’s external, environmental farm-plan auditor, Ian Brown, says farmers in the scheme

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North Otago Irrigation Company construction manager Roger Lawrence oversees the laying of the new pipeline for the expansion project.

have good irrigation operating procedures in place as part of staff training. However, an area needing work is the use of soil-moisture probes to schedule irrigation: “While many farms are taking this approach, embedding this in normal farm decisionmaking is the goal for NOIC.” .

Two environmental update workshops were run in July for shareholders. These involved feedback on environmental farm-plan auditing and monitoring, discussion on what is working well, what is not, and what is needed. A nutrient budget specialist and NOIC’s environmental manager offered advice, and oversaw a case-study on a farm with the aim of improving practices and demonstrating impact on the environment.

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30 |

SHEEPBREEDERS » Stonehenge

Business Rural

Keeping it simple at Stonehenge Neil Grant The Rock and Pillar Range and Rough Ridge close up at the southern end of the Upper Taieri Plain.

The broad expanse of the Maniototo Plain around Ranfurly to the north has drawn in where the Taieri River winds and loops its way across the flats. But there’s no sense of claustrophobia. Although the two ranges rise steeply, they are flattish on top, so the blue, overarching sky draws the eye to the largely treeless horizons, guarded by schist tor sentinels.

Stonehenge and Patearoa stations run from the valley floor to those barren tops. Charlie and Andrew Hore, their father, Jim, and wives, respectively, Belinda, Frankie and Sue, carry on a more-than-100-year family tradition of high-country farming.

“We like to keep it reasonably simple,” Charlie Hore says, referring to the family farming systems.

He has simplified his father’s version which is, “Simple farming is what we do here. Feed the bastards and they’ll produce you something.”

Simple farming involves coping with long, hot, dry summers, and long, cold, often snowy winters.

The commercial flock has 10,000 merinos, 2000 half bred ewes (merino/romney first-cross), 200 flock romneys and 200 stud romneys. Tradition has all the sheep being mustered by horseback from the tops before winter. The farm has appropriately placed huts for this annual, rather social, event.

Three studs run by father and sons collaboratively provide stock for annual ram sales. There is no big sale day. A selection of 280 halfbreds, 100 merinos and 35 romneys get drawn off. A list of previous buyers is drawn up and they get to select what they want when they turn up during January and February.

• To page 31

PHOTOS – Above: Mustering by horseback on Stonehenge Station. Below: A chance to refresh while crossing a stream. Bottom: A mob takes cover from driving snow.

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SHEEPBREEDERS » Stonehenge

Business Rural

| 31

PHOTOS – Left: Stonehenge’s commercial flock has 10,000 merinos, 2000 halfbred ewes (merino-romney first cross), 200 flock romneys and 200 stud romneys. Right: Dogs grab a rest during mustering.

Fodder beet puts results on the board • From page 30

Keeping it simple does not mean never changing. In 2015 the Hores planted five hectares of fodder beet, as well as the customary swedes.

“We had good results, so now we’ve got 16 to 18 hectares,” says Charlie. “We’re feeding all the calves on it, and they’re all fat. It’s all about killing the weeds – keeping spray on it. It’s more expensive than swedes but lasts longer. We’ll get the steers away a couple of months earlier, especially in dry summers.”

Hereford cattle do well in this country. They are hardy and docile. About 150 of the 450 breeding cows get an angus bull across them. The rest go to a hereford to breed replacements.

“The angus bull gives hybrid vigour. Some people like a first-cross heifer, and the steers fill out and grow a lot quicker. They’ve got a wee bit more spunk in them, though.

“We always try to improve our stock, lambing percentages, and wool weights if we can. We’d like to get irrigation on Patearoa, so might build a dam. We don’t have enough shares (in the irrigation

scheme) to keep the paddocks growing, so could store some up to use throughout the summer. The surveyor and engineers have done their stuff. If we got more grass we could do more finishing.”

Most wool is sold on contract through Merino New Zealand. The Hores have moved from superfine, used for a diminishing suit market to fine, which goes to companies like Icebreaker, Smartwool and Godfrey Hurst. Fine fleeces are heavier, too.

Many of the lambs are sold to the Silere side of Silver Fern Farms. This more exclusive market

caters for those whose refined taste hankers for the distinctive flavours developed in merinos that have foraged among the mountain tussocks.

Charlie Hore counts himself among those diners.

“Merino tastes a lot better than crossbred,” he reckons. “Merinos like that native stuff. In dry conditions there’s not so much for them to eat, but stock health’s been very good, so they seem to be enjoying life.”

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32 |

SHEEPBREEDERS » Colhoun Genetics

Business Rural

Scanning adds breeding edge Karen Phelps David Colhoun believes that running a sheepscanning operation alongside his Colhoun Genetics coopworth and suftex stud has helped him breed better sheep.

“Because I see a lot of stock at scanning, I see the challenges facing farmers and gain an understanding of what they are trying to achieve.

This gives me good insight for my breeding programme.

“For example, I see a lot of new clients who are coming from a composite background and want to come back to a more sound structured sheep that breeds true. So that’s a focus for me.”

Located in North Makarewa, Southland, Colhoun Genetics sells all animals privately on farm and has a strong loyal customer base in Canterbury. The stud comprises of 950 coopworth and coopworthtexel ewes, and 500 suftex ewes.

Colhoun Genetics sells just over 300 two-tooth rams a year and also hires or sells more than 150 ram hoggets. David would like to increase the suftex side of the business to meet growing demand as the breed is seen to be outperforming other terminal sires in terms of meat yield and growth..

He aims to source new genetics every year and is involved in Alpha Sheep Genetics, a group breeding scheme where participants share rams in their quest to get their hands on the best genetics.

Last year he bought two rams from the North Island – a suftex from Paki-iti Farms, and to try something different, a romney ram from, Pahiwi Stud, which is on hard hill country.

“I believe it will be an exciting cross to put over my stud and I’m always keen to trial top bloodlines.

I am a firm believer that it is best to source genetics from like-minded breeders as this gives more chance to produce a really top ram.”

David Colhoun grew up on the farm next door, which is run by his brother, John. David says there was never any doubt in his mind that he wanted to be a sheep farmer. In 1976 he went to Lincoln

David Colhoun says he concentrates on growth rate and meat yield with a ram of ‘substance and quality’ University and completed a diploma of agriculture then went full-time shearing and worked at the Makarewa freezing works a couple of months each year to save the deposit for his first farm at Clifton.

He bought, leased and sold land until, in 1989, he bought his present 130-hectare unit.

He started Colhoun Genetics in 1985 as a way to diversify his income. Coopworth genetics were in great demand at the time because of low fertility in New Zealand flocks. The coopworth concept of

performance recording – something new for the industry at the time – proved popular as opposed to buying rams just by eye.

“Genetically it was exciting because we started from a low base, so our clients made good gains quickly on fertility and easy-care attributes.

“Now that has changed dramatically as fertility is no longer an issue for my clients. So I’m now focused on growth rate and meat yield with a ram of substance and quality.”

The fact that Colhoun Genetics is purely a stud operation with very few commercial sheep is a point of difference, he says. The dairy industry drove up the price of surrounding land making expansion problematic, leading him to venture into

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other areas such as scanning. He also enjoys the time it gives him away from farm, talking to other farmers and seeing how they manage their stock.

He is also a keen traveller and takes six weeks out each year to do an overseas adventure. These have seen him scale Machu Picchu, and visit Angkor Watt (Cambodia) and Petra (Jordan).

He says his work-life balance enables him to return each year to his sheep stud with renewed vigour.

“I’m really passionate about breeding top-quality sheep. Every year it is still exciting looking for the new crop of lambs coming on the ground. “ I see the gains my clients have made over the years and I feel privileged to be a part of that.”

Business Rural

SHEEPBREEDERS » Doughboy Romneys

| 33

Breeders rewrite romney rulebook Kim Newth Selling an established farm (Gleneyre) at Oxford to take up a relatively undeveloped hill-country property (The Doone) on the Inland Road between Waiau and Kaikoura was not an easy choice for the Taylor family..

It meant relocating their Doughboy Romney stud that has produced many show winners since its establishment in 1953. Doughboy rams have been exported,to South America, Australia, China and Kenya.

Traditionally, the romney has been considered best suited to flat, lush country rather than steep terrain with often harsh weather.

“Perception has been hard to beat but coming to a place like this, we should be able to put this behind us,” says Hugh Taylor, (he and wife Diane have owned the stud since 1984. Their sons, Marcus and Richard, are farming at The Doone.

The Taylors have been re-writing the romney rule book for some time. Their stud is leading by example in demonstrating that romneys can adapt to a tougher life in hill country. The goal is to breed a romney that can thrive in any location and any seasonal or pastoral conditions. Stud stock are run with commercial stock to get an accurate record on performance in a commercial environment.

“By putting our romneys under pressure, we can effectively sort the good ones from the bad ones and breed from the ones that do well,” says Hugh.

“We are going back to a more compact romney.”

Selected romneys of moderate frame and weight are also proving remarkably tolerant to cold, with the rate of birth losses much lower at The Doone than at Oxford.

“We think the reason is that the ewes are a lot fitter on the hills.”

Much work has been done developing the 3500-hectare property over the past three years –.

180ha has been cultivated and extensive fencing rolled out, along with an extensive fertiliser and re-grassing programme. Last summer they put in a water scheme that uses solar energy to pump water.

The Doone is running 8500 stock units, including 2100 romney ewes, 2400 romney halfbred ewes, 1100 hoggets and 300 angus cows.

“We plan to increase stock numbers, but a lot depends on the sustainability of lamb and wool prices,” says Hugh Taylor.

The Taylors have long made use of technology to in their selection decisions, and record data around meat yield, growth, wool quality and fertility.

Collecting this data on hill country is strenuous work, but improvements at The Doone have made access easier. EID tagging enables data to be collected on progeny.

“Information is power when coming to stock selection and these are tools of the trade that we use,” says Hugh “We work with [Lincoln University scientist] Jon Hickford, to share information and monitor production traits, .and one of his students helps us during lambing. It is important we work together with Lincoln for young farmers.”

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34 |

SHEEPBREEDERS » Richard & Keri Young

Business Rural

Hoggets wintering on swedes on Richard and Keri Young’s 290-hectare farm at Pomahaka. The Youngs have been active in promoting farming as a career and have welcomed students from the Telford Campus of Lincoln University on to their farm for over a decade.

Young people key to future of farming Neil Grant “I believe in farmers being active in promoting agriculture to young people and getting them into the industry.” says Richard Young, from Pomahaka, south of Tapanui.

“If we don’t invest in young people, it is to our own detriment,” he says.. . “Agriculture is a great industry, and there are a lots of job opportunities other than just farming in the rural sector. We need to get that message

out there by encouraging our staff to participate in further education via industry-wide discussion groups, field days and the like.

“Farmers sharing their knowledge through schools and young-farmer groups, for example, will help accelerate young people’s understanding of our sector. These groups will take the offer to hear your stories with open arms, so don’t be afraid.”

The Youngs have been involved with the Telford campus of Lincoln University. They have had students come onto their farm for a week

Sheep and grain farmer Richard Young (left) with his head stockman, Levi McCall at a time over the last 10 years, getting a basic understanding of agriculture.

“The courses attract city children as well as country ones,” says Richard Young. “They range from those who know very little to pretty capable ones. You have to be prepared for them to be part of your family and put some time into improving their capability. They are 17 to 19-year-olds, and for many. it is their first time away from home. It is very rewarding. We still keep in touch with many of the students we have had and follow their progress.”

The dairy downturn has wider implications than just for dairy farmers, he believes. A sheep-andgrain farmer, he reckons the whole rural sector needs to just “hang in there and be supportive of one another”.

“Downturns come and go. We need to ride the waves out. Strong rural communities depend on all businesses doing well.

“Feed-barley prices have fallen by 25-35 per cent this season – we to are not recouping our costs of production. We need to be mindful we don’t lose vital links in our business communities as this will impact long-term on rural communities.”

Banks seem to be more supportive than they were in the 1980s, he says. Then, interest rates were higher, and many banks pulled the rug out from under farmers in financial difficulty.

“History will tell you that this option by some banks impacted highly on the level of trust rural people now have of some them. Today’s lowinterest-rate environment is certainly helping us withstand the vagaries of farming and commodity cycles.”

The Youngs’ farm is 290 hectares of flat to rolling country pressing up against the Blue Mountains. It was his uncle’s farm; he grew up on his father’s farm nearby. Three years at university earning a Bachelor of Commerce, seven or eight years of shearing, and 23 years of farming on his own account all count for something when it comes to having an opinion or two.

He became the inaugural chairman of Meat Industry Excellence (MIE) when it was formed in 2013 to try to address farmer frustration around the lack of profitability in the red-meat sector.

• To page 35

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SHEEPBREEDERS » Waikaka Genetics

Business Rural

| 35

Thick fleece ‘as important as ever’ Russell Fredric While genetic gains in New Zealand sheep have been rapid in recent decades, Waikaka Genetics has had time on its side in developing its romney stud flock.

Waikaka Genetics has been breeding romney sheep for five generations; today the stud also breeds and sells texel, romney-texel and romneyperendale..

Situated on a 730-hectare, flat to rolling inland Southland sheep and beef property, the stud is owned and run by Ross Paterson and his wife, Stephanie, and his parents, Laurie and Sharon Paterson.

“Over all those years the focus has changed quite a bit,” Ross Paterson says.

Despite the lack of value in wool, the Patersons have chosen to maintain the stud’s bloodline of romneys with the genetics of a true dual-purpose sheep.

“We still think wool’s got a value and it’s worth having,” says Ross. “It costs you the same amount to shear the sheep if you get five kilos of wool or two kilos of wool, so we try and look after our wool.”

The stud has a loyal client-base of repeat-buying farmers who value the consistency of its rams.

“Over the years the importance placed on wool has diminished, but we maintain the belief that a thick fleece is as important as ever, and this is a prominent trait shown in our romneys.”

We still think wool’s got a value and it’s worth having. It costs you the same amount to shear a sheep if you get five kilos of wool or two kilos of wool, so we try and look after our wool.

Waikaka Genetics, a 730ha sheep and beef property, breeds quality romneys, texels and hereford cattle on flat to rolling land near Gore.

“We are trying to make genetic gains within the breed, rather than bringing in outside influences.”

With the size of the Waikaka farm having grown without a corresponding increase in staff, easycare sheep with good mothering ability have become especially important.

“They have to look after themselves a whole lot more than they used to,” says Ross.

Waikaka Texels was started in 2000 with the

China offers huge potential • From page 34 Developing an industry consolidation plan was the driver. When he was elected to the board of Silver Fern Farms later that year, he resigned from MIE. Initial attempts around consolidation between Silver Fern and Alliance did not result in any positive progress. Silver Fern’s 2015 decision to raise equity and the resulting 50:50 joint venture with Shanghai Maling now leaves SFF in a position to drive its value-added strategy and take advantage of its partners expertise in the Chinese market. The deal gives access to capital that SFF had been unable to raise within New Zealand.

“Shareholders have now overwhelmingly supported the deal twice by over 80%. We now only require Overseas Investment Office approval for it to proceed. Let’s hope now that the wishes of the majority of shareholders can proceed and the company can get back to the business of adding value to our shareholders’ and suppliers’ natural grass fed red meat.”

Along with the board, Young believes it is “a

good outcome”: “It has the potential to fast-track more of our product out of the commodity space into the value-added space. A group of us spent five days in China.

“It was an eye-opener. The affluence in their market is huge and the potential for New Zealand produce in general is unlimited – we ignore that at our peril. Shanghai Maling want our product packed and made in New Zealand, not shipped to them to process.

“Their investment here opens up their huge retail chain to us. They want our product because it has integrity, it is farmed and processed in an environment that exhibits world-class practices and standards.”

The Shanghai Maling investment gives SFF the opportunity to fast-track its ambition of leading the industry, says Richard Young..

“It’s imperative we migrate our raw product up the value chain, more chilled and value-added product sold into affluent markets is how we will gain more sustainable levels of profitability in the red-meat sector.”

purchase of seven in-lamb ewes from Blackdale Stud, Riverton, a multiple Beef and Lamb New Zealand Sheep Industry Awards winner, and has grown to 200 ewes.

Along the way the texel stud has used some notable sires such as Blackdale 447/03. The ram spent a number of years at the top of the Central Progeny Test trial and left a very good line of breeding ewes, while Brenley 66/08, bought in

January 2010 in partnership with Mervyn and Judy Mitchell, worked very well across the progeny of 447.

“This cross has sold very well and achieved many stud ram sales and achieved the top price in New Zealand for two more years,” says Ross Paterson He says Waikaka Genetics buys its texel rams on type and muscling, preferably as a twin, with the aim of breeding a structurally sound sheep which lambs easily, with exceptional growth rates, good eye muscle and a deep back end.

Selective breeding has also eliminated feet problems, which had previously been an issue in the texel flock.

“We are measuring birthweight, weaning weight, liveweight 8, on to eye muscle area. We also weigh our ewes at mating, aiming to get more weight in lambs at weaning than the ewe’s pre-mating bodyweight.”

“We have found over the last couple of seasons that a texel ewe-hogget can lamb at 4.5 to 5 kilograms easily, and feed these well.”

Waikaka Genetics Laurie & Sharon Paterson 03 207 2835 / 027 436 5747 Ross & Steph Paterson 03 207 2510

www.waikakagenetics.com - Contact us for Ram sales

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Phone 03 203 7422 or 027 201 3065

36 |

SHEEPBREEDERS » Armidale Merino Stud

Business Rural

PHOTOS Above: Stud merino rams take stock on Armidale.

Below: The next generation of sheep breeders...Hugo and Bede Paterson.

‘Market Neil Grant

They may run them through the race two or three times till their final selection. We have plenty of cups of tea and scones. You don’t lose a lot of weight at sale time

www.armidalemerinos.co.nz www.facebook.com/armidalemerinos

Gimmer Burn winds down from North Rough Ridge, west of Ranfurly in the Maniototo, on to flat-torolling country, widely recognised as a source of inspiration for many Graeme Sydney paintings.

Students of Late Middle English language will know that a gimmer is a ewe between its first and second shearing. Gimmer Burn, like nearby Ewe Burn and Wether Burn, were named by provincial surveyor John Turnbull Thomson in the 1850s. He was a pretty smart fellow, because the region is still widely known for its sheep production, and none more so than at Armidale, on the banks of Gimmer Burn.

Anthony Paterson bought Armidale in the 1880s after Puketoi Station was broken up. It has remained in the family ever since. Now covering more than 2000 hectares, 120 of them irrigated (a figure soon to be increased by pivot irrigators), it has summer droughts, and long, cold, often snowy winters.

Perfect for merinos.

Armidale Merino Stud is run by father and son, Allan and Simon Paterson. Year after year, Armidale has won more awards at the Canterbury A & P Show than you can throw your musterer’s stick at.

