Go woke!
OPINION: The Hound reckons the powers at Landcorp (or as they/them like to call themselves, Pāmu) are coming under the microscope with the new government in place.
But for all money, it looks like some of the forest clearing that went on in New Zealand more than a century ago. The grass has been established, but the tree stumps are still rotting down and the landscape looks far from pristine.
Rolls Peak is a long narrow block that backs onto the Kaingaroa State Forest. As the crow flies it's about 12 km in length, and 8 km wide. The steep nature of the property means that it can take more than an hour to drive from one end to the other. It has an extensive network of old forestry roads that are good and provide a launching pad for manager Sam Taylor and his shepherds to tow their horse floats along to take them to the areas of the station they are going to muster. It's close to town yet isolated. Cell phone coverage is almost non-existent.
Rolls Peak is part of a huge parcel of land owned by a private company called Wairakei Pastoral, and Landcorp has the contract to develop and manage the farms. Already, six dairy farms have been developed as part of this project. Rolls Peak was headed for development as a large-scale, dry stock station incorporated with a dairy support block until the ETS intervened and conversion project has been put somewhat on hold.
In the meantime, the station is still being developed but is used mainly for cattle, some dairy support and finishing ewe lambs. What's different about Rolls Peaks is the country is seriously steep in places. A farm bike is useless in this environment and the old- fashioned horse and dog is man's best friend.
Graeme Harvey is the business manager for Rolls Peak. He's got lots of experience in dairy conversions – but nothing quite like this.
"The challenges are the distances that you have to travel and the lack of infrastructure," he says. "For example we don't have a wool shed and don't have sheep yards so it's quite challenging to run sheep. But we do have cattle yards."
There are up to 11,000 ewe lambs on Rolls Peak, but they are drenched before they arrive so there is no need to run them through the yards.
"We bring in lambs for finishing. The wether lambs are for the works and the ewe lambs are bred as replacements for the other Landcorp farms."
Harvey says they grow the ewe lambs to 45 – 50kgs and the other farm managers are always happy to get lambs off the property because Sam Taylor produces really good lambs.
"They come in January at 23-25kgs and he turns them out in May/June in excess of 40kgs."
By August there are virtually no sheep on the property. The cattle – there are 1,500 finishing steers, 350 hereford breeding cows and heifer replacements, 600 carry over dairy cows and 700 yearling steers – all have a particular role on the station. Harvey says the herefords are there to provide bulls for the Landcorp dairy farms. The finishing steers are there to make a profit, but perhaps more importantly to develop the land.
"We still use the big steers as development animals to break down the stumps, the budlea, the broome and blackberry. But with the stumps you just have to be patient and to some degree let nature take its course. If we didn't use the cattle there would be a risk of the land going back into weeds which it's prone to."
While Rolls Peak is primarily being developed as a dairy support block, Harvey says the steep nature of its terrain means that some of the land will eventually have to go back into pines and some will suit only beef cattle.
Somewhat surprisingly, the pasture has established very well on the station. Harvey says this has been done with a plane or a helicopter and the land hasn't been cultivated and the soil on the hills is pretty good.
"The hardest place to establish pasture is on the light, pumice flats. On the hill country we've had real good success with over-sowing clovers and chicory with a bit of cocksfoot blended in."
It takes three or four years to have the dense swards established and there have been very few failures. The worry is that it will revert back to browntop, as Taupo soils tend to do. However, with fertiliser inputs and just grazing with cattle they maintain pasture quality.
Harvey says there is a good fertiliser programme on Rolls Peak and this is instrumental in good pasture development.
Because the land is new and pristine, there are very few animal health issues on the property. He says good pasture covers are maintained and there isn't a worm burden. "The biggest problem is with cattle falling off bluffs. We bring cattle from Rangitaiki Station (also near Taupo) and they haven't walked on a hill so they tend to fall off bluffs.
"We do get some bloat in spring due to the clover and there have been some facial eczema on some of the lower parts of the station," he says.
Another challenge in developing Rolls Peak is the lack of water. Deep bores have been sunk and water has to be pumped using diesel generators to get it up to holding tanks where it is then gravity fed to stock troughs.
Rolls Peak is special. It's a place where nature dominates, where horse and dog triumph over the farm bike, and a place where only those with a real love of the land can survive and thrive.
