Helping grow the country

Listen now as The Country’s Jamie Mackay is joined by PGG Wrightson’s Bloch and Behrens General Manager, Palle Petersen, to take a look at the wool market this month. Mackay recalls that according to MPI, New Zealand’s Food and fibre exports are forecast to exceed $50 billion NZD; however there was...

The Southland Shears and the Dannevirke Shears have joined the list of cancellations now affecting more than a third of the competitions on the 2021-2022 Shearing Sports New Zealand calendar. Committees from the shows made the decisions at meetings on Tuesday, bringing to at least 20 the number of...

A five member team of young King Country shearing guns is shaping up to make their mark later this month with a crack at the five-stand nine-hour world record for strong wool lambs. Attempting to establish a new mark at Te Pa Station, Ruapehu on Wednesday 22 December, the five shearers, aged between...

World-famed shearing and woolhandling championships, the Golden Shears, has been cancelled for a second time because of the uncertainty of the Coronavirus crisis. Held annually for 60 years in Masterton’s War Memorial Stadium, the championships were to have been held on March 3-5. The decision at...

Managing Facial Eczema (FE) requires a multipronged approach that involves reducing spore intake and providing zinc as a prophylaxis and therapy. FE is caused by a mycotoxin produced by the fungus Pithomyces chartarum growing in pasture dead matter. This fungus multiplies rapidly when overnight...

A commercial Southland dairy herd this week became New Zealand’s highest value online livestock sale. Winton farmers Simon and Liz Harnett’s crossbred Friesian herd of in-calf cows sold for $2175 per head. With 360 two- to eight-year-old cows offered from a total herd of 440 in milk, the $783,000...