Most of these awards, like 2015 supreme champion

Business Rural

SHEEP BREEDERS Âť Armidale Merino Stud

| 37

Armidale Merino Stud walked away with both supreme champion merino and supreme champion wool breeds at last year’s Canterbury A & P Show. Placing a greater emphasis on ewes’ mothering ability has seen a dramatic increase in lambing percentages, says Simon Paterson.

comes to meet us for a change’ merino, and supreme champion wool breeds sheep of the show, are presented for individual animals. “We are rapt with these awards,� says Simon Paterson, “but the big one for us was 2016 ‘clip of the year’ at the Otago Merino Association’s Merino Excellence Awards, because that recognises the performance of the whole clip.�

For some years, many merino farmers concentrated on the very fine micron wools which were much in demand. The Patersons worked on developing genes favouring heavier, free-growing wool of slightly higher micron, growth rates and weaning percentage. “We never chased the micron – we stuck to our knitting,� says Simon. “The market has come to meet us for a change. “We are always trying to increase lambing percentages and wool weight. You always play around with different genetics to get variation. “Awards, like clip of the year, show ram-buyers how your genetics perform in other environments.

Different clients have different preferences, but everyone wants stronger wool at the moment.�

Armidale Stud sells its rams over a two-week window at the end of January. Established clients from Awatere to Millers Flat get put in the diary to view the rams on site. “Usually we have four clients a day; two in the morning before and after smoko, and two in the afternoon likewise. We have a discussion about genetics, what direction they want to go, and do they want anything different from last year. “Some like to see the figures straight away, and some like to pick what they like the look of first and then get the figures.

“They may run them through the race two or three times till their final selection. We have plenty of cups of tea and scones. You don’t lose a lot of weight at sale time.�

Eighty per cent of Armidale is cultivatable, and 20% is hill country. The pivots will increase the area available for crop by 15ha and help provide a higher quality feed. “We are looking for better finishing ability for our lambs. We want to finish our terminal lambs first, then our halfbred lambs can move onto it, then the merino lambs, taking them through the winter.

Traditionally we have grown ryegrass and clover.

Under the pivot, we will grow lucerne on half of the land, and a clover mix with some plantain and chicory on the other half.�

Ryecorn is proving a good crop, and the Patersons now grow 80ha to graze the hoggets over winter. It is more drought-tolerant than other winter crops they have grown, and grows longer through the winter. Silage, hay and balage are also grown and harvested.

Armidale’s breeding objectives continue to be to strive for correct conformation and good constitution, says Simon Paterson.

This last season saw a “fantastic scanning� of 169 per cent in the merino stud with under 3% dry. “We are always working on survivability of the merinos– minimising wastage to get a good number of lambs weaned. “We’ve been doing benchmarking lately, and over the last five years, our economic farm surplus against the average is going up $4 a year per sheep stock unit. “We’ve got to be doing something right.�

Hugo Paterson lends a helping hand at shearing.

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38 |

Business Rural

SHEEPBREEDERS » Hazeldale Stud

PHOTOS: Above: Hazledale Stud owners Richard and Kerry France farm 6000 stock units on a 568-hectare property at Moa Flat.

Above right/far right: The stud’s perendale sheep are the ideal type for the farm’s rolling hill country, which includes 120 hectares of gullies, and ranges in altitude from 280 metres to 520 metres.

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Perendales go anywhere Russell Fredric Hazeldale Stud owners Richard and Kerry France believe in a two-pronged approach – keeping to basics while using science and technology – is the way to breed well-rounded perendale sheep.

The Frances’ farm 6000 stock units on a 568-hectare property at Moa Flat, bordering southern Central Otago.

Hazeldale Stud was a finalist in this year’s Beef and Lamb New Zealand Maternal Trait Leader for Lamb Survival award.

With an altitude ranging from 280 metres to 520 metres, the farm has a continental climate. Cold winters and early springs typically produce five or six snowfalls a year, followed by dry summers resulting in 820 millimetres of annual rainfall.

The stud’s hardy perendale sheep are ideal for this kind of climate and the farm’s rolling hill country which includes 120 hectares of gullies and 40ha of trees to provide at total of 400ha workable.

Richard France says the uptake of much of the most productive flat land for dairying in New Zealand has created strong demand for the breed.

“They can go to any country and perform.

You can put them on really good country and they will perform, you can put them on some of the gnarliest, hardest parts of New Zealand and they will perform.

“We’ve got about 70 ram clients around New

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Zealand and a lot of the rams go in places that are pretty testing and reasonably extreme.”

South Island clients farm in areas ranging from lowland areas to remote hill country fringing mountain ranges and prone to heavy snowfalls or severe droughts.

Since buying the stud from Clinton in 2002, and adding further genetics through acquisitions, the Frances have increase tripled the stud ewe flock from 380 to 1250. Hazeldale also farms 500 stud ewe hoggets, 530 ram lambs and 30 rams running alongside a commercial flock of 2500 sheep, 160 cattle and 470 deer.

The original flock had a natural fertility gene which is still present, But it is the core genetic attributes such as constitution, meat and eyemuscle yield, parasite resilience and resistance, and survivability that remain central to the stud’s objectives.

Hazeldale’s sheep have also developed a reputation for being strong-boned, with good muscling and a good spring of rib, which all up, results in a well-rounded animal.

A sample of ram lambs is CT-scanned at Lincoln University each year as one means of assessing sire lines.

Kerry France was involved in lamb-survival research at AgResearch, Invermay, for five years; her knowledge is a great asset in selecting Hazeldale’s best stock for breeding.

Despite the technology and genetic information available these days, Richard France still believes in “sticking to the basics”.

“You are looking at six, seven or eight things in a dual-purpose sheep. You can’t go to extremes. It has probably taken us 10 or 12 years to stamp our mark on what our sheep look like. I think people are happy with what they are getting, and the performance. We are getting some pretty amazing results out of some places.”

While “everybody talks about rams”, it is actually the ewes that are the ultimate driver for producing top results, he says.

“I think that’s our strength here with the females we have. Year after year they’ll produce good lambs and mother them well.”

Business Rural

SHEEPBREEDERS » Mt Guardian Perendales

| 39

Live exporting ‘demanding game’ Neil Grant When Massey University’s Geoffrey Peren and others put cheviot rams over romney ewes in the mid-1950s, a new breed was developed. And it quickly found favour with farmers becoming disillusioned with their romneys, which had stopped performing to expectations.

The perendale (named after Peren) proved easy care, fertile, and hardy in most environments. It was a good mother, and the lambs produced a heavy, lean carcase for the chilled trade.

After World War 2 when a lot of marginal land was under development but not getting much fertiliser, the perendale helped break this land in.

Tim Anderson’s father and grandfather formed a partnership establishing Kali Mera farm at Hundalee, between Cheviot and Kaikoura. It is 922 hectares of rolling to steep country, plus a further 300ha now leased. Only 20ha is flat, a third is in bush. Big tractors can cope with pasture renewal on some parts, but over all, the biggest challenges are drought and keeping weeds under control.

Stocked with perendales since the late 1950s, the Mt Guardian stud was established on the farm in 1954. Ownership passed to Tim and his wife, Sue, and now their son, Edward (Woody), carries on the family tradition. Mt Guardian has been performance-recording since the mid-1960s (SIL No 2).

“We try to breed a well-balanced type of perendale, and keep up with technology,” Tim Anderson says. “We’re the only perendale flock fully recording parentage through ‘snip chipping’, which involves taking a tissue sample for DNA so that we can match sire and dam.”

Mt Guardian uses Shepherd Plus, a Zoetis product, for taking accurate recorded pedigree and performance traits to allow fast genetic progress in the flock; and Ani-Mate, an AbacusBio software system that assigns ewes to rams to promote breeding elite individuals while reducing in-breeding. Success is dependent on the use of electronic ID tags, tissue samples and automatic drafters.

“The old stockmanship and judgment of animals still comes into it, just knowing certain ewes would not be appropriate to go to a certain type of ram,” says Tim. “You’ve got to have some variables for genetic progress, but you can stuff up a type of sheep by going to extremes.”

The stud sends rams around New Zealand and a recent move has been to get 120 ewes into the Australian market.

“Exporting genetics to Australia is another string to our bow. A lot of Australian sheep are based on coopworth, poll dorset and border leicester. For the last five or six years we and others have sent the odd perendale ram or semen to Australia to be infused into their maternal breeds. By downsizing the sheep and muscling them up, you improve efficiency. A smaller animal uses less food.”

The Andersons have exported 120 ewes – a not insignificant number – to a breeder north of Geelong who wants to maintain a purebred flock. “ We will be helping him with recording and marketing rams to the commercial world,” says Tim. “He’s going to be recording through our system as a sub-flock on our SIL records.”

He says exporting live sheep is a demanding game and required an enormous amount of cooperation from Mt Guardian’s breed inspector, Ivan Evans, North Canterbury vet Ian Page, Assure

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“Before export, the isolation unit required three weeks of housing and feeding on grating, which was managed by Woody. A very high standard of hygiene and attention to detail was necessary.”

Times have been tough for North Canterbury and Marlborough farmers. Two years of drought have required them to feed supplements like palm kernel, balage and nuts to maintain their flocks.

Money spent this way reduces money available for fertilising and pasture renewal. Many farmers reduced ewe flocks to take on dairy grazing as a side industry, but the dairy downturn has thwarted this. It could lead to an increase in flock numbers, perhaps increased demand for rams.

For the Andersons, diversifying into live sheep exports to Australia, taking on more bee-keepers who are using their stands of kanuka, and possibly expanding into catering for tourists can make coping with the drought easier. But, some good rain would be pretty nice.

Mt Guardian’s Woody (left) and Tim Anderson are diversifying by exporting live perendale sheep to Australia, including a recent shipment of 120 ewes to a Geelong breeder. Before export, the sheep were isolated for three weeks of housing and feeding on grating.

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40 |

SHEEPBREEDERS » Hillgrove Rams

Business Rural

Arnie keen on special genes Russell Fredric

Hillgrove Rams, owned by Arnie and Fiona Gray, supplies romney, texel, suftex and romney-texel rams with various genetic options.

At this stage we’ve got an elite romney flock with the davisdale gene in it. We are around the 67-70% twinning rate at scanning.

Suff-Tex

• High growth rates and meat yields • Dark feaztures and hardiness • Myomax DNA tested

Texel

• High meat yields and good growth rates • Good conformation and hardiness • Inverdale DNA tested

Rom-Tex

• Good growth rates and meat yields • Good fleece weights and hardiness • Inverdale DNA tested

The ability to offer farmers a variety of sheep breeds and genetics is one of the strengths of Hillgrove Rams.

Owned by Arnie Gray and his wife, Fiona, the stud operates from a 520-hectare (effective) farm at Orawia, in Western Southland, supporting 5250 ewes, 500 hoggets, 150 ram hoggets and 100 mixed-aged rams.

The stud supplies romney, texel, suftex and romney-texel rams with various genetic options.

The Grays work with their son, Robert, and run their farm runs in conjunction with a second property, a 240ha (effective) fattening unit, in nearby Lilburn Valley. It is home to 1300 romney ewes, 450 romtex ewes, 900 in-lamb hoggets, 300 dry hoggets and 60 rising two-year-old steers and heifers. The two properties combined support 10,500 stock units.

Nine thousand lambs are usually fattened to 18.75 kilograms, with stores added in good seasons.

Arnie Gray has a long association with sheep genetics, having worked for AgResearch during the 1970s.

He has also been closely involved in on-farm genetic research trials with now retired AgResearch scientist George Davis, who discovered the inverdale prolificacy (fertility) gene in romney sheep. The official launch of the inverdale gene in late 1997 took place at a field day on the Grays’ property.

“We were involved in a lot of trial work that is part-and-parcel of farming today,” Arnie Gray recalls .

The naturally occurring gene boosts pregnancy scanning percentage and the potential number of lambs weaned by producing more twin and triplet lambs.

However, the potency of the gene means it is better suited to less productive farms with flocks scanning below 160 per cent than in areas like Southland where sheep with the gene can scan up to 240%., he says A romney flock run by the Grays is involved in ongoing on-farm trials related to the Davisdale twinning gene, also discovered by George Davis.

“At this stage we’ve got an elite romney flock with the davisdale gene in it,” says Arnie. “We are around the 67-70% twinning rate at scanning.”

Because a DNA test has not yet been developed for the davisdale gene, there is no certainty a particular sheep is carrying it, which means its presence is assessed through progeny testing.

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SHEEPBREEDERS » Rangiatea Perendales

Business Rural

| 41

and variety

Blair Gallagher, of Rangiatea Perendales, is on a mission – to source the best genetics available.

PHOTOS – Top: A romney flock run by the Grays is involved in ongoing trials relating to a twinning gene called the davisdale gene.

“The main focus of the davisdale flock is for our own replacement rams,” says Arnie Gray.

The davisdale gene produces fewer singles and triplets, but more twins, making it ideal for a maternal flock, whereas sheep with the inverdale gene are ideal for a terminal flock.

A further factor in Hillgrove’s genetic mix is that all suftex and texel rams are tested for the MyoMAX meat yield gene, which produces more muscling in the leg and loin, less carcass fat and a higher carcass weight. The stud’s texel flock now carries double copies of the gene.

Hillgrove’s 350 SIL-ACE recorded suftex ewes are its biggest sellers, says Arnie..

“I’ve been line-breeding suftex since the early 1990s. The rams we use are all being used as

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terminal sires. Our main focus is on liveweight gain and yield.”

The breed is also favoured because it is easily identified and, because it is early maturing, is also popular for producing store lambs.

Texel and romney texel rams are sold either with or without the inverdale gene.

Those with the gene are ideally suited for harsher inland areas where ewes cannot be flushed; the choice of rams is particularly important for farmers who are dependent on the store market.

“They can use this gene and still get a good scanning, and grow the sheep out over the winter.”

Arnie contacts his clients personally each year, to keep in touch with the performance of progeny and to discuss farmers’ needs.

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Quest for the ‘best genetics’ brings reward Russell Fredric Rangiatea Perendale Stud co-owner Blair Gallagher’s passion for sheep breeding has developed into one of New Zealand’s finest perendale studs.

His quest to source the absolute best of genetics has led to Blair and his wife, Sara Gallagher, being recognised in this year’s Beef and Lamb New Zealand Genetics sheep industry awards where the stud received the Maternal Trait Leader for Lamb Survival award.

The award means the stud was judged to have sire-rams with the best maternal genetics for lamb survival, based on figures supplied to Sheep Improvement Ltd, says Blair Gallagher.

“It was thrilling really and it is based purely on the genetic merit that Beef and Lamb puts into the SIL programme. The exciting thing was that there were three perendales in that final award. It’s an accolade for the breed really.”

The Gallaghers seek to select the best possible genetics to enhance bottom-line profitability in a commercial environment; all sheep are subjected to intense grazing systems, high stocking rates and are bred to perform.

Blair Gallagher believes the award reinforces that perendales are good mothers and their lambs good survivors, particularly as the sheep population shifts into foot-hills and hill country situations.

While much research in recent years into lamb survival has been connected to management and, environmental factors and traits such as mothering ability, the award is purely related to genetic merit for progeny which show a higher heritability for survival compared to other recorded rams.

It was thrilling and it is based purely on the genetic merit Beef and Lamb puts into the SIL programme. The exciting thing was there were three perendales in the final.

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42 |

SHEEPBREEDERS » Rangiatea Perendales

Business Rural

Year-on-year improvement, at hear of Rangiatea’s genetics • From page 41

PHOTOS (above and below): Rangiatea Perendale Stud, near Mt Somers, covers 1160 hectares of hill tussock rolling to flat cultivated paddocks. The farm carries 9500 stock units, including 780 recorded perendales and 400 to 500 cattle. whiteness, and the style of wool.”

Rangiatea Stud is part of a collaborative breeding programme with growbulk breeder Don Morrison, of Rosedale Growbulk, in the Waikaka Valley of Southland, and Gordon Lucas. of the Nine Mile Merino Stud, near Tarras.

Blair Gallagher says the perendale-growbulk cross from Rangiatea and Rosedale is an option for farmers to acquire bring in the best of both breeds’ production genes, then stabilise them back to the perendale.

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Situated near Mt Somers in Mid Canterbury, Rangiatea was bought by Blair’s father, Colin, in 1959. The stud was registered in 1971, with its foundation ewes coming from Massey University’s Flock 1.

The property covers 1160 hectares, which includes a 200ha lease block/ The farm carries 9500 stock units, including 780 recorded perendales, 90 recorded cheviots, and 400-500 cattle.

Since taking over the stud from his father, Blair Gallagher’s focus has always been to improve the genetics of its sheep year-on-year.

The Gallaghers have been prepared to invest heavily to achieve this quest; at this year’s Gore ram sale they paid $13,500 for a perendale ram bred by David Ruddenklau and David Smith, of Five Forks, in North Otago. The ram was ranked in the top five per cent for SIL recorded rams in the New Zealand flock.

Rangiatea Stud’s own rams have been in strong demand each year, fetching top prices at some sales.

In conjunction with selection on genetic merit, Rangiatea retains just 30 to 35 per cent of the very best progeny.

“We do cull them hard to try and achieve as much genetic gain as possible,” says Blair Gallagher.

This combined approach means Rangiatea’s recorded flocks are “well above average”.

As well as survivability and key traits such as type, conformation and structural soundness, weaning weight at 100 days, driven by the milking ability of ewes, is important because many of Rangiatea’s clients fatten store lambs.

“We are also recording 200-day weights, eye muscle-scanning all the ram hoggets, and recording wool weights and fertility. We also put a lot of emphasis on the soft handling of wool, the

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SHEEPBREEDERS » McDonald Family Partnership

Business Rural

| 43

Family partners eye succession Kim Newth The McDonald family partnership runs two top sheep studs (snowline and ranger), but rates farming succession its current number one goal.

The partnership is comprised of: Cromwellbased John and Joy McDonald; their son, Jason and his wife Tracey, who farm at Cheddar Valley Station in North Canterbury; and their other son, Glen, and his wife, Alisa, who farm the Kinaston run at Roxburgh and Snowline Station at Lake Onslow.

John McDonald outlines the plan: “Our primary goal is farm succession to enable Jason and Tracey to farm on their own account with sheep and beef and continue to develop the snowline sheep and ram business, and to enable Glen and Alisa to farm on their own account with sheep and beef and continue to develop the ranger sheep and ram business.

At 71, John is also seeking to secure a good income for his and Joy’s retirement and to support two non-farming siblings.

In the meantime, the McDonalds are committed to driving profit through genetics for their ram clients by a variety of means, such as breeding sheep that readily bounce back from extremes of drought or snow. Cheddar Valley Station, for example, has been through two very dry seasons, but ists thick-set snowline ewes, stud and commercial, are in great order and scanned at 188 per cent.

“Achieving that scanning rate from 60 to 64-kilograms hill ewes comes from a sheepbreeding programme going back to 1969,” says John. “The inherent fertility in coopworth and kelso has all been taken through to snowline genetics.”

Lambing for both snowline and ranger ewes takes places unshepherded on steep hill country, with few losses. “Teat placement for lambs’ first drink is excellent.” DNA recording enables a close eye to be kept on genetics and the McDonalds have taken advantage of Lincoln University’s coldtolerance survival gene so that a large percentage of their lambs are born with brown fat for better survival.

Close management of snowline and ranger weaning weights brings significant improvements, there is huge selection pressure, and the process is supported by good record-keeping, says John.

