News

Mid Canterbury brothers Simon and Roger Bonifant farm one of the most respected farms in a district that boasts the country’s richest arable soils, running their 550 hectare fully irrigated properties at Wakanui and Seafield, east of Ashburton, as a mixed cropping arable unit. That incorporates...

New Zealand’s Virtual Saleyard bidr® is now regularly livestreaming both PGG Wrightson North and South Island wool auctions. The wool auction is the default selling mechanism for the New Zealand wool industry, and is the most preferred buying platform for New Zealand wool exporters representing the...

‘‘I used to see the shearers roll up in their Mk II Zephyrs and Holden utes and I used to think ‘gosh I want to be like that too, one day". Our very own wool classer and master woolhandler, Mr Bell. Involved with shearing since the Merino Shears began in Alexandra in 1961. Read the full stuff...

By the end of the winter the award-winning Marlborough business Higgins Shearing will be no more: Sarah Higgins, who founded it in January 2016, is in the process of selling her rural service company, but that will be by no means the end of her world record-setting shearing career. She’ll probably...

Based in Dunback, Scott Tomlinson farms lambs and bulls. He uses GO-BEEF to help source their two year old bulls in the Autumn and GO-LAMB for winter and summer lambs. Scott says GO-STOCK helps with the flexibility of sourcing stock and having the freed up capital has really helped the development...

Listen now. The Country’s Jamie Mackay is joined by PGG Wrightson’s National Dairy Sales Manager, Jamie Cunninghame, to talk about New Zealand’s livestock market. Mackay jokes that Fielding-Manawatu is the farming capital of New Zealand. Cunninghame agrees as he is based there. Spring is in full...

Slow spring growth holding back optimism, while other conditions provide encouragement Overall, spring weather across the lower North Island has been cold and wet, resulting in slower feed growth rates and pasture covers than farmers hope for. While dairy farmers had reasonable calving, many have...

Bladeshearing veteran Tony Dobbs, pictured representing New Zealand at Waimate in 2019. Having contemplated retirement when the board was last year the scene of his 100th win he's back this week to stick with the faith amid declining numbers of shearers with clippers. Where have all the bladies gone...

Reduced numbers and encouraging meat schedules mean prices should firm Dairy beef sales are about to kick off, with the first North Island sale mid-October. Regular sales at all the main saleyards will progress from there, particularly in greater Waikato and Northland, where calving occurs earlier...

Local farming community rallies around Cancer Society fund-raiser after Covid knocks out Daffodil Day PGG Wrightson Regional Livestock Manager East Coast Jamie Hayward and his Gisborne-based team were right behind this year’s annual Cancer Society charity auction, which is well supported by the...

PGG Wrightson’s finest set to take on best of the rest at tenth annual Heartland Bank Young Auctioneers Competition in November Some of PGG Wrightson’s sharpest young rural professionals will go up against the best of the rest of the country in a few weeks at the tenth annual Heartland Bank Young...

Bringing past experience to bear in sole charge of a large territory. Robbie Lash covers a fair amount of country: 415 kilometres from Westport in the north of his patch to Haast in the south, plus all points in between, which puts between 70,000 and 80,000 clicks on the clock of his Hyundai Santa...

Track and trace system enhances opportunity, particularly for Chinese market Described by many in bygone years as a by-product, velvet now provides a significant income stream, which at present is sustaining the deer industry. Growth in both onshore production and offshore consumption continues to...

Performance plays an increasingly important part as ram numbers rise in the face of a diminishing national ewe flock This year’s annual ram sale season starts on 28 October in Masterton, running through until mid-December in the North Island, while South Island ram sales will continue until mid...

Former World champions Nathan Stratford and Joel Henare have won the two major titles at the first event of the new shearing sports season. Stratford, from Invercargill, claimed the New Zealand Merino Shears Open shearing title for a fifth time, and Henare, from Gisborne, won the Open woolhandling...

Rob and Steph are based in Albury, farming 1100 hectares. Together they run 9000 stock units of breeding, finishing and store stock. Their agent introduced them to GO-BEEF and GO-LAMB which they run all their lambs and cattle through. Using the two contracts helps manage their cash flow in the most...

Managing a 1600 hectare property with 9300 stock units, Luke started using GO-STOCK through their agent, running Jersey bulls and trading lambs. The lambs put through GO-STOCK are solely for trading and putting them them through the GO-STOCK system has made it easier to free up capital. Hear more...

Fruitfed was established in 1916 as a grower-owned organisation and although the ownership structure has changed over its more than 100-year history, the name Fruitfed has remained. Today Fruitfed Supplies is the horticultural trading division of PGW and for over 60 years our Technical Team has been...