The concrete sheep yards have certainly stood the test of time as have concrete bridges and culverts. Trees planted over 60 years ago add amenity value to the farm and provide habitat to native birds.
The farm has only 30ha of flats with the balance being hill country, but the farm’s east-west aspect means it is slower to dry out in summer and hangs on to feed longer.
Previous owners had maintained soil fertility which was great for both the soil and matagouri, the latter flourishing under years of aerial topdressing.
Thick stands of matagouri limited the carrying capacity of many parts of the farm to about four stock units/ha. Clearing matagouri has been the focus of the development programme David has been carrying out.
Under the guidance of Peter Desborough, from Desborough Pasture Consulting, David has been applying Aglime to the blocks earmarked for development at a rate of one tonne/ha.
This is done several months before the block is sprayed, using a helicopter, with a mix of reduced-rate metsulfuron – 50g/ha instead of the recommended 170g/ha – and Roundup 360 at 10 litres/ha. This higher rate of Roundup was used for quicker kill.
This is done in November and the block is left in summer fallow to conserve soil moisture.
“Using summer fallow is the key. If we worked it we would have lost a lot of that moisture,” David says.
In February the sprayed blocks are oversown with a pasture mix such as 1.5kg/ha of plantain, 2kg/ha of chicory, 4kg/ha of white clover, and 10kg/ha of Cordura Italian ryegrass. The seed is flown on along with 375kg/ha of DAP13S and 5kg/ha of Boron.
Once the seed has been flown on, David employs a contractor with a crawler and harrows to harrow the block to ensure that essential seed-to-soil contact.
Top-up fencing works well at keeping stock, particularly lambs, where they should be.
Hydowns has been well-fenced and while David Hyde is intending to further subdivide several of the developed blocks, these are not big jobs and will be done by the end of winter.
David has used top-up fencing over the top of the standard seven-wire fence and believes it is invaluable in ensuring stock stay where they are meant to be, particularly lambs.
Similarly the water system is well set-up and reliable, so all the infrastructure was in place when David bought the farm.