Nearly all of the McDonalds’ clients are successfully hogget-mating with snowline hoggets, he says. Advice to clients is to start lambing in early November to ensure ewe hoggets have achieved a good bodyweight. Micron reduction is also boosting profit for clients, says John.

Snowline sires (above) used are 26-27 micron at hogget shearing and are bred with a bare bottom patch (below).

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Because snowline ewes are bred with a bare bottom patch, dags and fly strike are also minimal, he says.

The McDonalds own the intellectual property of snowline and ranger wool, meat and apparel, and their long-term goal is to market clients’ wool under the snowline brand.

“Giving back” is part of the McDonalds’ way of life. The family’s next big fundraising event, the Snowline charity ram race, is scheduled for the Cromwell racecourse on November 27.

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44 |

SHEEPBREEDERS » Avalon Genetics

Business Rural

Performance, Russell Fredric

The Ultimate – a perendale/texel cross developed by Avalon Genetics – has a short clean tail, which eliminates the need for tailing and requires less dagging and crutching, and a bare belly to cut shearing costs.

Photo: Russell Priest

Proud to support Avalon Genetics

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Avalon Farming is a family owned, organically farmed business situated in rolling hills near Heriot, West Otago.

Owners Allan and Sonia Richardson believe the farm is one of only a handful of organic sheep stud businesses in New Zealand.

The 1300-hectare operation supports a total of 14,000 stock units, including 8000 ewes and 150 angus cows, over two properties on rolling to steep contour. It is un as two separate business units.

With its homestead 430 metres above sea level, the property can experience cold winter conditions with snow on the ground for weeks at a time.

Avalon Genetics concentrates on breeding highperformance, low-input maternal sheep that will perform in any farm production system. It is highly ranked on SIL, Central Progeny Test and the national perendale progeny trial.

The farm’s stocking rate of about 11 stock units per hectare remained unchanged after its conversion to organics in 1998.

“We are focused on per hectare performance which pays the bills,” says Allan Richardson.

“Last year we produced 180 kilograms of product per hectare in a year that included a tough, dry summer and autumn .We are producing 13 or 14 lambs per hectare each year.”

As Avalon has been farming organically for the past 18 years, sheep sold by the stud offer a significant advantage, he says.

“We are putting our sheep under a lot more pressure than you do on conventional stud farms because we are not giving them all the chemical inputs that you generally see elsewhere. We have a maximum, one-lifetime-drench policy.”

This means Avalon’s sheep are showing their true genetic performance, without the support of a high-input system, he says.

“What we see when we progeny-test some of New Zealand’s top rams is that they perform at 40-60 per cent below what their SIL figures would suggest. We believe that difference is those

animals’ response to drenching and other chemical inputs.”

Avalon Genetics has clients New Zealand wide, mostly conventional farmers who achieve higher performance from animals moving from a tougher environment to a property with higher inputs and a higher standard of management.

Avalon Genetics runs three studs, witha total of about 800 ewes: Its perendale stud was started by Allan Richardson’s father in 1968 and continues to be the star performer in all the traits selected for - which include fertility, growth, meat yield, work resistance, and facial eczema.

“Our interest in low-input genetics has also shown us that selection for worm resistance gives multi- disease resistance, including facial eczema and grass staggers,” says Allan Richardson. “There is new research to show resistant sheep have higher resistance to pneumonia as well.”

The Ultimate, a rerendale/texel cross, was developed by Avalon Genetics from 2004 with genetics sourced from studs around New Zealand as a result of the need for a low input, easy-care, hill-country sheep. As well as meeting criteria for production and resistance traits, the Ultimate has a short, clean tail which eliminates the need for tailing and requires less dagging or crutching.

“For farming the big time-waster is dagging and keeping a sheep clean. That is a big cost. We are also focused on traits like a bare belly and bareness around its bum to cut shearing costs.”

The Ultimate meets the need of potential future restraints on tailing “and we want to be ready for that”, he says.

Established in 2000, Avalon’s texel stud breeds a maternal texel suitable as a purebred, over maternal ewes, or as a terminal. To remain in the stud, ewes must have reared 150% at four-tooth age. “We use the same selection traits for all three studs.”

Avalon Genetics are performing at the highest levels on high performing farms, but have a real advantage with farmers looking to reduce their level of inputs while still maintaining production.

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SHEEPBREEDERS » Avalon Genetics

Business Rural

| 45

low input the Ultimate goal

Avalon ewes (top left), perendale ewes and lambs (top right), texel two-tooth rams (above) and Ultimate ewes and lambs (above right) on Allan and Sonia Richardson‘s organic.

Photos: Russell Priest

LEADING SHEEP BREEDING Ultimate

TM

“A focus on increasing production won’t satisfy new consumer demands on how our lamb is farmed”, due to: • Less chemical inputs on farm and in our food • Higher animal welfare standards • More sustainable and environmentally friendly farm systems

New challenges need new genetic solutions Avalon: Ultimate • Perendale • Texel

For genuine low input sheep contact Allan & Sonia Richardson P: 03 204 2134 E: avalon@yrless.co.nz M: 027 220 2672 www.avalongenetics.co.nz

46 |

SHEEPBREEDERS » Newhaven Perendales

Business Rural

The North Otago Hill country is the perfect environment to push the capabilities of Newhaven Perendales’ genetics.

The ultimate proving ground Kelly Deeks Fourth-generation North Otago farmers Jane and Blair Smith may be dealing with the daily challenges of the North Otago hill country, but the harsh conditions create the perfect environment to push the capabilities of their high performing perendale genetics.

Newhaven Perendales was established in 1972

by David Ruddenklau, who wanted to breed a ewe with the ability to not only survive in challenging, climatic conditions, but to perform and achieve to the highest standards, regardless of the type of country they were in.

The 1495-hectare farm at Five Forks, 600 metres above sea level in the Kakanui range, comprises 10 per cent flat cultivated land, 20% rolling to very steep foothills, and 70% steep tussock country.

Newhaven’s base flock of nearly 2000 stud perendale ewes is run under genuine commercial conditions, at altitude.

The result, says Jane Smith, is a high yielding, robust and structurally sound progeny with the ability to shift and excel in any climatic conditions.

Jane, who is David and Robyn Ruddenklau’s daughter, and her husband, Blair, are now part of the Newhaven structure.

She says she has been obsessed with agriculture from a very young age. She has a degree in agricultural commerce, has worked in fertiliser consultancy and rural banking, and now loves working with her husband in genetic

Jane and Blair Smith run Newhaven Perendales, a 1495-hectare farm at Five Forks in the Kakanui Range, 600 metres above sea level. Their high-performing perendales are ideally suited to the extremes of farming in New Zealand and Australia. monitoring, evaluations, client liaison, and agronomy.

She says the underlying principles of the farm are based around loyalty and sustainability, with a long-term view on everything.

“At the end of every week, we want to know the farm is in a better place than at the start of the week. Regardless of whether it’s our children

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who run the farm, or someone else’s children, that long-term view and sustainability is really important to us.”

About six years ago, Newhaven was approached for its genetics by Australian farmers; keen to be part of testing their genetics in Australian conditions, the family went into 50:50 partnership in Mount Monmot Perendales in Victoria.

The Newhaven genetics are performing well at the Mount Monmot base at Skipton.

A Mount Monmot sire, 1427, was judged champion perendale in this year’s Australia SheepVention competition.

More recently, the family has entered another partnership, this time in Fossil Creek Angus with Neil and Rose Sanderson.

The angus breeders approached Newhaven a couple of years ago to see if they could run angus cows on the property’s tussock country, which reflects the type of country to which a lot of Fossil Creek bulls are sold.

“Fossil Creek Angus genetics are now being bred in that type of environment, where it is survival of the fittest, and they are performing really well,” Jane says.

The relationship with the Sandersons has progressed into a partnership, and she is pleased to have the opportunity to run two large studs in a commercial environment, and to know that when the bulls and rams go out the gate, they are going to perform really well.

SHEEPBREEDERS » Wilfield Corriedale Stud

Business Rural

| 47

Stud sets pregnancy record Kim Newth Pregnancy scanning rates among Wilfield Corriedale Stud’s ewes hit record levels this year. The twotooth ewes averaged 172 per cent and the mixedage ewes 178%.

“We’re delighted, particularly since summer was pretty difficult with March and April being fairly dry,” says Robin Wilson, who with wife Pip, has been farming at West Melton for 40 years in partnership with his brother Gavin.

They are long-time breeders of corriedale sheep, having started with an elite flock in 1985. They now have around 3000 corriedale ewes, including 1200 stud animals.

Robin is in no doubt the corriedale breed has steadily improved over recent years. A decade ago, the pregnancy scanning rate for their ewes was around 160%. Wilfield has worked not just to improve fertility, but also to produce progeny that are open headed, better milking, meatier, and have finer wool.

The objective at Wilfield is to breed “the next generation of corriedale”.

“There’s a balancing act involved because when you get into finer wool, you tend to lose the carcass,” says Robin Wilson.

“We have been seeking to maintain and improve the carcass, and get more meat and finer wool as well. I think we have got the balance spot on.”

Wool micron for their ewes is averaging around 28.

The Wilfield Corriedale Stud incorporates the Wilfield, Wattlebank, Blythe Downs and Marawha sheep farm and stud operations.

Until recently, Robin, Pip and Gavin were managing the Wattlebank stud, but now fully own and operate it following the retirement of previous owners Bill and Pauline Bain. They say the change is minimal for customers and on-farm management, but does add long-term certainty for the overall business.

Wattlebank has 500 ewes and is approximately the same size as the other three studs. Wilfield itself originated from Blythe Down sheep in 1992, with the stud registered that year.

“We had tried various stud breeders, but they didn’t have the same philosophy as us,” says Robin.

“We set about putting some performance criteria in place for our sheep and, by eliminating inefficient animals that didn’t meet those criteria, we made significant progress.

“Our pregnancy scanning results are an indication of that progress.”

While the main focus is on breeding “Corriedale 2.0 – the Sheep for the Future”, they also breed award-winning sheep of the suffolk-texel variety as meat sheep.

Cropping is another significant part of the operation. Peas (for Watties), barley and radishes

We’re delighted, particularly since summer was pretty difficult with March and April being fairly dry. (for seed) are the main crops on the central Canterbury property.

“The biggest development on this farm is that we recently committed to a two-year programme to irrigate the whole farm,” says Robin.

“It is a significant outlay of expenditure and we have to make sure it pays its way. But when we look to the future, it gives us security – water is the new liquid gold.”

Annual rainfall on the farm is around 650mm; irrigation will add an extra 250mm. “From that we will get between two and three times extra kilograms of dry matter growing on our farm.”

Wilfield corriedale rams (top) and ewes strip graze. The aim of the stud is to breed the ‘next generation of corriedale’.

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48 |

SHEEPBREEDERS » Wharetoa Genetics

Business Rural

Emphasis on high genetic merit rams Sue Russell South Otago farmer Garth Shaw has spent more than 44 years enhancing sheep genetics. He started breeding coopworth rams back in 1975.

“That taught me how to use performance recordings to make gains in sheep genetics,” says Garth, who with wife Chris, farms near Balclutha.

“We placed then, and still do, a lot of emphasis on breeding structurally sound sheep that are pleasing to look at and work with.”

The introduction of texel to Wharetoa’s two terminal flocks – poll dorset/texel cross (marketed as Meatmaker) and suffolk/texel cross (maekted as Suf/Tex) – has greatly enhanced lamb survival, he says.

“The texel has also introduced strong meat characteristics. When combined with the superior growth of the poll dorset and suffolk, these rams produce high growth rate and exceptional meat yielding terminal lambs.”

Three maternal flocks are bred on the farm – coopworth, texel and Wharetoa Maternal (half coopworth, half texel). Straight coopworths are still bred to satisfy the client base while the texels have been graded up from a base of high-fertility coopworth ewes.

“The texel rams we sell have a 200 per cent fertility record,” says Garth. “When used as a maternal cross-breeding option, progeny will be vigorous at birth, show resilience to internal parisites, and have a body conformation that shows strong meat characteristics.”

Wharetoa Maternal is a stabilised coopworth/ texel cross, carrying strong productive traits – fertility, survival, growth, meat, wool and longevity – that Garth says will make sheep farming as profitable as possible. Wharetoa Genetics uses many scientific aids to help in the selection and multiplication of superior genetics.

“There are five flocks recorded on SIL. All

ram lambs are EMA-scanned at five months of age. We use Zoetis DNA technologies to identify superior meat genes along with the Abacus Bio Animate mating system to mate our 1650 recorded ewes. We also use mostly ram hoggets to shorten generation intervals, creating significant genetic gains in real time.”

He says he has simple answers to why farmers are so interested in acquiring Wharetoa genetics: “They perform well and produce lots of money for

Above: Some of the two-tooth rams that will be put up for sale at Garth and Chris Shaw’s on-farm auction in December. Below: Drafting (left) and shearing (right) at Wharetoa.

• To page 5

ON FARM AUCTION Friday December 16, 2016 Open Day: Friday Dec 2, 2016 FOR SALE: 320 Fully recorded Two Tooth Rams

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0800 743 2763 Ph: Balclutha 03 418 0824 | 027 223 8748 | Gore 03 208 4325 Email: shara.jason@xtra.co.nz PO Box 323, Balclutha 9240

SHEEPBREEDERS » Rosedale Growbulk

Business Rural

| 49

Science-based innovation behind Rosedale success Russell Fredric Six generations of farming has not diminished the quest for science-based innovation for Don and Brigette Morrison, the owners of Eastern Southland farm Rosedale Growbulk.

The couple, who farm an 8000-stockunit property in the Waikaka Valley, are sheep farmers and industry innovators with academic qualifications.

This academic and business background means the family is prepared to look at opportunities and to challenge production levels “that we can always be doing something better”, Don Morrison says.

As a result, the stud is achieving genetic gains relatively quickly because of a willingness to use technology such as 5K SNP chip DNA testing which, in conjunction with the SIL database, makes predictive breeding “very easy”.

“We are prepared to invest and use that technology, to use molecular breeding values and to accurately identify individual production traits means that predictive genetics is now possible, ” Don Morrison says.

One of Rosedale’s success stories is the commercial development of growbulk sheep.

Roland Sumner and AgResearch led the development of the breed over 13 years with the aim of developing a hardy, dual-purpose sheep.

“This will be our seventeenth year with growbulk sheep,” says Don. “When we started doing it everybody said you’re crazy to put terminal attributes into your maternal ewes. But it has proven to be the best move we could ever take.”

Rosedale Growbulk sheep incorporate the genetic strengths of the high-fertility, highfleeceweight romney base with the high bulk-fleece poll dorset and texel.

The MyoMax and LoinMax growth and muscling genes from the poll dorset and texel were fasttracked through the growbulks to further enhance growth rates and meat yield, while milk production and fertility advantages from the poll dorset were

capitalised on, with lamb vigour and mothering ability from the texel used to maximise lamb survival.

“Since 2003, OVITA has ranked Rosedale Growbulk as number one in New Zealand for lamb survival, measuring lamb viability at birth. It has consistently been ranked as a trait leader by SIL for dual-purpose meat yield, and was Glammies Grand Champion Tastiest Lamb in New Zealand in 2012.

“Collaborative breeding programmes outside the dual-purpose growbulk offer further options to suit individual farm requirements” Options are perendale growbulk, charolais growbulk and merino growbulk, which is a halfbred, joint venture, breeding programme in collaboration with Gordon and Spin Lucas and studmaster Jane Rive, of Nine Mile Merino Stud at Tarras.

“They have an absolute focus on dual-purpose production, and have invested very heavily in carcass and body condition characteristics,” says Don. “They have achieved very good lamb survival and growth rates as a result, so they are the perfect people for us to be involved with.”

“The growbulk cross over the merino offers unique production characteristics unavailable from any halfbred cross.”

The Myomax and Loinmax muscling genes in the growbulk translate to a faster growing, higher yielding carcase, while the finer micron, high-bulk wool from the growbulk is also better suited to meet the finer wool specification required for options like the SmartWool contract.

For the past two years Rosedale has been trialling, with Canterbury farmer Blair Gallagher, a perendale/growbulk cross for hill farmers wishing to concentrate on their preferred perendale breed, but with the opportunity to introduce the muscling, growth and survival genes from the growbulk.

This year is the fourth year Rosedale has used charolais genetics.

While possessing many of the same growth and muscling traits of the growbulk, the charolais cross has not had the same selection history on fleece weight and is preferred as a terminal option.

Rosedale Growbulk uses technology to achieve genetic gains.

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• From page 4 farmers in terms of number of lambs born, the speed at which they grow, and the amount of meat they ultimately yield at slaughter.”

The Shaws’ own commercial flock (coopworth/ texel cross) is mated each year to Wharetoa Genetics Suf/Tex and to Wharetoa Maternal ram hoggets. The resulting progeny are consistently in the top one per cent of Alliance Group suppliers for meat yield, as identified through Via Scan.

In 2015, 55% of saleable commercial lambs were killed at weaning (92 days) with an average dressed weight of 18.84 kilograms.

Each December buyers 300-plus rams are sold

at Wharetoa’s on-farm auction (the biggest private ram auction in New Zealand, says Garth)). The sale has been going for 15 years and is run by PGG Wrightson Livestock.

At this event Chris Shaw is the hospitality coordinator and advertising agent. She says Garth’s results comes down to four key factors.

• Deep understanding of breeding and genetics with a massive amount of data recordings accrued.

• Excellent stockmanship skills – innate ability to see and handle stock crucial to breeding programme.

• Does everything on the farm including managing commercial flocks – stud work, lambing, record keeping, culling, • Honest – in all aspects.

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50 |

SHEEPBREEDERS » Roslyn Downs

Business Rural

Lamb survival top priority Russell Fredric After decades of achieving gains in lambing percentages, Roslyn Downs’ is now concentrating on the survivability of lambs.

Nestled amidst Southland hill country at Glencoe, west of Mataura, Roslyn Downs is a 626-hectare, sheep-and-beef farm run as a family partnership between Chris and Gaynor Miller, sons Jason and Quentin, and their wives, Jocelyn and Eleanor. The farm is supported by a 226ha lease block at Mataura.

The overall business is run as four separate units under the one umbrella; the Mataura property grazes the partnership’s ‘B’ ewe mob, mated with terminal-sire texels, to maximise meat yield.

Chris and Gaynor Miller bought 149ha at Glencoe in 1960, and farmed coopworth sheep for their mothering ability, growth rate and wool weight.

In 1997 Chris crossed his coopworths with perendales with the aim of improving survivability, ease of care, mothering ability, conformation, bulk and parasite tolerance.

“We’ve found the introduction of coopdale into our flock has helped because they are a bit more robust,” he says. “They will survive through the winter if the ewes are under a bit of pressure, without losing condition excessively.

“They look after themselves –.90 per cent of the job is done by the sheep...there’s not a lot of shepherding required.”

In 1999 the Millers introduced texel to the coopdale composite to further improve meat yield and survivability with minimal shepherding.

Roslyn Downs’ flock of 6000 now includes 5000 coopdale commercial ewes, plus 100 texel stud ewes and 900 stud coopdale ewes, which are SIL-ACE recorded.

Chris Miller agrees last year’s scanning percentage of 190-200, and lambing tailing of 161

was a good result, but prefers to cite a scanning figure of 185, excluding triplets.

