Gary and Wendy McStay have been at Woodlands, 15km from Invercargill, for nine years and have a full contracting service including cultivation, silage and hay.
"We travel up to one hour, probably 40-50km, from our base and most of the time we are working on flat to rolling country," says Gary.
Cultivation gear includes a Kuhn and Lemken reversible ploughs, Dalbo maxi-discs, Dalbo Roller Drill with a Hatzenbichler air seeder and a direct drill.
"I also do a lot of ridging of Southlands favourite crop, swedes."
They have a James Aerator and McStay believes a lot more Southland soils would benefit from being aerated. He also uses an Alpego Cracker after winter crops to open the soil and let it dry out.
With their McHale Fusion Baler last season they harvested 12000 bales of baleage which is down because of the season. Bale collection is done with a JCB Tele-Handler.
They have two full-time staff plus Gary and five to six casuals when needed.
"April till August is our quieter time and from August onwards its sheer hell."
Tractors are two Massey Ferguson 120 and 160hp with four Fendts 160-200hp. They have just finished their first season with the Pottinger Wagon with a 60cu/m capacity using a 200hp Fendt.
McStays bought the Pottinger for two reasons - the suspension system and the weigh scales.
A new innovation from Pottinger is the tandem axle with hydropneumatic suspension to give maximum stability and comfort on-and-off-road.
The suspension has a built-in hydraulic sensing system to each of the wheels. If it senses that one wheel is down on the others e.g. soft ground, it can shift the weight to the other wheels. This helps stability as well as reducing compaction.
The constant sensing also helps the stability of the wagon especially when full and when travelling on hilly ground, and the large axle has extra clearance for demanding tracks and poor road conditions. This system also allows for attachment to weigh scales, he says.
"More and more farmers buying or selling crops by the kg/DM want an accurate figure of the yield of the crop and with the ISOBUS control each load is weighed and recorded and a printout is available."
