When the management of Glenaray Station in Southland decided they needed a bigger tractor to power their hill country development programme, they opted for Massey Ferguson’s top of the line MF 8480, and they certainly haven’t regretted the choice.
Glenaray Station is a 68,000 hectare run in the Waikaia district. It is a combination of flat land, foothills and mountainous high country that stocks 60 percent sheep, 25 percent beef cattle, and 15 percent red deer.
The property has been owned by the Pinckney family for four generations, and the current managing director is David Pinckney.
David says each year about 300 hectares of Glenaray land is planted in brassicas (swedes and kale) to provide winter feed for sheep, young deer and calves. Another 300 hectares of permanent pasture is redeveloped every year by putting it brassicas for winter calves and then back into grass.
“On top of that we are have a development programme aimed at growing more fodder and increasing stocking rates in our hill country. We use discs to break down the native grasses and rough pasture and then we plant grass,” David says.
“Some of it is very rough ground with heavy gorse and scrub. We go in with a bulldozer front and a root rake to take out the scrub. Then we do two passes with heavy discs and finally bulk spread seed and super.
“In the steeper, more rocky country we do what they call ‘spray & pray’. We use a plane to apply and then a mixture of super and seed. The seed mix we use is eight kilos of ryegrass and one kilo of turnips per hectare.
“If we can knock the gorse back hard enough the animals then feed on the seedlings and the grass can take over. We also do a lot of fencing so we can manage the stock more intensively. With this system in five or ten years we can increase the stocking rate from three units per hectare up to 10 units per hectare,” David says.
The man in charge of the day-to-day operations at Glenaray is station manager Horace Miller. Horace says the MF 8480 was purchased about eight months ago to do the hillside development work.
Well into its first season, Horace says he is very pleased with the performance of the MF 8480 and the support he has received from his local dealer, JJ Ltd in Gore.
“We had the tractor going 10 to 12 hours a day while the weather was good during spring, and we haven’t had any real problems with it. In particular the variable speed drive system has been very effective in the hill country.”
Horace says the MF 8480 has been called upon to drag some pretty large bits of gear around Glenaray’s steep terrain, including a 4.0m wide set of Quivogne heavy disc discs, a 7.0m wide cultivator and a big rotor spike. It also pulls a seven furrow plough when cultivating paddocks on the flats.
“Sometimes we use the discs in combination with heavy harrows. The MF 8480 takes it all in stride but at 315 hp it is not a small tractor. It performs very well and its fuel consumption is better that our other tractor which is a 255 hp Case IH.
“The Massey Ferguson is very economical to drive and it has a very good ability to deliver the engine power to the ground. Really it is the drive system that makes a tractor.”
The cab on the MF 8480 also very comfortable, Horace notes.
“I have been quite impressed with the support we have received both from JJs and the Massey Ferguson people. Some guys came over from Australia to help us get started with it and show how everything works.
“They have also been very good in setting up the dual tyres and axles the way we want them. Some dealers think they know more than you do about that kind of thing but JJs and Massey Ferguson were very obliging.
“For us service is paramount. If you can’t keep the tractor going it’s hopeless. Modern machines are all computer driven and you can’t really fix them yourself so if something major goes wrong you can face all sorts of trouble. The MF 8480 has given us the least trouble of any tractor we have had.
“We have had a few minor problems. The air conditioning was leaking water into the drip tray when we working on steep ground but that’s fixed now. JJs has been particularly good at quickly finding a remedy for anything that goes wrong. Full credit to them.”
