48 | MEAT & WOOL » Parawa - Maurice King Of concern to Maurice is the situation of wilding pine trees growing in the immediate area above Parawa. “We’d been grazing our hoggets out but the aim is to create a much more sustainable model across the whole farm and stock groups. We’re trying to find the efficiency level where we’re not turning money over trading and borrowing money on stock where we don’t need to.” Helping determine how best to operate the farm, with this sustainable efficiency in mind, has been a team of advisors who support Parawa, including the farm consultant who helps with the reassurance of making key system decisions. “We now try to put facts and figures behind all the decisions like test results and actual measurements to assist with accurate decisionmaking to get the fastest outcome to a problem. They’ve helped us do some gross margins and run some numbers of various options which has been a tremendously valuable exercise.” Life is always busy on a dynamic station such as Parawa, where time of the year, the cycle of stock being born, raised and sold, dictates where the stock are placed. About 40 rising 2 year Stags are destined for the works pre-roar and scanning of the cattle was just about to get underway, with 750 in all to scan. “The cattle are in really good looking order. They’ve had so much feed up on the hills and we’re just about to harvest our grain, not expecting a good yield due to wet spring, so there’s plenty happening for us as we go in to a dry autumn.” “We try to farm more to the reality of the season rather than a fixed calendar and this flexibility really works well for us.” Of concern to Maurice is the situation of wilding pine trees growing in the immediate area above Parawa, causing a very concerning spread of wilding pines due to funding. “Trees are a big talking point in our neck of the woods and New Zealand’s attitude towards GO FOR GOLD WITH RAMS FROM PETERS GENETICS PERFORMANCE, PRODUCTION & PRICE - THE WINNING COMBO • from page 47 management of significant areas, DOC areas and sensitive areas needs to change. Grazing lightly in some areas and also the use of controlled burning has its place. If you don’t remove or manage the fuel you risk having wildfires and have no control over what you’re wanting to preserve. Using stock as a weed control light grazing is probably a better solution to putting so much chemical into our water systems.”
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