Wanted: one striking, lost tussock trophy

Duncan Mackenzie’s hunt for a missing farming trophy has been like looking for a needle in a haystack so far.

The former Braemar Station owner has been looking for the South Canterbury High Country Tussock Competition trophy since Christmas.

He believes the trophy has been missing for decades, and is deter- mined to see it back in competition or otherwise displayed at the South Canterbury Museum. ‘‘It was a coveted trophy.’’ Mackenzie said on Wednesday the trophy was designed to acknowledge farmers who had improved the quality of lowland tussock pasture on their farms.

The trophy itself, which features a chrome topdresser, sits on the centre of a propeller and recalls the Tiger Moth, Auster and later Fletcher topdressing aircraft which flew over South Canterbury, dropping tonnes of superphosphate and seed onto its hills.

Mackenzie said his father was among the winners of the trophy, which Airwork New Zealand donated in the 1950s.

He remembered flying over South Canterbury as an 8-year-old boy in Walter ‘‘Wattie’’ Wilmott’s Tiger Moth to survey possible hilltop landing strips, and said farmers and daring pilots had made great efforts to improve the region’s pastures.

He believed paddocks had been judged based on comparisons of species variety and pasture health and fertility compared to neighbouring land.

Mackenzie hoped its last owner might find it, perhaps in the back of a farmstead wardrobe.