| 81 Te Waimate cattle. Te Waimate Station onto 6th Gen Sue Russell Te Waimate Station, located in the district which bears its name, was established in 1854 by Michael and John Studholme, the original owner and Henry Studholme’s great great grandfather, fourteen years after the historic signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. At 930ha, the station has welcomed six generations of the Studholme clan with Henry’s two children. Te Waimate Station is a mixed bag of just about every class of country, from hill country, river flats, rolling and irrigated. Henry says there has been a large amount of development work and puchacing of land throughout the 70s untill now “We just tick off projects as cashflow allows. Fencing and regrassing and stockwater have been our main development work of late.” Part of what was once a much larger piece of land extending over 98,000 acres, Henry says over decades and decades the Station has reduced in size, partly through Government policy, tough farming years and the large Waimate bush fire of 1878. In 1973 821ha were added to the property which had gotten as small as 107ha to make it the size it is today. Stock on the Station amounts to 2200 ewes and 500 hoggets, while mixed-age cows are wintered, along with about 130 incalf heifers, 180 yearling steers and about 170 yearling heifers. Asked how the climate has been of late Henry admits that generally the summers have been kind. He’s been back on the home farm 10 years now. “Last year was a very wet winter. I do believes humans are having an impact on climate change but I don’t know whether everyone blames climate.” In the past couple of years Henry has made the decision to increase ewe numbers and reduce cattle somewhat just to provide a bit more flexibility. MEAT & WOOL » Te Waimate Station “It just means that when we get dry and I haven’t go a lot of feed for cows I’m not carrying those issues so much into the future.” Sheep are perendale based with a bit of romney in the mix. Back in the 1980’s the farm carried corriedales. • to page 82 Bull Sale 1:00pm, June 19th Multi Ag Specialising in ag contracting. Small squares, rounds and individual wraps. Greylands farm RD9, Waimate, New Zealand 027 352 2062 | multiaglimited@gmail.com Proudly Associated with Te Waimate Station Henry and Katie with Charlie and Ollie Studholme.
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