24 | MEAT & WOOL » Hamish & Melanie Pain Kelly Deeks Ambitious planting plan brings benefits • to page 25 North Canterbury based, we supply top quality service experienced shearers and shed staff for fine wool and xbreds. Family orientated business, please ring Mike on: 021 251 7742 Or 03 319 8778 Email: morgan.shearing.ltd@gmail.com FORESTRY ESTABLISHMENT: Desiccation Controlled Burns • Release Spraying 027 433 1917 | andy@hurunuihelicopters.co.nz Locally owned & operated FULL AERIAL AGRICULTURAL SERVICES Premium Wiltshire sheep farmed in beautiful North Canterbury We have been breeding and selecting Wiltshires on a 2700Ha certified organic property since 2009 We have a commitment for the future to focus on "Outstanding sheep, super low maintenance and really reliable!" – A Happy North Canterbury Farmer Mt Cass Wiltshires, Symonds Road, Waipara Dave Wooldridge 027 259 4859 Tylah Old 021 187 9562 wiltshirestud@mtcass.co.nz www.mtcass.co.nz • Facial Eczema tolerance • Internal Parasite tolerance • Increased fertility • SIL performance recording • Bringing in genetics from overseas A planting plan on Hamish and Melanie Pain’s Roundhill, Cheviot sheep and beef farm is bringing big bene ts both now and for the future, with stock shelter, sustainability, and succession all making gains from the new pine tree forest and more than 6000 new native and poplar plantings. The Pain family farm has now been in the family for 102 years, and Hamish believes his forestry operation is a way to keep it in the family, potentially providing an income for the non-farming members of the family in the future. “I got into this farm by spraying gorse to get here,” he says. “We now have four daughters of our own and we desperately want our family to stick together. We see the pine trees as growing something that will actually earn them money. Every time we’ve harvested trees here it has actually worked out better per hectare than livestock. It’s just that we have to wait so long for them.” The pine tree forest was planted on the farm’s northwest facing clay country in 2017, using an Afforestation Grant from the One Billion Trees Fund. “The area is so big and because of the economics with that scale, it is the subsidy that has enabled us to do it.” The pine trees will be harvested in about 30 years’ time and while they are growing, they are providing the farm with carbon credits. The pine trees are also addressing the farm’s long-standing and seemingly endless gorse issue. “The only things that grow well on that country is gorse, brown top, or pine trees. The pine trees do a great job of smothering the gorse when it comes up.” Hamish talks about potential markets for his pine trees, saying Burwood Hospital in Christchurch is now trialing the use of pine tree branches to run its boilers. “That might be too far away for us, but the world is changing,” he says. “This current Government is trying to get the emissions down. I think it will change with the next Government, with more impetus on feeding the world ef ciently rather than leading the world on Pine plantations and more than 6000 new native and poplar plantings are proving their worth on the Pain’s sheep and beef farm at Roundhill, Cheviot.
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