Molesworth Station: How NZ’s largest farm is surviving the dry winter

Molesworth Station. Photo / RNZ / Sally Round

By RNZ

The country’s largest farm is battling a dry winter but early provisions mean there’s plenty of feed around.

Molesworth Station covers the high country between Hanmer Springs and Blenheim in the upper South Island.

Farm manager Jim Ward said like the rest of North Canterbury and Marlborough, the farm went dry in summer.

“We had a lot of warning didn’t we, so we made a lot of plans to get us through the winter.

“We couldn’t make the normal amount of baleage we wanted to so we bought more feed from our other farm in Hanmer Springs.

“We’ve got that ready to feed out but because we’ve got no snow we’ve been able to keep the cattle on the hill.”

Ward said that should mean they’ll have supplementary feed left over going into spring for the station’s 5000 cattle.

“The rivers are a lot lower than they’d normally be at this time of the year and the water table is low, but it hasn’t been too cold this year - it only got to -9 this morning.”

He said they haven’t had to lower stock levels on Molesworth due to the dry.

“We’ve built a lot of fat in the system over the years by utilising the farm we have in Hanmer, our cattle go there for finishing and weaning which creates resilience.”

Beef cattle on Molesworth Station Photo / RNZ / Sally Round

He said despite the dry, stock around the district is looking good.

“Farmers have made some good decisions and are just working through the conditions the best they can.”

- RNZ