About 75% of the ewes produce twins; a higher lambing percentage means more triplets would be born, resulting in a “bit of a headache” because of increased losses.

“It’s very difficult to do any better. We are working on survivability. It’s no use having a higher scanning and not getting any more lambs at the other end; it’s only a waste.

“Our policy is that sheep that do have triplets have to rear them. We are working on a completely commercial situation. We would need a huge increase in the price of lambs before it would be economic to hand-rear them.”

Although ewe fertility in the national flock has

PHOTOS Above: Roslyn Downs, a 626-hectare sheep and beef farm at Glencoe, near Mataura, runs a 6000-strong flock which includes 5000 coopdale commercial ewes, 100 texel stud ewes and 900 stud coopdale ewes.

Right: Roslyn Downs farmers Jason, Quentin and Chris Miller.

Below: Sheep in the shed at Roslyn Downs.

• To page 51

COOPDALE TEXEL GENETICS

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SHEEPBREEDERS » Geoff Howie

Business Rural

| 51

Texels stamp mark after a slow burn Russell Fredric

PHOTOS Above: South Otago texel breeder Geoff Howie will be have 120 rams on offer at his 11th on-farm sale at Moneymore in November. Below: A texel under the hammer at a Moneymore sale. Upper right: An example of the texel breed.

Last year marked the 25th year of texel in New Zealand. The breed has stamped a significant mark in the genetics of the national flock.

One of the first adopters of the breed, Otago farmer Geoff Howie, says initial uptake of the breed took some time.

“It has only come of age probably in the last five to 10 years. It took a long time to get it off the ground,” he says.

In partnership with his son, Tim, Geoff Howie runs a stud on 422 hectares at Moneymore, south of Dunedin. The Howies have a total of 4500 stock units, including 100 angus cattle.

The farm is on a hill block with a top elevation of 350 metres above sea level, which is susceptible to snow during winter and spring.

Geoff Howie, a breed committee member and past chairman of Texel New Zealand, has been involved with texels “right from day one” after buying a ram when the sheep were released from quarantine in 1990.

Texel has become known as a terminal breed that transmits its qualities to its progeny when used for crossing purposes. Texels are recognised as good foragers with excellent feed-conversion efficiency requiring less dry matter per kilogram of bodyweight, and as having excellent mothering ability and a strong maternal instinct.

But it’s their muscling that’s of particular interest to many New Zealand farmers. A texel carcass three kilograms lighter than another breed will still produce the same meat yield, Geoff Howie says.

Because of their higher percentage of muscling, it is possible to wean texel lambs at a lighter weight while still achieving the same carcass weight as a lamb of a different breed weaned later.

The survivability of texel lambs has proved a long-term trait in New Zealand.

“Survivability is a huge thing,” says Geoff Howie. “Most moderate, hill-country farms have now got at least a quarter or half-texel in their ewes.

They are easier to winter, they look after themselves better, they don’t need as much feed, they’re producing (comparatively) similar lambs, and they actually yield more when they are dressed out.”

As well as purebred texel, Howie’s mix of stud sheep includes texel-poll dorset, hill-bred suftex, texel-poll dorset-suffolk crosses.

The stud will be holding its 11th on-farm sale

late November, with about 120 rams on offer. There has been good demand for its rams as farmers seek to diversify, introduce new genetics into their flocks, or to use suftex as marker sheep.

“Most years we probably get about a 95 per cent clearance,” says Geoff.

Despite the demand for his rams, the variety offered and a good client base, the market for highquality stud rams is very competitive.

“I’ve been one of the lucky ones. Every year I’ve always sold all the rams I’ve produced. I’m quite thankful for that because some people don’t, and with the decline in sheep numbers, that’s getting more common.”

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‘We are working on survivability’ • From page 50 necessarily been “the name of the game” for the past 20 years, this is seldom an issue today. While survivability is a selectable trait recorded on the SILACE database, there are still many factors related to it, such as weather, that are non-genetic, he says.

Roslyn Downs’ ewes were in good condition over winter, with grass cover looking good leading up to lambing which started on September 12.

Jason Miller says lamb carcass weights are aimed at an average of about 19 kilograms with total Viascan meat yields in the range of 56-57%.

The Glencoe farm is summer safe and, while there are key periods during the year where a minimum pasture cover is ensured, the quality of grass is at least as important.

“We try and make sure that especially the young stock are accessing only high-quality feed and leaving a pretty useful residual,” Jason Miller says.

Roslyn Downs’ cattle operation comprises about 1500 stock units, raising male calves and heifer calves for beef. Bulls are run on a dedicated 60ha unit after weaning.

“All the friesian bull calves remain entire so that we finish them as bulls, but we also do a reasonable number of hereford cross. It they are a reasonable type, we will turn them into a steer. ”Cattle provide a reasonably good profit margin while also benefiting the sheep operation.

After wintering on fodder beet until September, cattle are separated into small mobs and integrated with ewes and lambs to maintain pasture quality.

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52 |

SHEEPBREEDERS » Mararoa Downs

Business Rural

Perendales claim centre stage Kim Newth Acknowledged as ‘the sheep for all environments’, the perendale has been living up to its easy-care reputation since being introduced to the rugged Mararoa Downs, near Te Anau.

Hayden and Kate Slee, along with his parents Max and Ruth Slee, farm the 1900-hectare property of flat tussock and windswept hill country bordering the Mararoa River.

Apart from a brief trial with composites, the Slees have favoured the perendale since taking up the property in 2001. The breed has long been growing in popularity, in part due to its versatility.

It has proved successful on country ranging from plains to hard hill-country, and maintains a reputation for effortless lambing, good mothering and survival, and excellent fertility.

“The perendale is ideal for the type of country we have here, and they really don’t need a lot of looking after,” says Kate.

The Slee family has been particularly intent on the perendale since buying a perendale stud from Gore farmer Peter Christie in 2012. Then known as the Hinerua stud, it had been started by a wellknown local breeder, the late Mervyn Ladbrook.

Currently, Mararoa Downs has around 10,000 ewes while its growing Kinnear Perendale Stud has 400 ewes. The farm also runs 250 angus and angus-hereford cows.

Ideally, Hayden and Kate would like to build the perendale stud ewes to at least 500 (close to its original strength in 2012).

“We did drop a lot to begin with to make sure we had what we wanted – sheep that would be able to cope with the harder country here,” says Kate.

“We’re not trying to rush that process – we will let it happen gradually so that we keep the quality up.”

One of the main benefits of the stud is that it enables rams to be bred for the large commercial

PHOTOS Left: Hayden and Kate Slee, with children Lexie (left) and Beau.

Lower left: The Slees farm at Mararoa Downs near Te Anau, with perendales their main focus. Currently Mararoa Downs has 10,000 ewes. perendale operation, rather than having to be sourced them elsewhere. The stud has retained 80 perendale ram lambs.

Stud ewes get no preferential treatment and are farmed with the commercial ewes, except during lambing and mating.

The Slees also have a small suftex (suffolktexel) stud that has 40 rams and around 150 ewes.

“We already had the perendale stud when the opportunity came up to buy the suftex stud two years ago,” says Kate. “In many ways, it is just an extension of what we have been doing with the perendales.”

With the suftex, the selection emphasis has been on breeding for growth and meaty terminal sires. Perendale and suftex ram lambs are used

We are able to be a little cruisier with the suftex. The perendales are still our number-one focus. over commercial ewes and then sold to clients as two-tooths.

“We are able to be a little cruisier with the suftex,” says Kate. “The perendales are still our number-one focus.”

At this time of year, she would normally be gearing up for a busy lambing season starting in late September.

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SHEEPBREEDERS » Clifton Downs

Business Rural

| 53

Elite ewe tribute to stud founders Karen Phelps Clifton Downs stud is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year and, as part of the celebration, Chris and Shelley Medlicott recently offered the market a rare opportunity to buy an elite show ewe.

The stud has not put an elite show ewe up for sale by the stud for at least a decade, so it was not surprising it sold for a breed record price at a one-off auction during the Southdown New Zealand South Island tour.

The two tooth was sold for $4400 to central Canterbury breeder Andrew Christey and Andrew Powdrell, from Gisborne. Proceeds from the sale went towards tour costs and research by the society.

Chris Medlicott says the decision to donate the ewe, which was first in the pairs at last year’s Canterbury A & P Show, was a tribute to his father, Bill, and grandfather, Jack, who founded the stud in 1956.

“Opportunities like this don’t come up often for the market. I’ve kept her twin sister, which placed third in the singles. I don’t know if I made the right decision to keep this one, but that’s the way it goes.”

The Clifton Downs stud was formed because Bill and Jack Medlicott were competing in the Smithfield competition in the United Kingdom and, driven to keep improving their carcass conformation, decided

Chris Medlicott is keen to see the southdown breed, which he believes has special taste qualities, developed into a recognisable brand in the market

they would have to produce their own rams.

The original flock, from Marlborough, was boosted by Punchbowl Stud southdown genetics.

Clifton Downs went through tough times in the 1970s as overseas markets started demanding leaner meat. Because of perception, southdowns got the brunt of the blame although it was an industry-wide problem, says Chris. As farmers turned their backs on the breed, Southdown New Zealand helped set up a scientific committee and workshops at Massey University, which showed farmers how to breed leaner, more efficient sheep.

Bill Medlicott was an early supporter, and Chris says it marked a turning point for the stud as Bill achieved the good carcass sheep he was after.

Meanwhile, a young Chris had expressed an early interest in breeding. The gift of a Punchbowl ewe to Chris in 1978, by a couple of Australian breeders who the family had helped, led Chris, who was still at school, to start his own stud, Tasvic Downs. He says the competitive streak soon came out as father and son tried to outdo each other. In 2013 Tasvic Downs merged with Clifton Downs.

Muscularity, leanness and high growth rates have been the stud’s targets, stud but Chris is moving to look for more balance – lambs of good medium growth that finish quickly.

Farmers focus too much on the price per lamb instead of the return on kilograms of dry matter eaten, he says. He says more lambs sold off the ewe at weaning equates to higher efficiency, but concedes this is not always achievable on different classes of country. He cites high-quality feed, milking ability of the ewe, and genetic ability to grow and lay down muscle as key factors.

“It is important to have lambs left after weaning growing at speed. The quicker those lambs leave your farm over summer, the more options you have to improve next year’s production or take on trading stock. Getting lambs away early is one of the strengths of the southdown breed. People say there’s no money in sheep, but we have to think about efficiencies to maintain profitability.”

Most of the lambs from his farm are sold under

First ram sale on the horizon • From page 60 This year is a little different as she and Hayden are expecting their third child around that time: “It is a bit tricky being due in the middle of lambing.

Fortunately we have two young fit guys working for us who will be able to help us through that.”

The couple already have two pre-schoolers, who share a strong interest in the farm and its animals.

Lexie is four and Beau turns two in December.

“They love putting on their gumboots and getting out onto the farm.”

Winters are long at Mararoa Downs, which is why lambing starts comparatively late. This winter has had its share of hard frosts though snowfall has

been comparatively light with previous years.

Lambing starts with the perendale stud and the commercial ewes that have been mated with terminal-sire rams; the rest of the commercial ewes follow in early October.

Ram sales haven’t been a big priority for the Slees, but their long-term goal is to gradually build up that side of the operation.

Word of mouth is starting to stir demand. Their first on-farm auction – suftex two-tooth rams – is scheduled for December 9.

With the bulk of on-farm development work behind them, they plan to continue “fine-tuning” to continue to boost their returns.

Southdown rams on Chris and Shelly Medlicott’s farm, near Waimate. minimum-price contracts to give control over costs and timing of management. He says he is always looking at how to better manage the unit.

The stud is on the 160-hectare family farm in the Hook district, just north of Waimate. The farm finishes 4000-5000 lambs each year and runs 250-300 head of cattle. The stud has just over 200 stud ewes and winters 100 ram hoggets and 100 ewe hoggets.

Around 60 per cent of the ewes are destined to go back into the flock, some are sold for breeding, and a few make their way to the Medlicott dinner table. Around 10 rams are sold in the South Island elite sale in late November and the rest privately.

Chris, who is on the farmer supply committee

for ANZAC Foods and the Southdown New Zealand council, is keen to see the breed, which he believes has special taste qualities, developed into a recognisable brand in the market. He hopes Southdown NZ will the brand head this way.

Bill, an honorary life member of Southdown NZ, takes a back seat these days, but Chris says he still likes to look over the fence to keep an eye on the stud that is his legacy.

“He’s of that generation that doesn’t say much, but I think he’s pretty proud. It’s amazing how quickly 60 years has gone. You tick along trying to be good at what you do, then realise what you’ve achieved. It’s quite humbling and special to have got this far.”

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54 |

SHEEPBREEDERS » Nithdale Genetics

Business Rural

Awards echo genetic gains Russell Fredric Nithdale Genetics is one of several businesses operating from Nithdale Station, which occupies 1478 hectares of hill country at Kaiwera, 17 kilometres east of Gore.

The station, owned by Andrew and Heather Tripp, includes a dairy operation and 8300 sheep – a romney flock of 1650 stud ewes and 705 ewe hoggets), and a suffolk stud of 456 ewes and 205 ewe hoggets.

In conjunction with its highly productive suftex

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sheep bred for meat, growth and survival, Nithdale Genetics offers maternal and terminal sires to New Zealand farmers.

Andrew Tripp says that with the dairy farm taking the prime lower pasture, there has been a focus on getting good performance from sheep, unshepherded on the hill country which is susceptible to snow during winter and spring.

“That’s a real challenge for us, but it’s a reflection of where the industry’s gone and its a challenge for me as a stud breeder to do better performance (in the hill country).”

Proof of Nithdale Genetics’ high-performing flocks is shown in Stock Improvement Ltd’s recently upgraded software and genetic analyses, called the New Zealand Genetic Evaluation. Funded

by Beef and Lamb New Zealand Genetics, NZGE provides the latest genetic analysis run by SIL. SIL-ACE reports are taken from NZGE, with the first based on the new evaluation released in the first week of August. The aim is to standardise breeding values across the sheep industry to improve accuracy of indexes and to make it more

There has been a focus on getting good performance from sheep unshepherded on the hill country which is susceptible to snow during winter and spring

available and transparent to farmers. “ It has got about nine million animals in it,” says Andrew. “They will take the SIL-ACE reports off that.

“What they are doing is trying to standardise the indexes and just have one lot of breeding values to make things simpler for commercial farmers. They will make more information available to identify who those leading breeders are.”

Among the information available is a worm faecal egg count plus a dual-purpose, production genetic trends graph, which shows the industry average over 1135 flocks during the past 25 years.

The information is providing a useful benchmark for Nithdale Genetics, says Andrew. It shows the

industry average for genetic merit in 2015 is 1200 cents above the average of the base year 1995, while Nithdale is 1750 cents above.

“So the Nithdale flock has a genetic merit of $5.50 per animal more than the industry average.

Nithdale is making faster genetic gain than the average of the sheep industry, so clients buying our rams will make faster genetic gain than average.”

From 1995 to 2004, the genetic merit was as low as 400 cents below the average; the gains since are supported by a string of industry accolades.

The Tripps have won seven Beef and Lamb

Left: Nithdale Station’s Andrew and Heather Tripp.

Above: Their high-achieving flock has recorded a genetic merit of $5.50 more than the industry average.

Opposite page: An aerial view of the Nithdale countryside.

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ON FARM » Daniel & Christine Bishop

Business Rural

| 55

Re-grassing, irrigation yield big gains Karen Phelps Now into their third season with a new irrigation system, Daniel and Christine Bishop are growing more grass, have improved labour efficiency and are producing more milk.

Production on their 385-hectare effective (464ha total) unit on the Oamaru side of Kurow has leapt from 520,000 kilograms of milksolids in their first season on the property, which they farmed for a year before installing the new irrigation, to 674,000 kg last season.

Gains have come from the ability to milk more cows by growing more feed (herd numbers rose from 1100 to 1430 last season), and better feed quality through an intensive re-grassing programme which has seen 60 per cent of the farm sown in new grass. They have been using grass species Trojan, Bealey and Prospect, which they say seem to last well on the farm.

Last season was their first with a new effluent system, which has allowed them to spread across 100ha through a large centre pivot. A two-pond effluent system gives them four weeks of storage.

This season they want to grow more grass. They could increase stock numbers but prefer to use the grass to feed stock and make silage (200 tonnes last year) to reduce reliance on bought-in feed.

They will continue their re-grassing programme as well as developing 30ha of land that could be added into the milking platform and allow them to carry more stock units.

They grew 20ha of fodder beet for the first time last season, harvesting 26 tonnes per hectare. This success has encouraged them to do the same this season. They winter around a third of the herd on farm.

Their 60-bail rotary shed has automatic cup removers, teat sprayers, heat detection, milk meters and Protrack. The Bishops farm in an equity partnership with Daniel’s parents, Wayne and Vivienne. They live in Oxford, where they have a 280ha, 1000-cow dairy farm run by Daniel’s brother, Darcy.

The Kurow farm was run as a dairy unit when the Bishops bought it, but they have basically had to re-convert. Around 6000 trees have been cut down and new fences, water troughs and lanes put in.

Daniel says they will just do AI as they did last year and not use any bulls, taking advantage of the automatic heat detection technology in their shed.

This should also be easier for staff. They employ an assistant manager and Christine assists during calving and helps in the shed.

Daniel, who is full-time on the farm, grew up

Gains have come from the ability to milk more cows by growing more feed as well as increasing feed quality with an intensive re-grassing programme

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www.calect.co.nz Daniel and Christine Bishop are milking 1430 cows on a 385ha platform between Oamaru and Kurow.

The Bishops have three boys, Fynlay 11, Lawsyn 7, and Archer 3. on a dairy farm in the North Island, and started his farming career when he was 21 working on the Hauraki Plains. He returned to manage his family’s 400-cow farm a few years later before the family – Daniel, his parents and Christine – decided to buy a farm at Ngatea in an equity partnership together.

The 127ha unit milked 380 cows and the family owned it for six years before selling up and heading south.

The Bishops aim to peak milk 1450 cows this season and are targeting production of 670,000 kilograms of milksolids. They want to maximise their system, perhaps adding a second cowshed when the payout picks up.

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Nithdale a multiple winner • From page 50 New Zealand sheep industry awards over four years. Last year Nithdale won the Dual Purpose and Resistance to Internal Parasites Award for the fourth year in a row, and the Dual Purpose and Reproduction Award, for the third successive year.

Along with seeking to maximise output of quality meat and wool from sheep that can handle

a tough environment, Nithdale has made significant progress in reducing faecal egg counts – adult faecal-egg count breeding values have nearly halved since 1992.

“We don’t drench ewes,” says Andrew. “We have reduced the number of drenches our lambs are receiving, and the age at which the lambs are showing an immunity to internal parasites is getting younger.”

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ON FARM» Dan & Brett Frew

Business Rural

Brothers push survival rates on hill country Sue Russell Southland sheep farmers Dan and Brett Frew have taken over the day-to-day running of the family farm at Otapiri Gorge in Southland from their parents, Marie and Mervyn Frew.

Never ones to sit idle satisfied with what their 1048-hectare holding is producing in terms of meat and wool outputs, the brothers are continually looking at trialling new farming practices.

