“I was working on the family farm and contacted some neighbours to do their mowing, raking and baling and I was able to pay for the baler in that first season.”
His only tractor was a David Brown 990. He was also supplementing his income with fencing, an AB run and bush work.
Peter and wife Jenny are based at Reporoa where he has two dairy farms. The home property has been in the family 60 years and is managed by their son ‘PJ’. In spite of the dry spell at February 20 they were 13000kgMS ahead of the same time last season.
“They are going well with some silage, PKE and plenty of scenery and the stock are in good order.”
He started making silage with a Gallagher forage harvester and a Buckton trailer with a large cage, carrying to stacks and pits. He had one of the first round balers in the early 1980s and the conventional baler was “history.” Then when Gallagher stopped making Silorators they bought their first loader wagon, a Taarup, in the early 1990s.
It was with this machine that Molloy coined the phrase ‘hectare hogger’. “Compared with the Gallagher these machines travelling up to 11km just hogged the grass.”
He has had several different brands and his latest is ‘hectare hogger’ MK VIII (See sidebar).
He worked about 20km from his home base and it is a family business. As it expanded he used Lincoln College students for the busy part of the season. Reporoa at this time was an area of small farms where all farmers made their own supplements and there was no brought in feed.
Molloy Contracting expanded into cultivation, developing land for crops and new pasture, and spreading fertiliser and lime.
Contracting reflects the changes in sizes of tractors and machinery and as the machinery grew bigger tractors were needed. “Back in the 1990s a big tractor was 120hp.”
Farming in the area was also changing with farms amalgamating and farmers leaving the complete job to contractors. He now works up to 40km from his home base with himself, one permanent and two casual staff. “I now need bigger tractors, mowers and rakes and we changed to wrapped bales about 2007.”
He has a Krone round baler, McHale bale wrapper, Claas hay rake covering up to 8.8m, Pottinger front and rear mowers covering 6m, ASIP mower 3.8m as well as cultivation gear including power harrows, drills, rotary hoes and fertiliser spreaders.
Tractors are two Massey-Fergusons 140 and 160hp and two Fendts 240 and 270hp.
