Argyle Station showcases development
Argyle Station, one of Southland’s most iconic properties, has undergone a radical transformation since 2002. Diane Bishop reports
When the Gunton family bought Argyle Station at Waikaia it had limited finishing country.
It was largely a store stock property, but a major hill country development programme has turned Argyle into a highly productive and profitable breeding and finishing farm.
‘’We’re now finishing about 80 per cent of our stock.
‘’We’ve got a lot more options now – we can sell stores or finish stock depending on the season,’’ Jeremy Gunton said.
The Guntons recently hosted a field day on their 15,300 hectare hill country property in Northern Southland which included an extensive farm tour.
The field day, organised by Federated Farmers high country committee, was aimed at showcasing the recent development that had occurred on Argyle while addressing topics such as tenure review.
Jeremy’s father Mark Gunton, an Auckland property developer, bought Argyle Station from the well-known Andrews family who also established Andrews Transport at Riversdale - in 2002.
The property is largely a pastoral lease comprising 13,765ha leasehold while 1567ha is freehold.
Before the Guntons took over Argyle it was carrying 19,000 stock units comprising 7000 halfbred ewes, 7000 halfbred wethers, 747 mixed age breeding cows and 100 hinds.
However, a major hill country development programme and the purchase of additional finishing land has more than doubled the carrying capacity.
The Guntons now farm 14,000 Romdale ewes and 4660 replacement ewe lambs along with 1340 mixed age Angus cows including 155 stud cows and 3500 mixed-age Red English hinds and their progeny.
‘’I really enjoy working with the deer – they are a big part of our operation,’’ Jeremy said.
Argyle comprises about 1500ha of low country, 4000ha of cultivated/oversown hill country, 4000ha of unimproved hill country and 5800ha of high country.
One of the first things the Guntons changed was the sheep breed and stock ratio – significantly lifting the number of breeding ewes and increasing the number of cattle and deer farmed.
Mark Gunton introduced Perfintex (Perendale-Finn-Texel) sheep to Argyle in the early 2000’s.
Jeremy and wife Sally took over as managers in 2007 at the peak of the development programme.
Not being fans of the perfintex they switched to Romdales, a romney-perendale cross sheep that thrives in their hill country environment.
‘’They utilise the country well – they have good fertility and carcass traits and they’re able to climb the hills,’’ Jeremy said.
The Guntons were currently achieving about 133 per cent lambing to ewes mated.
Lambs were originally sold into the Canterbury store market, but the establishment of good pastures and additional lowland country meant most of the lambs were now being finished at good weights.
Mark is strongly of the opinion that ‘’if you can’t finish it, you shouldn’t breed it’’.
About 1800 lambs were killed straight off their mums before Christmas at an average 17kg carcass weight.
A total of 7000 lambs have been killed to date with another 7000 still to kill and most of them would be finished by the end of March.
‘’We like to have most of the lambs away before the ram goes out,’’ Jeremy said.
While they were currently enjoying good returns for their lambs, Mark recalls lambs were only worth about $45 a head in 2007.