“I think we’ve very much inherited Dad’s pioneering spirit,” says Dan Frew. “He has always charted his own course and been prepared to try new approaches on the farm. Brett and I are continuing that. It’s a case of having a go; that’s how you learn what does and doesn’t produce

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results.”

He describes the farm location as exceptionally good finishing and ideal lambing country for their ewes. A very ‘hands-off’ approach over lambing has reaped real benefits in terms of minimal mortality rates, and vigorous and strong lambs.

“We put as many ewes as we can up on the hill country for lambing and leave them alone. It gives lambs every opportunity to bond well because the ewes tend to find a secluded space to lamb in and remain for the first few days. If there is too much human intervention, ewes tend to keep moving, stressing the lambs unnecessarily.”

Hogget and two-tooth survival rates have also been improved by 15 per cent through going unshepherded in the sheltered country and a pasture-cover policy that keeps the stock moving to find food.

“We keep the covers adequate, but not flush, which results in a more active, vigorous and healthy animal,” says Dan. The key to the selective breeding programme is to have the highest possible percentage of ewes producing two or three extremely good and consistent-quality lambs. The Frews have put effort in to developing an elite flock of around 200 ewes.

This seasons’s scanning has identified about 1000 triplet ewes from 5900 in total.

“We have harsh culling standards for our elites, and we don’t need a lot of rams over our flock, so we’ve been selling off some excess hogget rams and plan to sell more. We have identified highly efficient, multiple-rearing ewes and continue to work on minimising losses and consistent lambrearing through this flock, along with the stud rams we source from Matt Holden, at Kelso .

The farm has 120ha of native bush along with 400ha of uncultivated tussock country. There is a strong sense of stewardship toward these special spaces, says Dan. The farm is also home every second February to the famed Farm Jam moto-cross, BMX and mountain biking event. The event draws around 100 participants and 2000 spectators, and has been an incredible success, with a large contingent of

PHOTOS Left: Look mum, no hands – FarmJam 2016 on the Frews Otapiri Gorge property.

Above & below: The Frew family has invested in a selective breeding programme aimed at developing an elite flock of ewes.

They have taken a very hands-off approach to lambing... putting as many ewes as they can up on the hill country for lambing and leave them alone.

international media and competitors.

This year’s event was special for other reasons Dan says. His great friend and international mountain biker Kelly McGarry died on February 1, just days before Farm Jam. “Kelly had been in every Farm Jam event, was incredibly talented, highly regarded and a great human being. It was special that a huge number of Kelly’s friends and riders from around the

world pulled together to help the jam succeed.

To collectively dedicate the jam to Kelly and to celebrate his life together was very special.”

And the farm is now home to a new generation of Frews. Dan and partner Stephanie’s children, Charlee and Lexie, and Brett and Leticia’s Luiza and Emily.

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ON FARM » Gladvale Farms

Business Rural

| 57

Gladvale Farms is one of the largest dairy and crop farming operations in Central Southland.

Reward ‘for running a good business’ Karen Phelps With cost cutting and better farm management at the forefront for many farmers this season, Geoff and David Lindsay probably have some advice to offer. As the directors of one of Central Southland’s largest dairy and crop farming operations, they were the winners of the agribusiness management award at the 2016 Southland Ballance Farm Environment Awards.

“We have developed a business that gives us good control over our farms,” says David Lindsay.

“Systems are important – because we have so much going on all the time, we have to have good systems in place.”

Geoff Lindsay formed Gladvale Farms Ltd in 1978 and it now operates five dairy farms, milking about 4200 cows on a 1400-hectare-plus platform, plus a further four properties (1900ha in total) in the Drummond, Oreti, Dipton and Avondale districts.

Four of the farms are owned by Gladvale Farms and a number are leasehold. Around 40 staff, including three operations managers, are employed.

The company has its own workshop, which helps the Lindsays maintain control over their business. As an example, they converted three of the farms themselves and were able to do the lanes, fences and troughs themselves.

A dairy-support team takes care of on-farm jobs, including transport, fertiliser spreading, cultivation, silage, grain harvesting, balage and farm development.

David says the major targets this season is on

Incoming: harvesting wheat on a Gladvale crop farm before the storm. keeping the cost of production low and reducing inputs where possible. A good autumn and winter have seen a promising start with reasonable growing conditions even in the colder months.

Normally the farms and run-off blocks experience a couple of snow storms on the higher country

(some reach up to 400 metres above sea level), but so far so good. This allows cows to make good use of feed.

David says small improvements to the system should help inch up production. All cows are herdtested and the farm has built up a good history

of each cow’s production to identify the stock to continue to breed off and cull.

Upskilling staff through AgITO courses in terms of feed budgeting is also important to the Lindsays.

A priority this season is to continue work on improving drainage to enhance grass growth and reduce pasture damage through cows pugging the wet ground.

David says per-cow production continues to increase across the farms as the herds improve.

Last season the business produced 1.75 million kilograms of milksolids and, despite using a lower stocking rate this season, it is on target to produce 1.7 million kilograms.

“We are producing more milk daily versus last season, even though we are milking 10 per cent fewer cows. That’s basically a herd of cows less and a lot of feed that we can use elsewhere.

“We will calve fewer cows in autumn and move more back to spring calving. We’re not getting fairly rewarded for producing winter milk and we’re continuing to lobby Fonterra to come up with a solution after Cadbury, the major client for this region, pulled the pin for requiring winter milk several years ago.”

He says the family, which has been farming in the Drummond area since 1874, has a continued determination to develop the business and work together with the same values towards the same goals.

“We’re constantly working hard to identify areas for improvements, so we were honoured to be recognised for running a good business at the awards.”

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58 |

Business Rural

ON FARM» Clayton Station

Drought a ‘speed bump’ Russell Fredric

Above: Just in case you thought high-country life was all ab out sunning yourself on the hills. Below: Clayton runs 4122 stock units of deer, including 1200 breeding hinds, 200 replacements, 500 velveters and 34 sire stags.

Dry summers and heavy winter snow-falls are two inevitables of farming Clayton Station at the head of Fairlie basin in Canterbury.

Most of the station lies between 500 and 1000 metres, with 1000 hectares flat to rolling contour and 3000ha steep to high.

The history of the staton, established in 1859, reveals an environment of extremes. In 1895, 15,000 sheep, possibly about half the total flock, died in a metre of snow. In more recent decades the property has experienced snowfalls of up to 1.8 metres and, in 2006, it was smothered by 10 snowfalls over the year.

However, drought has presented one of the biggest challenges in the past two seasons.

A sheep, beef and deer operation, Clayton Station is a generational, family-owned, freehold property of 4210 hectares.

It is owned by Hamish and Anna Orbell, who have three children aged three, five and seven.

Hamish succeeded his parents, the late Andrew and Ruth Orbell. Andrew Orbell was killed in a grader accident on the property in 2003.

Hamish manages the station with the help of four staff; a stock manager, two shepherds and a maintenance/general hand person.

Growing up on Clayton Station was a doubleedged sword, he says..

“If we wanted to play, we always had to do work before that play. It was a beautiful playground, but there was always work to do.”

In 1967 the station comprised 9120 hectares with 12 paddocks, five hill blocks, 1.5 kilometres of shelter belts and no roads.

Considerable development since completed has transformed the station into 163 paddocks, 25 hill blocks, 54 kilometres of shelter belts and 100 kilometres of roads. About 300 to 400ha of tussock country is under development annually.

Stock units are presently 18,000, down from a high of 23,000 in 2014 after hitting “speed bumps” because of the droughts.

“The last two seasons have been extremely frustrating. We haven’t been able to fatten any lambs; we have had to sell all lambs, including stores, at weaning, and have been weaning a month early because of the drought.

The last two seasons have been extremely frustrating.

We haven’t been able to fatten any lambs; we have had to sell all lambs at weaning including stores and have been weaning a month early because of the drought.

The station runs 11,500 sheep, predominantly romney/texel hoggets, which have lambed at 137 per cent in the past five years.

“It will be interesting to see how it goes this year. We’ve got a record scanning (176%) and we’re trying to push the envelope a little bit further, but I think if we can sit on average around that 135140%, it is doing extremely well for our country.”

On average, a third of the station’s lambs are sent for processing each season, with the balance either retained to increase their weight or sold as stores.

“We generally have a cut-off date of April 1. All store trading stock have got to be gone.”

The ram flock was involuntarily replaced after battling brucellosis from 2002 to 2004.

A silver lining was the opportunity to introduce rams with genetics that significantly improved the flock’s fertility, which had been low, and to breed a hardier sheep.

The station supports 1000 cattle including 550 angus beef cows and 60 angus stud cows, bred from Kakahu Angus stud bulls.

About 960ha of the property is deer-fenced, supporting 4122 stock units, including 1200 breeding hinds, 200 replacements and 500 velveters including rising one-year-olds and rising two-year-olds and 34 sire stags.

Its deer operation has been a good contributor to Clayton’s bottom line in the midst of soft lamb and wool prices.

“We are very fortunate that the property has got the ability with deer, sheep, cattle and crop to roll

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Business Rural

ON FARM» Clayton Station

| 59

Clayton contrasts...deer enjoy blue skies and sunshine (left), sheep huddle together for as much warmth as they can muster (right) in bleak, snowy conditions.

with the punches,” says Hamish.

“The sheep haven’t been that brilliant in the last couple of years, whereas the deer have definitely held their own in the last 12 to 18 months, especially the velvet, and venison is getting back to where it should be.”

The majestic animals are an inherited passion for Hamish Orbell.

“Deer are a little bit of a drug, especially on the velvet side. You get hooked quite easily.”

Like many deer farmers, his excitement builds each September as the season’s crop of antlers begins to show the genetic gains made.

He acknowledges the impact deer can have on the environment, but this has worked to reduce this been by a strong environmental focus, fencing off major waterways and “sensitive” areas, and creating sediment/nutrient catchment areas.

“All the water that goes to Lake Opuha has to go through a sediment-trap area. We’ve all got to do our part and we hope that the water coming off the property is as good as the water coming on it, if not better.”

He attributes the property looking and running the way it does partly to the contribution and hard work by past and present staff over the years.

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60 |

ON FARM » Mendip Hills Station

Business Rural

Drought tactics vital for survival Neil Grant The drought. It defines so much of what’s happening in North Canterbury, and it’s now into its third season. It has caused mental anguish, and community leadership; selling of capital stock, and changing breed to better suit the conditions; grazing stock off-farm, and taking on new genetic programmes.

There’s no escaping it, but there is dealing with it.

Mendip Hills Station homestead is in the Leader River Valley, west of the coastal Hawkswood Range. Its 6200 hectares run westwards towards the Inland Kaikoura Road. There is 180ha of flat land, 1300ha best described as “rolling tractor country”, and the rest is medium to steep hill and high country. Stands of beech and podocarp bush, and manuka and kanuka occupy large areas of the higher country reaching up to about 1000 metres.

Farming this sort of land is never going to be easy. Dealing with three years of very little rain makes it harder.

Simon Lee has managed Mendip Hills for the Black family for 10 years. He watches over 2500 cattle including 700 pregnant hereford and 400 pregnant angus/hereford cross cows, 1750 deer of which 1250 are breeding hinds, and, currently, 10,400 corriedale ewes. There is a 180ha irrigated block at nearby Spotswood for fattening lambs

The staff and I have learned a lot about cattle genetics. It is an advantage for our property, and will become a huge advantage for the New Zealand beef farmer. and cattle, and a 150ha block at Longbeach, near Ashburton, for fattening lambs and deer.

This is no small enterprise.

Cattle winter on the high country. They can shelter from the occasional snowfalls in the bush. In September, they are brought down to calve.

“I prefer herefords,” says Simon Lee. “They are easier to work with on the hills.”

The shift towards herefords sees only hereford calves kept as replacements. Charolais bulls are put across the crosses for fattening stock.

Beef is marketed through Silver Fern Farms, which has a venture with Beef+Lamb NZ based on Mendip Hills and four other stations where DNA-parentage information on calves from a variety

• To page 61

Simon Lee has managed Mendip Hills for the Black family for 10 years. He is in charge of more than 2500 cattle, 1750 deer and 10,400 corriedale ewes on 6200 hectares in the Leader River Valley, reaching up to 1000 metres.

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Business Rural

ON FARM» Thomas & Hannah Oats

| 61

Stock the centre of attention for couple Kelly Deeks Young Reefton dairy farmers Thomas and Hannah Oats have a priority on the 365-cow family farm where they contract milk, and it’s their stock.

‘We love working with cows,” Thomas says.

“Our passion for our stock is the reason we farm.”

The couple are now into their fifth season on the West Coast dairy farm owned by Thomas’s parents, Richard and Wendy Oats They started on the farm when they were aged 19 and 17 respectively. Thomas says milking cows is what he always wanted to do – he would often turn down the opportunity to go to West Coast rep rugby tournaments because he wanted to stay home and work on the farm.

There are cows in the herd that Thomas used to take to his school pet days years ago, and many of the cows are named. But if they’re empty and have to be culled, the Oatses don’t get emotional about it.

The couple are now 23 and 21, with a daughter, Ellie, and an 11-month-old son, Charlie. Having the ability to take Ellie out on the farm with them means both Thomas and Hannah are able to work full-time.

They love their farming lifestyle and enjoy working together, with one full-time staff member.

Last year Thomas and Hannah were judged the 2015 West Coast/Top of the South Farm Managers of the Year in the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards.

They say the experience of being involved in the competition helped them make developments in the financial, and health and safety aspects of their business, allowing them to retain their stock as their top priority.

The 170-hectare dairy farm was converted from deer 10 years ago, and the herd is milked through a 10-year-old, 40-a-side herringbone shed.

The farm has a mix of 45ha of river flats, 35ha of natural peat, and 90ha of hump and hollows.

There is plenty left on the farm in terms of potential.

With a new ryegrassing and cropping plan developed last year, the Oates are aiming to make productive land more productive The dairy farm is supported by a 20ha run-off 35 kilometres away where Richard and Wendy live.

This is used to make silage and run the calves once they’ve weaned until the following October, when they return to the farm and run behind the cows.

All cows were wintered at home this year on swedes, grass, and silage.

Thomas says the local climate pretty much guarantees good weather from December to March, but in winter, excess rainfall can be an issue. With the mixed terrain, winter can be managed with some safe paddocks.

He says there is plenty left on the farm in terms of potential, and with a new regrassing and cropping plan developed last year, the Oatses are aiming to make productive land more productive.

They are also aiming for 500 kilograms of milksolids per cow, with production last season sitting at 172,500kg – or 482kg milksolids per cow.

With a low milk pay-out and a good growing season, they used less meal than in the previous season – 450kg per cow, which was down from 630kg per cow.

Contract milkers Thomas and Hannah Oats, with daughter Ellie lending a hand, check their cattle on their Reefton farm.

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Off-farm grazing ‘horrendous’ • From page 60 of sires is collected as part of SSF’s Eating Quality system. This measures the meat’s pH, marbling, ossification (cartilage turning to bone), rib fat, meat colour, fat colour, and eye muscle.

“There is a premium paid for EQ stock,” says Simon. “If our meat misses out on any one of those (criteria), it goes to a different market. The staff and I have learned a lot about cattle genetics. It opens your eyes as to what can be done. It is an advantage for our property, and will become a huge advantage for the New Zealand beef farmer.”

Corriedale sheep have taken over from romneys.

Previously, the 11.300 ewes had produced 11,000 lambs at tailing. Now, the 10,400 corriedales provide 14,800 lambs at tailing. They fatten the lambs on the irrigated blocks. The corriedales have shown that even in harsh times, they can recover well when conditions improve.

Deer fit well as part of the jigsaw – first there’s

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lambing, then calving, and the hinds produce next.

“They are very economical for us,” says Simon.

“They are low cost on our hill country with low inputs.”

Grazing hoggets and young cattle off farm has been the chosen method of dealing with the drought.

“The cost is horrendous, but the replacement breeding hoggets and steers come back to us as capital stock, so we keep the progeny.”

The station has eight staff, all living on site: “It is good to have staff with families. We encourage community involvement – schools, helping at A & P shows, rugby clubs, discussion groups, field days and social events.

“The drought has pulled a lot of people together.

People are getting outside the farm gate and sharing problems. Some are taking leadership roles. Everyone is in the same boat. It’s a good community.

“And it will rain again.”

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62 |

ON FARM » Muller Station

Business Rural

Aussie blood adds sparkle to Kim Newth

Above: The Muller mob – Muller Station’s Stephen and Mary Satterthwaite (centre) with family Alice (left) and Ben Merino. Below: Sheep, and the fibre they produce, form the main part of the operation at Muller Station.

By using Australian genetics to enhance dualpurpose New Zealand merino attributes, Stephen and Mary Satterthwaite have secured significant increases in productivity on Marlborough’s Muller Station.

They began importing rams from Australia for merino stud breeding in 2005 and, with Australian sheep classer Stuart Hodgson, have classed out selected commercial ewes to mate with these rams.

Buoyed by the evenness and quality of the resulting progeny, the Satterthwaites decided to go the next step. With the support of the New Zealand Merino Stud Breeders’ Association, they sought full stud registration and were the first commercial merino flock in New Zealand to achieve this status.

Since 2005 they have imported nine rams from Australia, including two last year, and in 2014, a very high-performing ram (from Willandra Merino Stud in New South Wales).

“That ram was Australia dual-purpose ram hogget of the year at the Bendigo Sheep Show,” says Stephen. “It was quite a coup for us to bring him here and he has done exceptionally well; we are now using his sons in the stud as well.”

When the Satterthwaites started the stud, one of their goals was to produce fine-quality wool that could be used in outdoor and leisurewear clothing.

Muller Station now supplies around 60 tonnes of wool to Icebreaker – a contract that brings with it

A very high-performing ram, Australia’s dualpurpose ram hogget of the year at the Bengio Sheep Show, is among nine rams imported from Australia since 2005, It was quite a coup for us to bring him here and he has done exceptionally well; we are now using his sons at stud as well.

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Business Rural

ON FARM » Muller Station

| 63

wool welcome price stability for the station’s wool clip.

Shearing gets under way in mid-September and the Satterthwaites are anticipating very good wool quality.

“We’ve had record wool production in previous drought years. Provided they are in good health, merinos love dry conditions,” says Stephen.

For the past two years, since Stuart Hodgson took a position with Australian Wool Innovation, the Satterthwaites have been working with another Australian classer, Michael Elms.

“Michael is a very professional sheep classer too,” says Stephen. “In Australia, sheep classers are used to assess ewes for flock improvement: it is a very precise process aimed at producing superior progeny.”

Ewes are classed not just for wool structure/ weight, but for a range of other factors including conformation, feet, fertility and carcass attributes.

At the 38,860-hectare property in the Awatere Valley, lambing does not start until mid-October, largely because of the station’s later springs and potentially challenging weather.

However, prospects are positive for this season’s progeny, with very good ewe scanning results of 151 per cent for commercial ewes (including two-tooths) and 176% for stud ewes.

“For merinos, that’s right up there,” says Stephen. “Now we’ve got to try and take that potential through into live lambs. Historically, our survival rates – except for storms – are very good.”

Quality carcass attributes going to slaughter are also being achieved by the stud, largely through attention to genetics and ultrasound muscle scanning of young stud sheep.

