Friday, March 29, 2024

Award-winner for auction

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Jens and Min Wulff’s Bay of Plenty farm is a picturesque workplace.
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It has stands of native bush, and the tuis are back in numbers after fencing and underplanting.

Add to that their efforts at fertilising little and often, as well as spreading effluent on twice the required area, and it’s easy to see why they won an environmental award.

Now they’re moving on to another farm and the 120ha effective farm is for sale, with all the hard work done over the years to create the award-winning operation.

It’s one of just a few farms in a tightly held location equal distance between Tauranga, Rotorua, and Te Puke, where 2.2m to 3m of rain is spread throughout the year.

The Wulffs have farmed the land for 12 years and in that time have fenced several pockets of native bush and underplanted with species that encourage native birds. They also made a concerted effort to knock possum numbers back, with impressive results.

“The bush adds shelter and aesthetic value to the farm and it (possum eradication) has made a big difference to the bird life in it. You can see it in the trees as well, as the tawa and rata haven’t got dead tips on them now.”

Fertilising with smaller quantities five times a year has worked well on the farm and follows the principle that a little and often is best.

“We can include a bit of urea and nitrogen and it’s not big doses so doesn’t leach out.”

Graham Beaufill, from PGG Wrightson Real Estate, described the property as a gorgeous farm with pockets of native bush for shade and shelter.

It produces about 140,000kg milksolids from 380 cows, with 200 calves reared on milk out of the vat, and 100 cows wintered on the farm. A mix of supplements bought in each year includes 200 tonnes of maize and 150t of palm kernel, while 200 bales of wrapped silage has been made on a runoff.

“The calves go off the farm at Christmas and come back as R2s on July 1, with about 200 of the cows wintered off the farm,” Beaufill said.

At the heart of the business is a well-equipped herringbone dairy with brand new automatic cup removers, while well-maintained races have been formed from onfarm materials and capped with fill fines. These lead to 39 easy contour paddocks that get water from a recently refurbished bore that is then pumped around the farm through a Dosatron and 32mm main lines.

Nine hectares of the farm is planted in summer turnips each year as part of a continual regrassing programme. Around the edges of the farm are 15ha of pine trees, including 10ha now 22 years old and 5ha that are 15 years old.

A lower-order sharemilking couple had been running the farm and Beaufill said they were keen to stay if that suited a buyer.

“This is a really nice farm with good aesthetic value and you even get glimpses of the ocean from Mount Maunganui to the Coromandel.”

A solid three-bedroom brick home is the main residence, with a two-bedroom cottage providing staff accommodation. The farm has ample calf and machinery shedding, and a covered bin for fertiliser or palm kernel.

The farm will be offered for sale by auction on November 25. For more information contact Phil Goldsmith on 027-494-1844 or Beaufill on 027-4748-073.

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