Grassland Trust awards

Press, 15 October 1976, Page 14

Grassland Trust awards

Three individual farmers and a company farm in the Nelson area will be honoured with awards from the Grassland Memorial Trust this year, the chairman of the Trust, Dr R. \V. Brougham, has announced.

The awards will be made to Messrs E. Sa Rollinson, of Murchison, and N. V. Riley, of Golden Bay, for intensive grassland farming; Mr F. A. Silcock, of Thorpe, for hiil farming, and Transport (Nelson) Holdings, Ltd, for developing unimproved land. The presentation of the awards will be made by Dr Brougham at the annual conference of the New Zealand Grassland Association in Nelson on November 3. Awards are made annually to commemorate past leaders in grassland progress, specifically the late Dr P. D. Sears, Sir George Stapledon, Mr A. H. Cockayne, Dr C. P. McMeekan, and Mr R. A. Candy, and to encourage others' to follow their example. Mr Rollinson, aged 30, bought his home farm of 207 ha (hectares) in 1968 and added a further property of 215 ha, 15km up the valley, in 1970. Much of the steep hill country of the home farm has been topdressed and oversown and this year will milk 120 Friesians with followers. The other property — rough hill country up to 300 m carrying only 30 beef animals when acquired — now carries 115 bulls, used to break in the rough country for oversowing, and 37 replacement Friesian heifers. Dairy production has risen from 14,615 kg of butterfat in 1968/69 to 18,790 kg in 1975/76. Mr Rollinson also takes an active part in the community. Mr Riley, aged 33, bought his farm in the Aorere Valley, Bkm from Collingwood, in 1973. It formerly produced no more than 14,500 kg of butterfat from 100 cows, even with the use of runoff land, and Mr Riley lifted production to 21,140 kg from 127 cows last season without a runoff. The increase from 144 kg to 166 kg per cow and from 256 kg to 373 kg per ha was achieved by improving pastures through topdressing and management, especially by adjusting the length of rotation in relation to feed requirements at different seasons of the year. Mr Riley is deeply involved in the activities of many farming organisations. The hill country award to Mr Silcock, aged 39 years, who farms two blocks of 304 ha and 202 ha, skm apart about 25km from Motueka, was made in recognition of production increases achieved since he took over the farm in 1962 — from 1170 ewe equivalents to 4800 (from 2.3 e.e. per ha to 9.5! e.e. per ha). On low fertil- i ity soils, with rapid fern and gorse regrowth prob-! lems, Mr Silcock success-i fully developed his farm through oversowing, topdressing and subdividing and has given a lead to other farmers in the district on hill country pasture and farm development. Transport (Nelson) Hold-

ings, Ltd’s block of HOOha in the Redwoods Valley, Moutere, 29km from Nelson, has been developed since 1957 from an unimproved state of -gorse, fern, heather, and pines by giant

discing, fallowing, sowing, and topdressing to 890 ha of permanent pasture, 50ha of crops, 40ha of lucerne, and only 120 ha still in the rough. A Simmental stud has been established, water reticulated (with some available for neighbouring farms), nut trees planted for shade and shelter, and the carrying capacity is now about 13,000 stock units.