Word is getting around about the quality of the station’s merino stud. Last year, 130 of Muller Station’s rams were used within the industry.

“We had three new clients last year and more new clients showing interest this year,” says Stephen. “That’s very gratifying given that the industry is basically shrinking.”

His father, a North Canterbury farmer, bought the station in 1965 but never lived there. As a young man, Stephen felt a strong affinity to the land and left school to serve his apprenticeship on Muller.

After travelling overseas, he returned as head shepherd before taking over the station in 1980.

Stephen and Mary are always looking to improve on-farm efficiency and productivity. Trials with self-

feeding grain feeders have been producing good results, with 650 stud sheep now self-feeding on barley.

While prolonged drought ledt the station with only 10% of its usual balage going into autumn, this was partly compensated for by 40ha of ryecorn that provided feed for hoggets and calves through the autumn-winter months.

The station also has a couple of thousand cattle with 700 cows, and a separate downcountry finishing block. Fodder beet, grown on a 16ha block, has hugely lifted the efficiency of the finishing operation, and there are plans to increase cow numbers to 1000 in the coming seasons.

Above: Alice Satterthwaite and her dogs take a broad view across Muller Station’s 38,860 hectares in the Awatere Valley.

Below/lower left: Since 2005, Muller Station has imported nine rams from Australia. The use of Australian genetics to enhance New Zealand merino attributes has seen a big increase in productivity among the Muller flock..

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64 |

ON FARM » Peter & Helen Gilder

Business Rural

Couple commit to biodiversity Neil Grant Resting on their laurels is no option for Peter and Helen Gilder. Originally on their own farm near Heriot, they moved onto a Landcorp farm at Clifton, south of Balclutha, in 1990. Twelve years later, they took over Waitepeka, a sheep-and-beef property on the Balclutha-to-Owaka highway, and converted it to two dairy units and a dairy-support block.

Lying close to Telford Rural Polytechnic, the farm was well placed to take students for work experience, and other workplace activities. At times, students come onto the farm and ‘shadow’ one of the workers for several days. At other times, a group fulfils a module, such as yarding cattle.

Telford’s vet brings veterinary students for practical activities such as dehorning cattle or dealing with crook feet. Peter is on Telford’s advisory committee.

The couple are strongly committed to biodiversity protection, and Waitepeka has stands of totara and other native bush, and wetland areas.

Protecting and enhancing these took place while the dairy conversion was proceeding. Helen became very involved with biodiversity, and interesting discussions took place as she gave Peter advice as to where fences should be placed, not only for improving stock management, but also to protect and enhance forest and wetland areas.

Tree planting became an important part of the environmental programme. Before long, they had enough stock to establish their own on-farm nursery growing from their own cuttings.

“I like Moutere willows,” Helen says. “They require less maintenance and are user friendly. They grow as a narrow column, bees like them, they can handle wet or dry conditions, and they leaf up early and hang on to their leaves longer.”

She denies that she is largely self taught and she is an expert on farm tree planting.

“I’ve always looked at what neighbours have got, and done a lot of reading and trying things out to see what works and what doesn’t. I’ve had help from experts like the council or Department of Conservation or the local nursery. I like sharing my knowledge and invite groups for field days and conferences.”

However, the Otago Regional Council considers her expert enough to use her knowledge and expertise when producing a tree-planting booklet.

In July, the Gilders moved from managing the dairy units to developing the support block. It has 747 hectares, 680 effective, and will become predominantly a deer and lamb-finishing block.

The plan is to run 800 ewes, to finish 15,000 lambs, and to have 300 cattle. They have 700 hinds

PHOTOS: Left: Peter and Helen Gilder, who manage Landcorp’s Waitepeka Farm, are committed to tree planting as part their biodiversity protection programme.

Below: The landscape as you across the Waitepeaka farm.

Bottom: Telford

and are looking towards 1000 soon, and will finish their progeny.

“We have outgrown the ability for Landcorp to breed enough lambs, so we buy privately,” Peter Gilder says.

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“We expect to finish 4000 lambs for slaughter in spring, then bring in lambs in spring to finish in summer. We will purchase lambs at 28 to 30 kilograms and send them to the works at 40kg.

“We buy some dairy-cross cattle, but try to stick to angus. We have traded with Five Star, and

they take heifers and steers. We will buy 40 jersey type bull calves from dairy farms, winter them here, and in spring hire them out to cross with heifers.

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• To page 65

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ON FARM » Peter & Helen Gilder

Business Rural

| 65

Helen Gilder says her vision for a weetland area on Landcorp’s Waitepaka farm arose when she went to an Agri-Womens Development Trust course in 2011.

She and husband Paul had been developing a rough, boggy area. and were planning to plant intensively with locally sourced native species with the aim of improving water levels and, in collaboration with the Derpartment of Conservation, creating habitat for native birdlife and native fish.

Her experience on the course, however, saw the concept broaden into the creation of the Landsdown westland project – an area for recreation, the community and fioe education.

“These are not just sanctuaries for birds and fish, but for the community and educational groups too,” she says. “I am sowing seeds, giving young people experiences in the environment.

“And if we are lucky, the wetland may also become home to some rare native species such as the giant kakapo.

The wetland area on Waitepeka is an ideal location (it’s on the Catlins scenic route).

The Department of Conservation, the Otago Regional Council and Mark Sutton (Fish & Game Southland) have helped, and Arne Cleland (Pukerau Nursery) prepares and labels the plants into mixed bags for planting.

The project began with the establishment of a link area to the wetland in 2013, involving 38 people from Fonterra’s Stirling cheese factory. Plantings followed in 2014, 2015 and in August this year, involving Fonterra volunteers, and schools.

Each Arbor Day since 2010, Romahapa School children have come to plant on the farm. They visit the site they planted the year before, measure the growth of the trees they planted, then plant on the new site and have a biscuit and drink. From now on, these days will be at the wetland.

Left: A planting plan for the Landsdown wetland project on Waitepeka Farm.

Lower left: An aerial view of the wetland area.

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Farm managers commit to biodiversity • From page 64 them out again after AI, then kill them at the end of January.”

In 2009, 2010 and 2011, the Gilders won Ballance farm environment, PGG Wrightson land and life, LIC dairy farm, Wetland Trust, and AgricultureITO awards.

Although they have moved off the dairy units,

Helen in particular maintains her involvement with the QE2 covenant areas there and the other environmental plots they have established.

“These are not just sanctuaries for birds and fish, but for the community and educational groups too,” she says. “I am sowing seeds, giving young people experiences in the environment.

“In mid-August, a number of schools came here. Romahapa School, Telford students, and up to

30 staff volunteers from the Stirling cheese factory have also come for team building and to plant local natives.

“We have built islands in the wetland and developed a loop track. We are encouraging school children from Stirling, St Joseph’s, Balclutha and Rosebank to get funding from Kids Restore NZ for their own projects here.”

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66 |

ON FARM » Dinuka Gamaga

Business Rural

Rewards flow Karen Phelps Dinuka Gamage – third placegetter in the Dairy Manager of the Year section of the 2016 Canterbury/North Otago Dairy Industry Awards – has travelled a long way to find success on this side of the world He is from Ampara, in the eastern part of Sri Lanka, where he graduated with a National Diploma in Technology (agriculture) and worked on dairy farms for two years before seeking his fortune in New Zealand in 2008.

His first job was as assistant herd manager on an 800-cow farm at Kaikoura. He recalls that the biggest change from farming in Sri Lanka was the sheer size of the operation – in Sri Lanka farms are generally smaller scale and 300 cows is considered a large unit).

A year later he moved to his present position as farm manager on at unit at Culverden milking a herd of 970 predominantly friesian cows. He is now in his seventh season on the unit, which is owned by Mark and Penny Fleming.

The 302-hectare property has a milking platform of 285ha. The herd is milked through a 50-bail rotary shed with Protrack and an in-shed feeding system.

This year was the second time Dinuka has entered the Dairy Industry Awards. He it’s not winning that keeps him motivated to enter, but the learning and networking opportunities the awards provide.

The judges’ comments are always valuable and drive him to make improvements in the way he farms and also to his personal career goals.

For example, he says that as a direct result of feedback received from this year’s competition, he will do soil testing on the 100ha of the farm that is spread with effluent. He says this will allow for more strategic application and should save money.

I like to talk with and meet people. It’s such a valuable experience and very useful to have such a great network of people to ask advice from when needed to keep improving what I do and to help me achieve my goals.

Pasture management will also command attention. He is planning to make some small tweaks to the way he is doing things and is hoping for big results.

He does weekly pasture walks and uses carryover cows to clean up paddocks after the herd has been through.

As it is for most dairy farmers, saving costs is at the forefront this season. He works a system-four farm, typically bringing in around 250 tonnes of silage and 500 tonnes of barley grain.

This season he hopes not to buy in any silage and to reduce barley green to 300-400 tonnes, which will bring significant savings.

The farm is supported by a 100ha run-off next door; this is used for growing silage and running young stock. All of the herd is wintered on the runoff and the farm.

Dinuka also grows around 30ha of fodder beet and is in his fourth season of using this crop.

Although it requires close attention to grow, he says it has proved successful in raising the cows’

ON FARM » Dinuka Gamage

Business Rural

| 67

from awards

body condition score, and is a cost-effective form of feed.

Last season the farm produced 430,000 kilograms of milksolids; the target this season is similar, but with lower inputs and, therefore, lower costs.

Dinuka, who also received the leadership award, says he puts a lot of time and effort into encouraging the four staff the farm employs to further their careers with ongoing study.

And he walks the walk – he is completing a New Zealand Diploma in Agribusiness Management and has already achieved AgITO level-four dairy farming and level-five production management.

“It’s also about appreciating staff and the job they do by noticing the little things. As a result we have very low staff turnover.”

PHOTOS: Above: Sri Lankan-born Dinuka and Nadeeka Gamage, and their sons, Anuhas (left), aged 10, and Thejan, five.

Far left: Dinuka near his effluent pond, which has 25-day holding capacity.

Right : Dinuka tags a newborn calf.

Dinuka and wife Nadeeka, who is a pre-school teacher, have two children: Anuhas, 10 and Thejan, 5. Dinuka’s aims to go contract milking next, then sharemilking. As well as entering the Dairy Industry Awards again next year.

“I like to talk with and meet people. It’s such a valuable experience and very useful to have such a great network of people to ask advice from when needed to keep improving what I do and to help me achieve my goals.”

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68 |

ON FARM » Andrew Miller/Russell Laughton

Business Rural

Sunflowers proved a trial and error crop for Outram dairy farmer Andrew Miller last season – but he’s giving it another go.

Photo: Tara Nash, A Little Piece of Time

Fodder comes to the rescue Kelly Deeks After two really tough seasons, Outram dairy farmer Andrew Miller is looking forward to an average season with a good milk payout – he hopes this will be the one.

Last season was particularly dry and trying on the Taieri Plains, starting with a cold spring. Andrew bit the bullet when getting crops in the ground, planting an extra paddock of fodder beet for more protection from an impending dry period.

“We planted two paddocks side by side, pulling out the internal fence and running them together, which made feeding the face easier.

“It was invaluable. We fed the beet from the end of February when we had an 18-tonne crop, and with 20 millilitres of rain in January, the fodder beet really picked up. By the time we got to the end of the paddock, it was a 30-tonne crop.”

Going on to the fodder beet early meant some yield potential was lost, but, as he says, that’s what it was there for.

“It was a better option than summer turnips in a dry year; they wouldn’t give as high a yield and they’re also prone to diseases.”

He has planted extra fodder beet again this spring, seeing it as a high-quality bulk feed.

“We know these summers are getting longer and hotter, and we had been struggling to get a good

year out of our barley crops.

“For that reason we had some grazing maize in the spring, going for the green yield and not trying to get the cob, and it worked extremely well. It’s quite cost effective, and what the cows didn’t use we made into silage.”

His new grass mix – primarily a chicory brew with plantain, red clover, and white clover – also offers some flexibility. One of the things Andrew loves about farming is facing challenges and learning as he goes.

He approached a new learning curve last season when he opted to plant sunflowers for silage in a back paddock that was due for a plough.

“The paddock is too far away for fodder beet or chicory, so the option was to put something in there to put in the pit. The weather conditions we have here don’t affect the yield on the sunflowers, and with the maize, we can get a summer crop of feed in the pit.”

He couldn’t find a good cultivar and ended up using bird seed; and he reckons he got his agronomy a bit wrong. So, the sunflowers weren’t a resounding success, but the paddock came back nicely with the red clover which was drilled straight after. He will give sunflower another go this season, providing he can find a good cultivar.

Andrew says he is lucky to have staff whose buy-in and support are key to his farm’s success.

There is a good family atmosphere on the farm with manager Dale’s wife the chief calf-rearer, and worker Jeff’s wife a relief-milker.

Matthew, who grew up next door, is now into his second season with Andrew, and Andrew’s dad, Jim, is still working on the family farm in his supposed semi-retirement.

“These guys are all passionate about looking after my stock,” Andrew says.

“While I’ve been working full-time in the agronomy team at Farmlands and managing a sharemilking operation for the past couple of seasons, it’s a real load off my mind to know my farm is being looked after.”

Fertility gene Russell Fredric Veteran farmer Russell Laughton is rightly pleased with the performance gains his ewes and lambs have made in the past 10 years.

He and wife Dawn have farmed their family trust-owned, 263-hectare property at Heddon Bush for 46 years. The farm supports 1000 ewes which, after a 10-year-plus breeding programme, are onethird romney and two-thirds texel-romney.

Sheep are mated by a ram with the inverdale gene, claimed to boost scanning rates for life by about 40 per cent in one generation.

“The texel in itself initially wasn’t a great producer of multiples,” says Russell. “With the inverdale gene, you don’t have to worry about flushing your ewes and you still get a good lambing drop. The last six years we’ve been between 170 and 175 per cent. It’s the inverdale gene coming out in the cross-breed ewes. Your percentage skyrockets pretty quickly.”

Before he introduced the gene more than 10 years ago, lambing was about 130-135%.

Not surprisingly, the increased fertility has resulted in significantly more triplets as well as more twins. But, because of the farm’s lowland Central Southland climate, survival has not been an issue, which he attributes partly to the texel influence – “If it was straight romneys, you would probably have a problem.”

The farm supplies Alliance Group; average meat yield is 56%, with lamb carcass weights – including about 15% hogget lambs – for the past five years at 19.4 to 19.6 kilograms, although this was topped at 20.3kg last season.

Russell Laughton believes the dairy industry could learn from its sheep counterparts who have been forced to find ways to significantly improve

ON FARM » Paul & Tanya Greenwood

Business Rural

| 69

Sights set on record season Sue Russell Back in 2008, the Greenwood family’s 217-hectare farm near Southbridge, 45 kilometres south-east of Christchurch, converted from cropping and sheep to dairy.

Driving the decision to convert was a desire to realise a healthier cashflow status for the farm business, Drumroslyn Farm Ltd, which is owned

by Paul and fellow directors Joyce and Kenneth Greenwood.

“We were at a situation then that we either invested substantially to convert at the time dairying was beginning to boom in Canterbury and develop the business, or stay as we were,” says Paul.

“So, we made the decision that this was the right time to take that step.”

While the conversion was a lot of work, it went well. And Paul was presented with the new challenges of learning about cows. Assisting him at the time of the transition was farm adviser John Donkers.

The conversion took six months from December 2007 through to arrival on May 1, 2008 of the pioneering herd – a blend of cows bought from Rakaia and a couple of herds in the North Island.

To complete the conversion, Drumroslyn Dairies was formed through an equity partnership with the

Paul Greenwood (left) with his staff (from left), secondin-command Cherie Kitney and farm assistants Cody Rickerby and Matt Dos Santos Densem family, and land owned by the Densems provided the 48ha run-off block.

When RuralSouth spoke with Paul, the winter herd of 820 freisian-cross cows was adjusting to a cold snap.

“Give us one more season and we will have bred all our own herd from the original stock we started with,” says Paul.

behind production gains

“This season we’ll be milking 800 cows and hope to achieve or better the record milksolids last season of 347,000 kilograms – 17,000kg above budget.”

The farm supplies the Synlait milk processing plant at Dunsandel. Synlait opened its doors at the time the Greenwoods started milking.

“Our milk goes to countries like the United States, which want only milk from grass-based cows for baby formulas. We receive an additional 25 cents on top of the standard kilo milksolids payout for the premium milk product we supply.”

The farm is irrigated through a combination of two centre pivots, covering the bulk of the grazing blocks, along with a Roto-Rainer, low-pressure irrigator.

Three staff work on the farm with Paul. Cherie Kitney, who has been in dairying for all of her working life, is in her second year as second-incommand – extremely reliable, says Paul. Two farm assistants, Matt Dos Santos and Cody Rickerby, started working for the Greenwoods last season.

Paul Greenwood acknowledges that In terms of productivity potential, there is room for improvement in performance in two ways – by

producing better quality grass and balage, and through continuing to enhance herd genetics through regular herd testing.

“I could see it would be possible to increase the herd by 30-40 more cows if we could lift grass quality significantly,” he says.

Another crucial factor in terms of the ‘bottomline’ seasonal profit per kilogram of milksolid will be when the farm receives a decent amount of rain.

The amount of natural rainfall affects the decision on when irrigation will need to be used.

“We’re almost a month behind in rainfall to where things used to be,” says Paul. “If we don’t have good rainfall soon, we will need to start irrigating in the middle of September.”

Synlait has recently commissioned its ‘Lead with Pride’ best practice accreditation pathway for its suppliers.

Paul says the process of meeting the audited benchmarks the programme sets has been well worthwhile.

“By attaining Gold Plus standard when our farming systems are audited by AsureQuality, we will receive a premium, additional payment on the milk we produce.”

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Sheep and crop farmer Russell Laughton has seen a big increase in lambing percentages since introducing a ram with the inverdale gene. farm production after facing some tough times over the last 20-30 years.

“We were backed into a corner shortly after the Government took away subsidies. That was probably the start of improving our lambing percentages and our lamb weights.”

Despite the genetic gains, he takes a pragmatic view of what it takes to achieve good results at the processing plant, quoting an old maxim, ‘Half the breeding’s in the breeding and the other half’s in the feeding’.

The farm crops 160-180ha, which includes about 80ha of winter-sown wheat, with the balance sown in oats, barley and peas. During autumn, oats combined with a small percentage of Moata ryegrass are direct drilled to provide green spring feed.

Winter feed is supplemented by 50 to 60 bales of balage, harvested on-farm, as insurance in the event of a feed pinch.

About 40ha of oats are grown for the horseracing industry, however with the dairy downturn, there could be some adjustment this season in the area of crops sown for this market.

Lambing started in the second week of August, slightly later than usual, but relatively early compared to some parts of Southland.

“In our case, with the combination of lambing and cropping, it frees us to move onto the cropping side of the workload, and early lambs is where you get the big money.”

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ON FARM » Owen & Cathy Copinga

Business Rural

| 71

Benefits flow from cow barn Karen Phelps One of the main challenges of farming is always the factors you can’t control, such as the weather.

Southland farmers Owen and Cathy Copinga reckon they’ve come up with the answer to combatting the negative effects the harsh winter weather was having on their farming operation – they built a cow barn.

