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Showing posts from May 14, 2019

Day 8

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Sue Rollinson providing coffee, tea, and snacks for the students before the tour. This is the layout of the Rollinson dairy operation. Our day started off with a delicious breakfast at the Hotel Ashburton. After we were full, we jumped on the bus and made our way to Ted and Sue Rollinson’s dairy farm to learn about their operation. Tom Hannigan is the sharemilker on this farm who educated us on the history and current production status of the Rollinson’s dairy. Diving into the history of the dairy, we learned that Tom and Sue viewed this location in the South Island as an opportunity to establish a dairy farm on the land in 1981.  Students walked into the paddock to visit the cows and check out the irrigation system. They wanted to implement irrigation into their operation. They started out with 400 dairy cows which was a lot during this time. They were able to double their herd size due to the irrigation and improved the quality of the grass. Thanks to the