Otago Peninsula is a more challenging area to farm than most but, ironically, it has been made slightly easier for Brendon and Paula Cross by the area’s evolution.
Roselle Farm, a 200ha property on the shore of Otago harbour about 20km from Dunedin, is one of several reasonable-scale farms that remain on the peninsula but the steep land, exposure to wind and unreliable rain make farming a challenge.
In what is a semi-urban environment with a proliferation of small holdings the owners of some larger properties retired or quit the day to day management allowing the Cross family to lease those farms and create a sizable business.
Brendon and Paul live on Roselle with children Thomas and Hannah and Brendon’s mother Annette.
It is 166ha effective of which just 21ha can be cultivated.
They also lease two large holdings: Sandymount, 280ha on the peninsula’s seaward coast of which 245ha is effective and 10ha cultivable, and Hereweka or Harbour Cone, 330ha next to Larnach Castle of which covered 224ha is effective and 16ha cultivable.
Each of those properties has its own stock-handling facilities.
They also lease five small blocks to give them a total of about 900ha on which they run 4000 ewes, 35 breeding cows and 20 finishing cattle.
The peculiarities of farming a steep, climatically challenging environment required some lateral thinking.
Brendon said having three sizable but separate blocks enabled him to run separate flocks: an A-flock for replacements on Sandymount, a B ewe flock mated to a terminal sire on Harbour Cone and replacements at Roselle.
Most lambs are sold store at weaning, mostly to established clients.
“Most of those are committed well before they are weaned,” he said.
Roselle has annual rain of 800mm but it is often unreliable and the prevailing coastal winds sap moisture from the soil.
Three consecutive dry years several years ago forced Brendon to find another way to grow out his ewe lambs.
Now each February replacement ewe lambs are sent to Hamish and Amy Bielski’s south Otago farm to be grown out.
As part payment for the grazing the rising hoggets are mated and lambed and the Bielskis keep the offspring.
“It makes it more affordable for us to graze them off for 12 months.
“They come back as in-lamb two tooths. It has been an absolute pleasure working with Hamish and Amy.”
Because of the steep land the Crosses operate an all-grass system supplemented by a small amount of balage.
Brendon’s great, great, great grandfather James McCartney in 1893 bought 20ha next to what is now the homestead where he milked cows, selling cream to the local creamery and using the milk to fatten pigs.
An historic dairy on the farm where William Larnach built Larnach’s Castle in 1871 is part of land that Brendon Cross now leases.
“For them you can see how novel it is.”
He does, however, ensure his tailing pens are out of sight.
That public interaction goes deeper.
Harbour Cone, owned by Dunedin City Council, has public walking tracks and groups interested in conservation, which has also been positive because conservation is important to the Cross family.
They have set aside two QEII blocks, fenced off a creek and continued his father’s involvement in soil stabilisation.
The peninsula community has banded together to form the Otago Peninsula Biodiversity Group to make the peninsula pest-free by 2050.
Brendon has been a trustee for many years and chairman.
Since 2008 17,000 possums have been caught and when the group is satisfied numbers are sufficiently low attention will be turned to other pests.
The possum eradication started at Taiaroa Head and is slowly working towards the city, which involves rabbit-proof fencing and electric outriggers to create a barrier.
Brendon said he tries to operate a simple farming system and while having multiple lessors could potentially be difficult it is important to understand what they want and their expectations.
Land next to upmarket accommodation offered by Larnach Castle could be cultivated but given its proximity the lessors have asked it be left in grazed pasture.
Equally, that means Brendon is not going to apply fertiliser to such areas.
