Farm Of Runner-Up For South Island Award

Press, Volume C, Issue 29626, 23 September 1961, Page 6

Farm Of Runner-Up For South Island Award

Mr J. D. Cocks, who farms 690 acres in the Lismore-Carew district seven miles from Mayfield and 18 miles from Ashburton, was runner-up this year for the Royal Agricultural Society’s A. C. Cameron memorial gold medal. A medal is awarded each year to a young farmer in each island for notable work in improving his property and for his contribution to Young Farmers’ Club activities. ‘

The judges for the South Island—Mr Alan Grant of Waimate, Mr A. R. Dingwall, fields superintendent of the Department of Agriculture in Christchurch, and Professor A. H. Flay, head of the farm management and rural valuation department at Lincoln College—selected Mr L. M. James, of Middlemarch, as the winner, but they had great difficulty in separating the two men.

A returned serviceman, Mr Cocks was lucky enough to draw his property out of a large field of applicants in 1947. The country was then mainly in browntop and sweet vernal but the Crown had broken in and sown to pasture about two paddocks indicating what could be done with lime and super. Soil The farm has a thin sixinch covering of Lismore type soil over shingle and gravel and in earlier days boulders and stones were picked up and left in great heaps in the paddocks. The average yearly rainfall over 13 years is 32 *>4 inches and has varied from 25 inches to 40 inches. If well spread this rainfall is adequate. The story of what has been done on this property in the last 14 years is summed up in the fact that from 707 ewes and 170 dry sheep stock numbers have risen to 2200 ewes, 800 ewe hoggets, 100 other sheep and 150 head of cattle around five ewe equivalents to the acre. The objective in the early stages was to use every means of building fertility. Thus cattle were and still are used to eat surplus and second grade hay and straws during winter and turnips and grass sown as the pioneer crop with one ton of lime and l%cwt of superphosphate was sold for grazing if there was a surplus. The ultimate aim on this farm is to reduce supplementary cropping to a minimum and have a largely grassland property. For the last eight or nine years part of the farm has been irrigated from the May-

field-Hinds irrigation scheme. About 160 acres have been border-dyked and a further 270 acres can be watered by wild flooding. Mr Cocks now feels that development for Irrigation is nearing the desirable limit.

Where pastures have been sown on irrigated country they have not been taken up again. One of 70 acres down for about 12 years is carrying 73 cows the year round and their calves for a good part of the time. Dryland pastures are down for five or six years and it is the practice to use these areas for supplementary crops. From the initial grass with turnips they go into swedes and choumoellier and then into greenfeed Italian ryegrass and then into pasture again. The almost standard pasture mixture on the place is one bushel of perennial ryegrass, 51b of short rotation ryegrass, 41b of cocksfoot, 21b of white clover, 21b of red elover, 11b of crested dogstail and 21b of subterranean clover. A dressing of at least IVccwt of super is given to all pastures once a year with the trend now being to autumn topdressing to boost growth at that time of the year for winter and early spring requirements. Half the pastures are treated with DDT each year. Recently some sulphur super has been tried and there is a small trial on the property. As yet there is no indication whether it will be superior.

Supplementary Feed

At present about 20 acres go into swedes and choumoellier, 20 acres into swedes alone and about 20 acres are in young grass. So far, around 40 acres of autumn grass has been saved for winter needs but the intention is, in association with autumn topdressing, to build this up to 150 acres and cut back on supplementary cropping. Implements on the property have been kept down to a plough, grubber, harrows, drill, a hay baler and tedder and two tractors. /

Mr Cocks’s flock comprises the finer woolled .type of Romney. He finds these sheep produce wool of good quality —he obtained second highest price of 54Mid at the last Christchurch sale for crossbred wool and also give a relatively good lambing. While still using the Roinney ram over the best of his ewes Mr Cocks has recently started to use the Southdown over his two-tooths and a Border Leicester experimentally over the finest woolled and woolly faced older ewes. He has crossbred two-tooths and hoggets and after the initial crossing is planning to use them with a Suffolk ram for lamb production. It is his intention to build up a flock of about 400 of these ewes. The ewe flock is pre-lamb shorn and begins lambing about September 10. While the average percentage is about 115 to 120 the first two tailings of two-tooths this season averaged 137 and 138 per cent, respectively. Set Stocking Ewes and lambs are set stocked at about five or six ewes to the acre and before Christmas the aim is to draft about a third of wether lambs. After that the remaining lambs go back to their mothers until weaning in mid January when another draft is taken. The average weight of lambs going off the farm is about 321 b. The average wool weight for the flock is about 10141 b without crutchings amounting to about lib.

Two years ago the property experienced slight ill-thrift with the lambs being slow to fatten and selenium is now being used on lambs at the rate of two milligrams at tailing, weaning and again in the autumn.

In a good year for cattle prices up to nearly a half of the farm's revenue has come out of cattle, which live largely on second quality feeds in the winter and on surplus growth in the spring. The herd totals about 150 head including 100 cows. In

the past the practice has been to cross Aberdeen Angus cows with a Hereford bull but now Aberdeen Angus Hereford cross heifers are being bought in and being mated with a black bull. The cross.bred cow, according to Mr Cocks, is a better milker and produces a bigger calf. Most of the cattle for sale are vealers and these go off from February to June at an average of about 3301 b, though last year the average was 3701 b to 3801 b. In a season the turn off of beef would be at least 30,0001 b. It has been the custom to buy in cattle from the spring through to autumn for use in controlling feed but because of the high buying in price it is now planned to hold back about 30 of the steer calves to be used with the later calving cows for pasture control. These calves will be held until they are of upwards of two-year-olds weighing 5801 b to 6801 b. There are two. 6000 bale hay barns on the farm. These have a dual purpose. They house around 4000 bales of hay made in a normal year in three cuts off 44 acres of Marlborough lucerne, bought in short rotation straw and sometimes meadow hay made in collaboration with

neighbouring farmers who have a surplus of teed. The other purpose is to shelter 704 to 800 pre-lamb shorn ewes. This year a fence was put round one barn and protection given to about 200 but the trouble wag that thia year the barns were still so full that there was little room inside. In subdividing the property, which initially included four 100 acre paddocks, some 11 miles of new fencing has been put in. The ideal fence for cattle as well as sheep is now considered to be a seven wire fence with barb at top and bottom with concrete posts nine yards apart with chain droppers. To water the property 2ti miles of new races have been constructed and 2% to 214 miles of shelter has been planted mainly in cedars and lawsonianas. Two married couples are employed and housed on the place and improvements include new sheep and cattle yards. Outside his purely farming activities Mr Cocks is one of the representatives of Mayfield Federated Fanners on the Mid-Canterbury meat and wool section, is representative of Mayfield Federated Farmers on the Mayfield Young Farmers’ Club which he has served for two years

as senior advisory member, one year as advisory member and for a term as vice president. He is also chairman pf the Lismore School Committee and a member of the Mayfield Agricultural and Pastoral Association. His farm; has also been used for club activities.