Removing stress from the cows has brought improvements in all of their cow-health parameters – production, fertility, somatic cell count, and lameness. Pasture damage has also been reduced during the wet months and feed efficiency has improved significantly improved through the cows being fed in the barn.

Three years on, Owen, an economist before going farming, says their investment in the shed has netted an internal rate of return of 14 per cent.

“We sat down and thought: Do we want to stay farming in Southland?” he says. “The answer was yes, so then we thought about how we could change the factors we felt were limiting our business.

“The main one was the wet, muddy conditions in the shoulders of the season. With the cow barn we have basically taken the challenges of the weather and removed them from our farming operation.”

The free-stall barn has 630 individual stalls, automatic muck scrapers and automatic cow brushes. Cows are fed down the middle of the shed and can help themselves to food as they feel the need.

Cows are in the barn full-time from around the end of May until the beginning of August. After that, they are back in the barn at various times – because of weather, or to get the most efficient use of feed being fed out. Owen says the cows were fed in the barn during a recent week of wet weather.

Without the barn, half of the feed would have been wasted, and there would have been major damage to pasture.

Owen was brought up on a dairy farm in the Bay of Plenty and completed an economics degree before deciding an office was not for him and returning to work on the family farm. He worked on wages, then quickly progressed to 50:50 sharemilking before the couple bought their first farm at Atiamuri, milking 200 cows for three years.

They sold up and bought a unit in Paengaroa, eventually milking 400 cows and staying six years.

However, frustration with pastoral farming in the Bay of Plenty – they cite factors such as heat

and humidity – drove them south in 2002 to their present Isla Bank property, near Invercargill.

They couple farm 320 hectare (300ha effective) there, milking a herd of 650 holstein friesians through a 50-bail rotary shed. They run the Rivendell Holstein Friesian Stud and have a continued interest in breeding. Owen is a director of the New Zealand Holstein Friesian Association.

They have started breeding a small number of bulls for the New Zealand industry and plan to develop this aspect of their business. Their first sale of stud stock two years ago went well, encouraging them to continue with breeding to add income to their dairy farming operation and help provide cashflow.

This year they are looking to make some savings in to their system – such as improving feed efficiency to graze replacement stock on farm for the first time.

“This makes more sense now that we are selling stud stock as we can’t suddenly remove stock from a grazer,” says Owen. “This will give us greater control They admit the cow barn has been quite a learning curve over the past few years but feel they have reached the point where things are flowing well and they will start to net even more results in terms of cow performance.

Last season the Copingas’ cows produced 385,000 kilograms of milksolids, and they are targeting similar performance this season.

Owen says he and Cathy reset their goals every three to five years. The cow barn was the result of their last goal-setting mission. Who knows what will be the result of their next session as they continue to set, achieve and re-set their goals?

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72 |

ON FARM » Jason & Amber Templeman

Business Rural

Monitor lessons ‘invaluable’ Karen Phelps

Monitor farm lessons

Jason and Amber Templeman have come to the end of their four-year term as Dairy New Zealand’s Marlborough monitor farm, and say they have achieved their initial goals and learned a lot from the experience.

“We’ve learned how to grow a lot more grass and turn it into milk,” says Jason. “It has been a matter of learning about our business and cost structure, and fine-tuning these things.”

Key changes to the system for 2015-16 included limiting the amount of supplement imported – down to 0.68 tonnes per hectare from an average of 2 tonnes/ha (3.2cows/ha), or 210 kilograms of dry matter per cow versus 600kg in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons.

They Hahavealso reduced cow numbers and have concentrated on raising individual cow performance. This season they will put the cows on twice-a-day milking until mid-January/February, then milk them three times every two days until May 2 when they will go on once a day until the end of May when the herd is dried off.

Jason predicts this will cut labour and shed expenses, but should not affect production levels.

He says pasture has been at the centre of their thinking over the past four seasons. They have made sure they are familiar with each pasture’s performance, monitoring pre-graze and post-graze residuals and closely targeting 1500kg dry matter per hectare, although this has increased to 1650kg.

Soil testing has pinpointed the poorer performing paddocks and nitrogen has been used strategically.

They have also re-grassed 10-15 per cent of the farm over each of the last four years through crop rotation, and this has netted results. They plan to continue with this.

Jason believes better management of new pastures will ensure longevity, and a diary he has been keeping over their monitor-farm time contains valuable information.

The Templemans have also striven for worklife balance and Jason says a big lesson has been ensuring they delegate. They employ a herd manager so that they can spend time with their family – Isaac, six, Katie, and four-year-old twins Max and Matt.

• Know where you are at all times in terms of finances so that you can make more accurate and informed decisions. Cost control and profit is critical to manage high debt.

• Pasture management and feed quality are critical. Regular farm walks have helped ensure cows are fed efficiently throughout the season.

• Stockmanship and animal health should be a big focus with an emphasis on prevention rather than cure; take pride in all your livestock.

• Achieve a work-life balance and be able to enjoy time with family.

“Because we used to do everything on the farm ourselves, we have a good understanding of what is involved,” says Jason. “We have an open-door policy with our staff and we favour a straightup, honest approach from both sides. It’s also important to us to ensure staff are challenged and are constantly learning.”

He and Amber met at Telford in 2002 and came back to run Jason’s family farm in 2003; they milked 145 cows and produced 40,000 kilograms of nmilksolids. They went on to 25 per cent, lowerorder sharemilking in 2005-06 and farm ownership in 2010-11.

Their farm is at Linkwater, about 15 minutes from Havelock on Queen Charlotte Drive towards Picton. It is bounded by the sea on one side and is split by two roads. They have a 115ha (effective) milking platform and milk a herd of 410 cows with a stocking rate of 3.6 cows/ha. The farm is supported by two run-off blocks – 25ha and 100ha.

Now that they have reached the end of their time as a monitor farm, they plan to consolidate their business.

“The payout will improve – sometime,” says Jason. “In the meantime we need to minimise financial losses and ensure the core of the business is maintained – cut the fat, not the muscle.

“We’ve learned to farm to 90% perfection as the last 10% can cost 30%-plus of our income and energy. The time to farm to 100% perfection is when it pays. We’ve fine-tuned our system over the past four years, so now we’ll consolidate and wait for the payout to rise.”

Jason and Amber Templeman, with son Isaac, have just finished their four-year term as Dairy New Zealand’s Marlborough monitor farm. Their property, at Linkwater near Havelock, milks 410 cows on a milking platform of 110 hectares with a stocking rate of 3.6 cows per hectare.

We’ve learned to farm to 90 per cent perfection as the last 10% can cost 30%-plus of our income and energy. The time to farm to 100% perfection is when it pays. We’ve finetuned our system over the past four years, so now we’ll consolidate and wait for the payout to rise.

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Business Rural

FENCING » FCANZ

| 73

Safety driven home to delegates Karen Phelps Health and safety was a major topic at the Fencing Contractors’ Association of New Zealand conference in Rotorua in July.

Debbie Robertson, from FCANZ health and safety provider Rural Safe, presented a workshop on how fencing contractors can operate efficiently within the legislation. FCANZ president Simon Fuller says the opportunity to split into groups and work on practical health and safety exercises brought the message home to attendees.

The industry is generally coping well with the recent legislative changes, he says, with FCANZ and Rural Safe providing assistance to members as required.

A visit to the Permapine plant at Rotorua was an opportunity for the 80 attendees to gain practical experience. The tour began with the selection of trees, followed their progression through the Permapine plant into posts, and finished with a fencing demonstration.

Ski Wisnesky, business director for the Ministry of Social Development, emphasised the importance for the industry of attracting and retaining good people. He spoke about how the ministry could help, particularly through its Limited Service Volunteer programme.

Trevor Pearce, a senior constable from the New Zealand Police, spoke about how to operate safely and legally on highways by ensuring correct loading when towing, and Pete Ritchie and Gene Browne, from four-wheel-drive training and consultancy specialist Natural Instincts, offered practical experience of modern technology and fitfor-purpose vehicles.

It wasn’t all about learning. There were plenty of opportunities for delegates and partners to socialise

PHOTOS: The fencing industry is coping well with legislative changes on health and safety. FCANZ and Rural Safe CAN provide assistance to members.

– such as morning tea and a guided garden tour through a private garden in Hora Hora, lunch in the rural town of Tirau where attendees looked around the local stores, and the Gallagher dinner and quiz with compere Craig Wiggins.

FCANZ life membership was awarded to

75-year-old Frank Price for his lifelong involvement and contribution to the fencing industry.

The conference marked the 10th anniversary of the association, and while the weather was the worst in FCANZ conference history, it was still an anniversary to remember, says Simon Fuller.

“Everyone enjoyed themselves, especially catching up with other delegates as it’s a networking type of industry.

“A lot of fencing companies are family businesses, so it’s a great way for people to get ideas for the next generation.”

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74 |

FENCING » FCANZ

Business Rural

Time to nail a new generation Karen Phelps Young blood is needed in the fencing industry and it’s a matter of thinking outside the square to target the next generation, says Fencing Contractors’ Association of New Zealand president Simon Fuller.

FCANZ is developing strategies to introduce young people to the industry, including tapping into the Limited Service Volunteer programme.

The six-week, hands-on motivational and training programme for people aged 18-25 is run by the New Zealand Defence Force on behalf of Work and Income. The aim is to increase confidence and improve job prospects for attendees.

The association has been represented at open days held as part of the course, and Simon says that at the last event, around 12 young people expressed interest in a career in the fencing industry.

“These young people have the right attitude we are looking for. They want to get out and give it a go, so we identified an opportunity for the industry to recruit staff.” .

The association has already established a relationship with the New Zealand Young Farmers Get Ahead programme and last year was involved in career days around New Zealand.

Simon Fuller says the association’s presentation was well received by students, and more than one of them has contacted FCANZ about the possibility of holiday work.

While fencing did not used to be viewed as a viable career pathway, times have changed, he says.

“Fencing used to be seen as a labour-only, seasonal job, but it is now increasingly recognised as a trade career. Fencing companies have equipment of substantial value and work is now undertaken year round. Compliance has grown, so they must operate in a professional and businesslike manner.”

FCANZ is developing strategies to introduce young people to the industry.

FCANZ has also been working with the primary ITO to establish a training provider for fencing qualifications. Although a qualification is not necessary to operate in the industry, the association is aiming to lift the overall professionalism as well

as encourage young people into the industry, says Simon.

“Fencing plays a major part in primary industry in New Zealand. Dairy, sheep, beef, horticulture and viticulture all need fencing structures to be

productive. Let’s not forget the urban landscapes either – security fencing and residential fencing.

There are certainly young people out there who would be interested in fencing as a career. It’s just a matter of making them aware of the pathways.

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Business Rural

FENCING » FCANZ

| 75

Fencing plays a major part in primary industry in New Zealand, says FCANZ president Simon Fuller.

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76 |

FENCING » Custom Fencing

Business Rural

Fencing fanatic ‘a special breed’ Kelly Deeks With farmers busy and getting busier, it helps to know your fencing contractor is qualified, has proven knowledge in design and material selection, and has been assessed as using best-practice methods for local terrain and environmental conditions.

Nick Terry, managing director of Otago-based Custom Fencing, has been fencing since he left school when he went to work on a very selfsufficient sheep and beef farm where the only contractors used were for the main shear.

“We did pretty much everything right from making the fence posts. I should have stayed there longer, but they wouldn’t let me drive the big tractor, and I was absolutely fascinated by it.”

He pursued his driving dreams and went on to drive tractors overseas, before moving into the cut throat market of tractor sales.

After a couple of years, he was becoming disillusioned with the fact there was no loyalty in selling tractors, and an wonderful opportunity arose for him to buy his own fencing business at Long Beach.

Colin Hall Fencing was a lifestyle fencing specialist operating one tractor and a post-driver.

He was keen to retire and Nick went to work with him for a while to get to know the gear and the customers.

In November 2011 Nick took over the business and shifted its focus to rural fencing, while still doing the whole range of residential, lifestyle, and security fencing around Otago.

“I really enjoy doing our rural work as it’s always about building relationships with like-minded people who will probably give you repeat business and refer you on to others they know.”

In April last year, Custom Fencing gained its accredited fencing contractor qualification from the Fencing Contractors Association New Zealand (FCANZ), which was developed to raise fencing industry standards in both fence construction as well as the running of the business.

“When I’m tendering for jobs or quoting for work, it’s an extra reassurance for my clients that I have the New Zealand Qualifications Authority national certificate in fencing, a first-aid certificate, public liability insurance, and a working health and safety manual.”

As an FCANZ member, Custom Fencing also enjoys the benefits of meeting like-minded people from the industry.

“People who can sit down with a beer and talk

about fencing for five hours, Farmers know about fencing, but you wouldn’t find them talking about it for five hours. You can put us in the special breed category.”

If Nick comes across something he hasn’t done or seen before, there is always support on the end of the phone or on Facebook from someone who has.

Since becoming accredited last year, Custom Fencing has grown. The company has bought a second tractor and post driver, and employs two more staff – two crews instead of one.

“Now our customers don’t have to wait for us to be available to work on their fencing,” Nick says.

“We’ve got four experienced guys working on two separate jobs, with me overseeing both.”

PHOTOS: Above: To meet growing demand Custom Fencing’s Nick Terry has added a second tractor and a postdriver to the business.

Below: A finished fence line in tough terrain on the Rock and Pillar Range .

PROUDLY SUPPORTING OTAGO AND SOUTHLAND BUSINESSES Full fencing service, from rural fencing to residential & commercial, retaining walls and more 03 465 7212 ␣ 021 614 100 nickterryfencing@xtra.co.nz facebook.com/customfencing

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Business Rural

FENCING » Ewing Fencing Contractors

| 77

High-country fencing a specialised art High country fencing involves a specialised approach, including rock drills, explosives and different materials to suit ground conditions, says Mark Ewing, of Ewing Fencing Contractors. A FCANZ accredited fencer, Mark has 38 years of fencing experience.

Kelly Deeks FCANZ-accredited fencing contractor Mark Ewing has been back in the high country working on fencing projects on farmland that has gone through tenure review and requires new fences and fencing maintenance.

Part of the upcoming summer programme will be the completion of a Land Information New Zealand contract in the Mackenzie Country, requiring 20 kilometres of fencing in total, with around 8km yet to be completed.

Mark says that when you get into the high country, fencing becomes rather different from at low altitude. Rock drills, explosives, different fence materials to suit the ground conditions, and difficult access provide plenty of challenges.

“The experience and expertise of our staff have proved crucial in this work,” he says.

High country fencing is still a large part of his firm’s work, but it was the mainstay when Mark and his wife, Bernice, started their business in North Otago.

These days the firm does a wide range of work...rural fencing, pivots, dairy conversions, stockyards, lifestyle blocks, security fencing, and post and rail fencing.

Mark’s son, Logan, who has been in the business for more than nine years is now foreman.

He and Mark run a crew each, when not working together on large projects.

“The quality of our staff is imperative,” says Mark. “Logan brings fresh ideas and enthusiasm to the business, and also keeps us up to date with the latest technology.”

Mark says a far better range of tools is available these days...motorised power tools, rock drills, nail guns, staple guns, post-drivers that have become fully hydraulic and can have attachments fitted.

The equipment is also a lot safer, and Mark’s current hydraulic post drivers are 10 times easier to operate and more efficient than the old drum-andrope-operated machines.

Ewing Fencing Contractors is one of only seven accredited fencing contractors in the Otago region. Fencing Contractors Association New Zealand (FCANZ) developed the accredited fencing

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contractor qualification to raise industry standards around both fencing and also business practices, and provide an assurance for clients that their accredited fencing contractor is qualified.

Mark has 38 years of fencing experience and, from its base just north of Oamaru, Ewing Fencing Contractors works around North Otago and South Canterbury – as far south as Palmerston, and up the Waitaki Valley into the high country.

There is quite a bit of movement in the region in irrigation development, particularly with the second stage of the Downlands Irrigation Scheme having opened recently. Some farmers are upgrading their border dyke to pivots, and fencing is sometimes required.

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Post drivers pass ‘a real test’ Ground breaking company Taege Engineering provides New Zealand’s fencing industry with the market’s strongest post drivers, purpose built with market-leading innovation for individual needs and ground conditions.

Warren Blue of Canterbury’s Blue Contracting has been using Taege post drivers for about 20 years. He says he initially approached Taege Engineering for his first of three Taege post drivers as he wanted to deal with a local company with a New Zealand made product built for contractors and New Zealand conditions.

“The ground conditions in Canterbury require a lot of spiking, and Taege post drivers have a really good, heavy duty spike unit with a hydraulic rotator which makes positioning of the spike a lot safer and easier,” he says. “We are able to attach our Taege post driver to our 14 ton excavator for any steep or awkward situations.”

He says the two Taege post drivers he runs today are upgraded versions of the first one he bought 20 years ago, with more hydraulic features, improved engineering, and

easier and safer to use.

The local back up service provided by Taege Engineering is a key factor for busy contractor Warren, who needs spare parts and repairs to be completed as quickly as possible.

“Our Taege post drivers perform very well, but with the sort of work our machines are completing, and the severe conditions they are working in, when something needs replacing or fixing Taege Engineering can get it done straight away.”

Marlborough’s Renner Fencing Contractors is another satisfied and repeat customer of Taege Engineering. Busy looking after the fencing needs of the region’s growing grape industry, Renner Fencing Contractors recently bought a larger Taege post driver to get through the hard and tough land where the latest vineyards are being developed.

Renner Fencing Contractors has been testing Taege post drivers with the tough demands of Marlborough’s rocky soils since the late 1990s.

“They are really heavy duty,” says Mike Renner.

The patented Taege hydraulic rock spike means instead of only being able to fence during winter when the ground is softer, Renner Fencing Contractors can now keep operating all year round.

During the height of the vineyard boom, Renner Fencing Contractors was running three Taege post drivers at once with sixteen staff, driving 20,000 strainer posts in a year.

“That’s a real test for any post driver,” says Mike.

This season Renner Fencing Contractors will be installing 12,000 strainer posts before Christmas, with two Taege post drivers working eight hours a day.

The company is now running its fourth Taege post driver and the team are very satisfied with how it handles the demands of the work. It features a massive 2.1m long 150mm rock spike, especially designed for putting in strainers. It has sped up the whole process and eliminated incidents of breaking strainers.

To accommodate the big spike, Taege Engineering built the driver using 9mm Rectangular Hollow Section (RHS) for the spike mast

with a high powered hydraulic spike turner and an extra heavy-duty spike extractor ram with about 20ton of pulling power.

It helps Renner Fencing Contractors to achieve straight fences, with a 600mm sliding side shift and 170mm end shift and the ability to spike holes very straight, ensuring straight posts.

“We think it’s ideal for the Marlborough conditions,” Mark says. “Because of this machine and the experience of our staff, we’re one of the only contractors in this area that can put strainers into hard ground.”

Taege Engineering’s back up service for its high quality, cost effective products is also key to Renner Fencing Contractors’ loyalty, and the company has firsthand experience of Keith Taege dropping everything to produce a driver component at the end of the day, ensuring Renner Fencing Contractors was underway by the next morning with no time lost. keith@taege.com thebluez@xtra.co.nz rennerfencing@hotmail.com

Business Rural

RURAL SERVICES » Paul Warren Builders

| 79

Winton-based Paul Warren Builders built seven dairy sheds in the 2014-15 season. After the drop in the milk payout, that dropped to zero in the 2015-16 season.

