Sheep can compete with dairy!

 Bywater’s comments were made when local MP Amy Adams officially opened Lincoln University’s sheep technology farm (LUSTF) earlier this month.

Sited on the 21ha former South Island Field Days site, LUSTF will be used for student and farmer training, field days, demonstrations and research.

Bywater says Lincoln’s sheep research division, LincolnSheep, is focussed on two main farm types: summer safe or summer dry and, with LUSTF, use of irrigated finishing blocks.

‘’The true opportunity cost of an irrigated lamb finishing block is not what you might get running a dairy farm; it is what you get on your dry land breeding farm if you don’t have one.”

Putting irrigation onto a finishing block to increase sheep numbers costs about one third of a dairy conversion, which, with nitrate levels under scrutiny, may not seem as attractive as it once did, he suggests.

LincolnSheep will also research ewe ‘elasticity’, using a CT scanner to measure body fat and protein relative to weight through the year, and hormone treating ewes to lamb more than once per year.

Work to identify more efficient ewes in terms of weight of lamb weaned is also planned. That could mean big differences in productivity ‘’without doing anything else,” says Bywater.

Selective drenching – not treating animals with no evidence of parasitic infestation – and the power of electronic tagging as a management tool are also on the agenda.

Lincoln University vice-chancellor Dr Andrew West says the intention is to scale up LincolnSheep’s findings at the Lincoln-Westoe Trust’s 400ha drystock training and demonstration farm at Westoe, Rangitikei.

The farm was transferred to the trust earlier this year by Jim and Diana Howard who gave Lincoln University exclusive use of the property to help train the next generation of farmers.

The Howards’ generosity and vision was recently acknowledged with the inaugural Lincoln University vice-chancellor’s award.

West says the farm is a ‘’gift to the nation’’ and will be used as a training and demonstration sheep and beef farm. The Westoe homestead, with nationally significant gardens, will be used for horticulture and arboriculture courses.

Howard says he won’t have to worry about fixing fences at Westoe anymore, but he will still garden around the homestead and, as a member of the trust, will keep a “close eye on the place”. 

West notes there is no such sheep and beef demonstration farm nationally and says the Westoe farm will be ready for such a role in less than two years.