Georgie Galloway setting a fine example for young farming leaders
There’s no hiding Georgie Galloway’s passion for farming.
Georgie caught the farming bug when working at Marshall Farm during her holidays while studying vet nursing at the Southern Institute of Technology.
Marshall Farm is a 160-hectare property at Waianiwa, just west of Invercargill, run by Graham Marshall and Gail Lilley with Georgie in place as manager.
While her tenure in vet nursing was a successful one, Georgie soon found her passion is in farming.
The decision to move into the industry full-time is one that is not only bettering Marshall Farm but also the wider southern farming sector.
To put it simply – Georgie epitomises the term young farming leader.
She is heavily involved in the Lower Ōreti Catchment group and helps facilitate numerous field days and learning opportunities.
Her efforts have been recognised with more than one nomination for the Environment Southland Community Awards in recent years.
Georgie is putting her passion into practice, and that can be seen in Marshall Farm’s environmental improvements.
Working as a team, the farm has produced strong, practical gains through innovation.
Fewer inputs are driving better results when it comes to fertiliser and spray application.
The Marshall Farm team wants to be better stewards of their land and have their farm healthy, fertile and productive.
Winter grazing is a significant part of the farm’s operations, with the business model consisting of a mixture of calf rearing, and trading in sheep and beef stock as well.
When it comes to feeding cows on winter crops, a little effort goes a long way, and it produces practical and environmental rewards.
Graham and Georgie run a winter grazing operation which sees 1300 cows come onto the property for around nine weeks in June and July.
At first glance, their system employs many of the basics good practices of winter grazing, such as in back-fencing and using portable troughs.
But a flyover of the property will show Marshall Farm’s winter crop paddocks looking somewhat like a chessboard.
That’s because the team has developed a strategic feeding system to reduce compaction and soil damage.
The results of which are easy to see with a quick dig of a spade to look at the soil composition after the grazing period.
“When you dig into one of our winter grazing paddocks you can see the difference,” Georgie says.
“There is a lot less compaction and you are looking at somewhat good, healthy soil.
"The proof is when these paddocks go back into grass, the grass grows, and the paddocks are really healthy.
"We have pretty much been able to get rid of the plough, too.”
In the system, cows are separated into herds of 100 with each herd being allocated a five-hectare paddock for 63 days, divided into blocks.
Each block’s fence is shifted daily and back-fenced to keep the cows on a restricted but comfortable area.
Georgie admits it takes a little extra time to set up and extra management using their block system.
But the resulting gains in soil conditions and soil health make it well worth the effort.
“With what we are getting out of it, it is definitely worth that effort.”
The farm’s winter grazing paddocks have traditionally been sown out in kale, and with the good results the winter grazing system is producing, there is no temptation to move to a more intensive crop like fodder beet.
Variation is on the horizon, though, with Marshall Farm initiating its own winter crop trial.
A multi-species mix was planted in three paddocks last winter, with part of the aim of the trial being to lessen the need for spray control of their winter paddocks.
One year has been completed with further refinement of the mix to come in year two, with plant species to be altered to fit the farm’s management plans.
The trial is another demonstration of the Marshall Farm team wanting to maintain their production while reducing inputs.
They have done this successfully in a number of areas of the farm.
Marshall Farm has reduced its use of traditional fertilizer by 43%, as well as ending the use of urea on grass paddocks.
The farm is also trending away from the use of sprays, including insecticides.
A mixed cover crop is being planted in the period paddocks would usually be left bare before being resown, to soak up extra nutrients as well as maximizing soil health and minimizing erosion.
The Marshall Farm team isn’t chasing big gains in winter crop yield through their system, Georgie says.
A 13-tonne per hectare crop helps cows move across their paddocks, which combined with the block grazing strategy, means the yield helps them make good soil health and environmental gains.