Dairy shed builds dry up Kelly Deeks

• • • • •

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Winton-based Paul Warren Builders is coping with the local rural building slump by getting into a bit more residential work around Southland. Paul Warren has also come up with a plan to fill the quieter days – building two new, spec houses on a recently acquired property at Winton.

Paul Warren started his business in 2009, and got straight into rural-building work. This included new dairy sheds, dairy-shed maintenance, and other farm buildings.

“We grew with the work that was out there,” he says.

By the 2014-15 season, his firm had 11 staff and built seven sheds that year – some new conversions, some upgrades, and some on larger farms where cow numbers had increased and there was a need to split the herd and build a second shed to take the pressure off the original.

The milk payout dropped the year after, and the company built no dairy sheds in 2015-16 season.

“We’ve still got pricing and quotes out for farmers who are really just sitting on the fence at the moment,” says Paul Warren.

“They’re waiting to see what the payout does, and when it reaches the right number, they will hit the go button.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on what’s going on and keeping my staff informed about what I was expecting.

“A lot of them found other work, and I was able to cut my staff down from 11 to two so that we can get through this quiet period. With the help of a labourer, we can still build a shed when we get one.”

When the milk price does turn around, he is keen to maintain a staff of three or four, rather than push to get back to the larger business he had before.

“I prefer to spend less time and effort organising staff and the jobs. I prefer to have more time and effort on site where I can keep an eye on the quality.”

However, Paul Warren Builders’ work is still predominantly rural, including basic shed

maintenance and insurance work. The company has also picked up a bit of residential work, including house extensions, bathroom renovations, and new houses for dairy farmers’ staff.

“We love being out in the countryside,” Paul says. “It’s nice to spend time on a rural site for six weeks, then we move on to a different job in a different part of the countryside.”

As well as being picturesque, rural work can also be unproblematic, with farmer clients generally knowing what they want, and having a smaller range of options from which to choose.

“I’m not running around chasing painters or carpet guys,” Paul says.

“There is less to organise and fewer people to keep an eye on and bring up to speed on healthand-safety policies. Farmers know what they want and they let you get on with the job. I’ve never had any issues with any of the farmers we’ve done jobs for.”

Paul says the local property market seems to have a bit of movement, so it’s a good time to get new houses into the Winton stock. He and wife Nicole have bought a section in Winton, which he plans to subdivide then build on. This is where he is building the spec houses.

I’ve been keeping an eye on what’s going on and keeping my staff informed about what I was expecting. A lot of them found other work, and I was able to cut my staff down from 11 to two, so we can get through this quiet period. With the help of a labourer, we can still build a shed when we get one.

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80 |

Business Rural

RURAL SERVICES » Pump Services

Work flows from water purification Sue Russell

Pump Services (2010) Ltd specialises in designing, supplying, installing and servicing water, pump, irrigation and effluent systems for farmers, businesses and lifestyle residential blocks.

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Ross and Glenda Johnson own and operate a company that services the rural sector across the area from the Rangitata River to Kaikoura and across the island into Westland’s Grey Valley.

The company was formed a decade ago, but in 2010 was reformed when the Johnsons bought out their business partner.

Pump Services (2010) Ltd specialises in designing, supplying, installing and servicing water, pumps, irrigation and effluent systems and equipment for farmers, businesses and lifestyle residential blocks.

Based in Rangiora, just north of Christchurch, the company employs 14 staff – 10 in Rangiora and four at Ikamatua, in the Grey Valley on the West Coast.

“Bob Brown is our sales manager on the West Coast,” says Ross Johnson. “Business there has been reasonably busy.

“Bob has had 30-odd years working with irrigation systems and is able to bring that expertise into advising farmer clients on the best technologies and irrigation design to suit their particular farm layout.”

For its first four years, Pump Services concentrated on dairy-farm conversions in Canterbury.

Both Bob Brown and Ross Johnson have always worked with irrigation-system design and installation.

Both have completed a Massey University course geared around learning best practice in dairy-shed, effluent-pond design.

“I call it my ‘baby degree’ and, since then, we have just continued to evolve our capabilities,” says Ross.

That evolution has seen the company become the major contractor for the conversion of a West Coast farm to dairy.

When first approached about the project,

Ross Johnson took the farmer around a number of dairy farms in Canterbury, each of which was using a variety of technologies and systems.

Once the farmer settled on what he wanted, Ross took charge of organising the plans and building processes of all aspects of the conversion.

“I had always wanted to have the opportunity to undertake a multi-faceted farm conversion project such as this,” he says.

“And looking back, it has gone very well. It is certainly a service we feel we can now add to our list of capabilities.”

In the last two years and given a general deterioration in water quality, he has detected a change with water purification systems.

“With the intensive dairy farming now in this region, there has been an impact on water quality, with more nitrates and ecoli.

“These days, all new properties have to have water samples tested and levels approved before getting a code of compliance. This has become a big issue.”

Water samples are tested by Hills Laboratory, covering all trace elements. Once results are received Ross uses one of several purification/ filtration systems from suppliers such as Puretec, Davey Water or Taylor Purification.

“We design a range of systems – with filters to remove nitrate, phosphates and bacteria through to full iron removal. Iron and hard water causes wear and tear on hot-water cylinders and dairy-shed piping.”

He says several of his staff have been with the company since it started in 2006 and he has a core of loyal suppliers such as Southern Cross Irrigation Pumps, Pump and Valve (effluent pumps), RX Plastics, Waters & Farr,(PVC and poly pipe), and . Brown Brothers and A W Harper (pumps for the domestic market).

We predominantly use Italian pumps because we have found them to be superior to any others available,” says Ross.

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Two years ago – in November 2014 – Kaitangatabased Cranleigh Haulage took over another local transport business, Nyhon Transport.

For Reece Johnston, who leads the transport company, the acquisition was a timely and positive experience.

“Nyhon Transport has had a strong presence and reputation in this district for 26 years. When its owner retired, I could see it would be really good for my business to take it over, extending our capability.”

With a depot at Kaitangata, 10 kilometres east of Balclutha, Cranleigh Haulage provides a wide range of transporting services.

The fleet includes 12 stock, tip, spreader and logging trucks. The only service missing is the transport of containers.

“We will transport just about anything from milk, hay, grain, fertiliser, stock, gravel, timber and aggregate,” says Reece Johnston.

Business has slowed down somewhat as the impact of the reduced dairy payout trickles through to allied services, he says.

“We have had to adjust and take up new work as opportunities present to counter the downturn in farm work such as fert spreading.”

For the past three years Cranleigh Haulage has been the only South Otago stockist of Golden Bay Dolomite, a soluble magnesium fertiliser.

Reece Johnston rates Cranleigh Haulage’s five drivers, who have had years of experience in the haulage industry, as the key to the company’s success.

“We’re about providing a top service to our customers. In the transport game, drivers have to

The drivers enjoy transporting a wide range of products to various destinations. It’s good for them to have the variety of work, and not only locally.

We’ve been as far north as Huntly, in the Waikato. have a certain level of flexibility to cope with lastminute changes. I am also fortunate to have a pool of relief drivers I can call on when demand is high.”

The haulage-industry year carries a rhythm and flow to it, he says.

While transporting stock and carting logs from forestry blocks sprinkled through Otago are the mainstays year around, farming-related services – such as carting lambs to the works, milk to processing, and stock on and off grazing blocks – comes and goes in a cycle repeated each year.

Reece Johnston says this is good for business and for providing staff with a variety of jobs, including long-haul runs to the North Island.

“The drivers enjoy transporting a wide range of products to various destinations,” he says.

“It is good for them to have the variety of work, and not only locally. We’ve been as far north as Huntly, in the Waikato.”

Business Rural

RURAL SERVICES » Lifestyle Tractors

| 81

Partners sought for ‘unmatched’ UTV Kelly Deeks After 12 years of bringing compact yet stable tractors and other farm machinery to Canterbury farmers and lifestyle-block owners, Lifestyle Tractors has developed an ultra-terrain vehicle (UTV) that is probably the toughest on the New Zealand market, Lifestyle Tractors managing director Geoff Hill is looking for partners to promote and market make the revolutionary product nationally.

He says the TUATARA 1100EFI UTV has been designed from the ground up, and is unrivalled in features and quality in its class.

He decribes it as a highly functional, amazingly robust and versatile machine” suitable for just about any application – farming, hunting, commercial activities, or purely recreational purposes.

“Its all-steel structure makes it probably the toughest UTV available in New Zealand.”

He says the need for such a new development arose from farmers moving away from large tractors towards something that could get them around the farm with more agility, as well as saving time and fuel.

“They started off with motorcycles, then moved on to quad bikes,” he says.

“But those quad bikes are killing a lot of farmers every year. Even a small quad bike can weigh over 400 kilograms, and they can do a lot of “damage” if they roll on you. They are also very limited in what they can carry.”

At 1100cc and four cylinders, the TUATARA’s engine is more like a car than a motorcycle, and the machine can be registered and warranted for road use. Five-speed transmission offers huge power at any speed (top speed is 70km/h. It has a a switchable 2WD/4WD option and individually

The TUATARA UTV has a five-speed, 1100cc engine with a top speed of 70km/h, switchable 2WD/4WD option, and front and rear diff lock. A 1360kgcapacity, electric winch, fold-down windscreen, roof-mounted LED light bar and electric rear-tray hoist are some of the standard fittings. selectable front and rear differential lock.

Standard on the TUATARA, but considered expensive accessories on other models, are a 1360kg capacity electric winch, a fold-down windscreen, a roof-mounted LED light bar, an electrically operated rear-tray hoist, high-grip CSV tyres, an engine-intake snorkel, CD radio, fibreglass roof with carry tray, a front-carry tray capable of carrying 200kg, and two deck-mounted equipment boxes.

It is more functional than any other UTV on the New Zealand market, and is less than two-thirds the price of any comparable UTV – if one actually existed/

and positive experience’

Also not found on other utility vehicles in New Zealand is the 100%-steel rear-tray with full dropdown sides to allow for wider loads.

The ladder chassis gives the vehicle structural strength and is ideal feature when negotiating rocky areas or areas with solid vegetation such as branches or tree stumps, even bottoming out on very hard soil.

“The most amazing feature of the TUATARA is its versatility,” says Geoff Hill. “Here is a vehicle that is equipped with headlights, fog-lights, roof-mounted

spotlights, turn indicators, a reversing light, stop-lights, and even a registration-plate light that allows it to be registered and warranted for on-road operation. Yet it is also an off-road vehicle capable of negotiating almost any terrain with ease.

“Furthermore, it is amazingly strong, has an immensely powerful engine, enormous carrying capacity, is more functional than any other UTV on the New Zealand market, and is less than two-thirds the price of any comparable UTV – if one actually existed.”

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82 |

RURAL SERVICES » Southland Farm Services

Business Rural

Reach extends beyond farm gate Russell Fredric While rural work is at the heart of Southland Farm Services’ business, its expertise extends well beyond this, says operations manager Mark McMillan.

Formed in 1991, the Invercargill-based company remains 100per cent Southland owned and operated, and employs about 40 staff.

The business has several divisions and sister companies for the supply, installation and servicing of DeLaval milking systems, plumbing and pumps, electrical and refrigeration equipment. Southland Farm Services also has a milking and engineering division based in Gore.

“We are much more than a milking-machine company,” says Mark McMillan. “We’ve been involved in the rural and domestic side of plumbing, electrical and refrigeration for a number of years.”

One of its sister companies is Southland Electrical & Refrigeration, which employs seven staff, including a refrigeration engineer. This has eliminated the need to bring in outside tradespeople for jobs requiring expertise in either trade.

“A lot of customers are wanting a one-stopshop,” says Mark McMillan. “Sometimes a (refrigeration) break-down can actually be electrical.

It’s all handled by the one company.”

Southland Electrical and Refrigeration’s staff are qualified to install both domestic and commercial heat pumps, and the company is a member of the Master Electricians’ Association.

Southland Plumbing & Pumps, a member of Master Plumbers, deals with new plumbing installations, filtration, plumbing repairs and maintenance, drainlaying, bathroom and kitchen builds and alterations.

• To page 84

Take a

Southland Plumbing & Pumps, a division of Southland Farm Services, deals with all the effluent pumping requirements on farm.

view of your farm.

Your farm dairy has always been the engine room of your farm, and with a new DeLaval 360° solution it can also be the control centre. With the very latest technology either built-in or easily integrated, a DeLaval 360° Dairy System will allow you to manage everything from fertility to productivity and animal health from one central point. We’d love to show you just how good your farm can look when you take a 360° view of it.

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Business Rural

RURAL SERVICES » Southland Farm Services

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PHOTOS: Southland Electrical and Refrigeration, a division of Southland Farm Services, supplies Longveld Hot water systems. The company has an engineering division to cater for farm infrastructure and can provide trenching, cabling and general digger work.

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RURAL SERVICES » Southland Farm Services/Pankhurst Contracting

Business Rural

Drought changes farming practices Kelly Deeks After more than 25 years of specialist rural contracting, North Canterbury’s Pankhurst Contracting is concentrating on cultivation as farming practices change in response to ongoing drought conditions.

“The droughts in the past couple of years have caused a lot of stuffed pastures, so there is a lot of regrassing going on,” says Ben Pankhurst.

“There have also been some recent changes in farming practices in North Canterbury, and we’re now planting a lot of short-rotation grasses and greenfeed.

“And, of course, the new one up here – fodder beet.”

Pankhurst Contracting was established in Greta Valley, north of Waipara, by Ben’s parents, David and Diane Pankhurst. Ben joined the business 12 years ago.

The company’s services include square balage and wrapping, direct drilling and cultivation services, and post driving.

The company’s modern plant and machinery

Southland Farm Services supplies backflow preventers (above) and filtration systems (right). The company has also been busy over winter servicing milking machines.

includes three tractors, a custom drill, a roller drill, plough and disc equipment, and an individual balewrapper.

“When I first came home, Dad was a oneman-band baling contractor and ran a baler and a rake,” Ben says. “Now we’re heavily involved in cultivation, and we employ about three staff over the summer.”

Direct drilling is a large part of the company’s work., Modern machinery has been developed to handle direct drilling in most conditions, and he says his staff have the knowledge and experience to get it right.

“The ground conditions in the area include every type of soil – from super heavy, tarry country to river-run shingle, and everything in between. The hill-country work includes a lot of rock.”

Before ground preparation work begins around August, he is busy on fleet maintenance over winter.

The fleet includes the precision planter bought last year to keep up with the demands of the increasing trend towards fodder beet in the region.

“With the dry years up here, a lot of people are

• To page 85

‘We are much more than a milking machine company’ • From page 82 “We plumb a lot of new houses,” says Mark McMillan. “We do a lot of work for franchise house companies and domestic work in new housing, as well as a variety of maintenance jobs.”

The company supplies Lowarra and Onga pumps, Longveld iron-filtration and dairy-shed, gas, hot-water systems, and IPQ back-flow prevention.

Over the winter Southland Farm Services has had a high work-load in the lead-up to the new dairy season, he says.

“Our staff have been extremely busy over the last couple of months with the servicing of milking machines.”

While the dairy downturn is having an effect on large-scale capital projects, he says there have been some farmers are investing in labour-saving machinery as a means of reducing ongoing costs.

Mark points to automatic cup removers as an example.

“We’ve got a few upgrades planned between now and Christmas. They are looking at getting their operating costs down by having fewer labour units.”

Enquiries for farm-water systems are managed

by Southland Farm Services Machine Operations.

Designers develop a farmer’s specifications into a water or effluent system, suited for their farm landscape and environment, Mark McMillan sasy the company is also equipped to supply, transport and install products to complement an individually designed water or effluent plan that includes provision for trenching, cabling and general digger work.

The Plumbing & Pumps side of the company then handles the effluent pumping requirements or water pumping needs for projects. A 24-hour callout service is provided.

North Canterbury-based Pankhurst Contracting’s services include direct drilling, square balage and wrapping.

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RURAL SERVICES » Dave McCrae Building

Business Rural

| 85

New houses balance dairy downturn Kelly Deeks Ashburton-based Dave McCrea Builders has recently completed its largest project yet.

The dairy farm conversion for Lincoln University. involved building an Opus-designed rotary dairy shed, complete with classroom, offices, laboratories, and storeroom, a barn, and a stand-off feedpad.

Up to nine building staff were needed on site and the project absorbed more than 1700 cubic metres of concrete.

Dave McCrea says the low milksolids price has had an effect on his workload. His firm has built just three dairy sheds this season compared with seven the previous season.

But its capacity to to tackle residential, and commercial work, as well as agricultural

construction projects, has allowed the company to compensate for the dairy decline and post a good year.

It was recognised at this year’s Mid and South Canterbury Registered Master Builder House of the Year awards, earning a silver medal in the $500,000 -650,000 new-house category, and the Heart of the Home Kitchen award.

The three-bedroom, linear-weatherboard-andplaster house in Ashburton’s central business district was designed by the client, who engaged Dave McCrea Building after the company built her previous house on a Mid-Canterbury lifestyle block.

Dave McCrea set up his firm 10 years ago.

He had a background in residential work, but discovered a passion for dairy-shed construction through working with another building company.

As his business grew, so did its skills and knowledge base, opening up opportunity for it to increase the amount of residential building work.

“As I got more staff, they got more experience building dairy sheds and housing,” says Dave. “We’re now able to do a lot more with staff accustomed to both styles of building.

“The guys do long hours building dairy sheds and its hard work. Now with the housing component added in, they like the diversification of not doing the same thing year in, year out.

“They really get into it, and when they come back to do a dairy shed, they get into that as well. ” Dave McCrea Building has built about 70 dairy sheds and, having increased its residential building portfolio over the past three years, has now totted up 40-odd houses.

The company also does additions,

Fodder beet ‘really taking off’ • From page 84 starting to put it in,” he says. “People were going to feed it to cattle, but ended up feeding a lot of sheep on it. They weren’t planning on doing that, but it seems to work pretty well. It’s really taking off in the district, and it looks as though it’s going to stay.”

Pankhurst Contracting has always tried to keep a step ahead of its clients’ changing needs, and he says this has been key to the business’s longevity.

Ben says the family is proud that most of their customers are long-term, and pleasure in building and maintaining relationships and helping farmers get their work done.

“We’re known as experienced operators who take pride in our work . We do a lot of it as if it was our own farm. We’re quite fussy, we like to see a good job done, and everyone looked after.”

Planting of short-rotation grasses and fodder beet is part of the changing farming culture in North Canterbury, says Ben Pankhurst.

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Dave McCrea says a construction package for farmers wanting to convert offers the simplicity of dealing with just the one contractor for all building requirements.

“The farmers themselves are flat out converting.

They’re looking after the pastures, the cows and the irrigators. We look after the buildings. We have a variety of skills and experience, and can adapt to client requirements and market conditions.”

PHOTOS Above: This dairy farm conversion for Lincoln University is the largest project to date for MidCanterbury firm Dave McCrea Building. The build used more than 1700 cubic metres of concrete.

Far left: Dave and Arlene McCrea.

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