Mid Canterbury great career step

Phillip and Adrienne Wall are seasoned Canterbury sharemilkers. They came from the West Coast to Canterbury 10 years ago in search of a more reliable climate and growth opportunities. Most of that time they have share milked for one farm owner at Ikawai, in South Canterbury.

Their work with the owner to develop the property and a nearby runoff increased the milking platform capacity from 900 to 1300cows.

“We fine tuned everything  - utilising new pasture species, better grazing so cows were eating quality grass and getting consistent shifts with the (k-line) irrigation to eliminate dry patches and grow more grass,” says Phillip.

Over a six year period production increased more than 50% to 500,000kg MS.

But the Walls had 5 fulltime staff and very little time, says Phillip.

“When we were milking 1300 cows I wasn’t managing the cows I was managing the people. At Poplar we will be more hands on but with 700 cows it will also give us much more time with our boys.”

With the shift to Poplar the Walls are much closer to their three sonsat boarding school in Timaru. Adrienne says if they had decided to try and buy a farm in their own right they would have had to settle for a much smaller farm, more debt and probably even less time as a family.

She says Poplar offers growth opportunities and a new business perspective.

“I liked MyFarm’s idea of putting likeminded people together and I’m looking forward to meeting the other investors because of their strengths and expertise and what we can learn from them.”

Meanwhile Phillip is relishing the opportunity to farm under Centre Pivot irrigators. With the installation of a new CP this season 95% of Poplar will be irrigated.

“We love being in Canterbury because we are so much better able to meet production targets with our climate and irrigation. In other areas you can be up to 20% out from your production targets at the end of a season.  Here you can rely on being within a few percent of what you set out to do.”