Altitude on the station ranges from 705m-2430m – winters can be harsh and summers very hot, making for a short, sharp growing season.
Three gravity-fed centre-pivots water 550ha which grow a total of 18,000kg DM/ha/year of predominately ryegrass, tall fescue, and clover-based pastures. In this climate, growth is explosive in late spring-early summer and this feed is used to grow out calves, lambs, and finish crossbred trading lambs.
At the end of February they had killed 10,000 lambs off Godley Peaks, to an average carcaseweight of 17.9kg.
Calves are weaned in March at an average weaning weight this year of 235kg (across all calves) from a mean calving date of October 18.
This is an average of 47% of mature cow weight, with cow weights taken at calf marking.
Rob says the focus is on getting the calves grown and away to Five Star well before their second winter.
“It’s very economic for me.”
The weaned calves winter on kale and silage, making for a total intake of 6kg DM/head/day.
Come spring these yearling steers come into their own in helping to mop up feed surpluses, and manage pasture quality for lambs.
The steers are growing at close to 1kg/day from weaning until they leave, and Rob says even in a bad year – when the calves were standing in snow for 83 days – they were still gaining 640gm/day.
Uncapping potential
When Rob Glover first came to Godley Peaks in 2001 the farm was carrying 6000su, and had a small area under irrigation.
A large development programme, which has included capital fertiliser, about 220km of fences, and irrigation and new pasture development, has lifted the wintering capacity from 6000 to 18,000su.
This included 6000 Merino ewes lambing just under 100%, 2500 Merino wethers, and 7000-8000 sheep replacements.
The cow herd is made up of 300 mixed-age Angus cows and heifers which are mated as yearlings.
The cows winter up the Godley Valley – which has a glacier at its head – and Rob says they drop salt blocks in the valley at the base of the hill, which keeps them within that area.
Yearling steers are grown out for Five Star Beef before their second winter.
Rob has found ryegrass, fescue, and clover mixes to be the best performers under irrigation. A typical pasture mix is 10kg/ha Expo ryegrass, 2kg/ha Demand white clover, and 2kg/ha Tahora white clover. Rob admits this is a low sowing rate but he finds the sward quickly thickens.
Knowing the drill
Godley Peaks Station is extremely tough, stony country with friable soils so ploughing is not an option – everything is direct-drilled.
They start off root-raking the rocks and rolling the remainder with a vibrating roller, which shatters them.
Any left after this process are picked up and taken away.
At the start of the development programme they used a lot of urea on the Browntop – 100kg/ha in spring. The resulting growth was sprayed and allowed to rot down.
Urea was applied to the organic matter and ryecorn sown. Typically, they grew two crops of ryecorn followed by a crop of kale, before establishing permanent pasture.
A recently broken-in area was sown in a mix of tall fescue (18kg/ha), Gala brome (5kg/ha), Demand white clover (2kg/ha), and Tahora white clover (2kg/ha).
The irrigated pastures are given an annual dressing of 250kg/ha of Sulphur Super and Causmag.
The development programme has lifted Olsen P levels from 3-4 to 22-23, and under Godley Peak’s consent conditions, they are unable to lift P levels beyond 25.
They have not applied urea to the irrigated flats for five years.
Rob has tried growing lucerne but is moving away from the forage as, under irrigation, it does not compete with ryegrass and fescues in terms of drymatter production.
Ryegrass is also cheaper to grow.
