DC and LJ Redmond Ltd is a “sophisticated” Canterbury farming operation run by David and Lynley Redmond at Pendarves, northeast of Ashburton, on 400ha of irrigated land, some of it leased.
David Redmond grew up near Kirwee and worked as a farm hand at Hororata until he was 30. He then grew potatoes on contract for Talleys, which has led to him producing 18,000 tonnes of process potatoes a year and supplying fresh potatoes to supermarkets through a local distributor.
Potatoes are Redmonds’ focus – planted in spring and beginning harvest at Christmas. The process potato harvest is over by April or May but harvesting fresh potatoes goes through winter into spring, he says. “We grow wheat and barley in rotation with the potatoes. After potatoes, the paddock will go into grain and then into grass for fattening. Then it is back to potatoes.”
The operation is large enough to have five full-time staff – including Redmond. It has four potato diggers and a swag of Massey Ferguson machines. They include an MF 36 combine harvester and tractors from a 33hp MF 65 – the first tractor Redmond drove – to a huge 320hp MF 8670 for the heavy jobs, fitted with a Topcon GPS unit. And there are a 95hp MF 6150, an MF 6180, a 100hp 6260, two 155hp MF 7485s, two 200hp MF 8240s, and an 180hp MF 8220.
The two MF 7485s, with Dyna VT variable transmissions, work 1500 hours a year. “These two tractors are ideal for harvesting potatoes and for de-stoning the ground before we form beds and plant. We have three tractors with the variable transmission. It’s brilliant. It lets you work at the ideal speed, which makes your work very accurate.”
The two MF 8240s are used for planting potatoes. They pull a six-row planter that carries five tonnes of seed and three tonnes of fertiliser.
“The 8670 does the heavy work,” Redmond says. “That includes pulling a 4.0m subsoiler, and a 4.0m set of discs in combination with a roller. That is what we use when we take the compacted ground that the cattle have been on back into potato beds.
“After we spray out the pasture, we try to do the whole thing in four passes – from cultivating the ground, to forming the beds and de-stoning, to planting. We use the Topcon GPS unit so that we can do it as accurately as possible.
“Without overlaps we can eliminate overlaps and misses, which is really useful when you are consuming 60 litres of diesel an hour. The Topcon unit has paid its way through diesel savings alone. The guidance system is self-steer and it is also ideal for forming beds.”
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