Blueridge Farms partners Heather Gilbert, left, and Elliot Kent on their Te Pahu farm
Blueridge Farms is proving that ambition and innovation can transform rugged terrain – doubling productivity and redefining what’s possible in modern farming, reports Chris Gardner.
Innovation meets elevation as Blueridge Farms turns rugged terrain into a showcase for the future of farming. Senior writer Chris Gardner talks to Heather Gilbert and Elliot Kent on their monitor farm in the shadow of Mount Pirongia about the revolution taking place on the property. Photo: Chris Gardner
On the steep hills of Te Pahu, in the shadow of Mount Pirongia, Elliot Kent and Heather Gilbert are rewriting the rules of modern farming.
Where tradition once dictated caution, their bold approach has turned steep country into a showcase for innovation – and doubled productivity in the process.
What began as a bold experiment on unforgiving slopes is now a blueprint for high-performance grazing.
Five years ago, the couple faced a question: could they make steep land work harder without compromising pasture health?
The answer came in the form of techno-grazing – a system that divides the farm into small, intensively managed cells and rotates stock with precision. Today, Blueridge Farms runs 1000 Holstein Friesian bulls across 325 hectares, double the number they started with.
The farm is divided into six-hectare systems, each containing 10 paddocks which are grazed by combined weight rather than a specified number of bulls. Each mob of rising one-year old or rising two-year old bulls spends two and half days in a designated area before they are rotated into another area.
The system enables the grass to recover for 100 days.
“Techno-grazing has been around for a while, but usually it’s done on really flat land,” Gilbert says.
“We are doing it on really steep land, and that’s why we became a Beef and Lamb monitor farm.”
Heather Gilbert with an on demand drinking trough on Blueridge Farms. Photo: Chris Gardner
The couple have been sharing their journey with other farmers for about three years.
“The first year we had 100 people shaking their heads and saying we were not going to do it. They did not think that we would be able to run that number of animals on this steep country,” Kent says.
Mobs are rotated on a Monday morning, Wednesday lunchtime, and a Friday afternoon.
“It takes about three hours,” he says.
So, there is plenty of time for other jobs such as on farm maintenance.
They have the help of farm manager Mark Pollard.
Setting Blueridge up as a Beef and Lamb monitor farm has kept the couple focussed on results.
“It’s been the best thing we did, really good,” Kent says.
“We have got a steering committee that meets every two or three months, and we have got some really good farmers in our steering group,” Gilbert says.
Kent grew up on the “summer safe” farm which rises from just under 100 metres elevation to around 365 metres. But Blueridge was impacted by the recent droughts.
“In our first year of cell grazing we ran between 17 and 19 rising two-year-old bulls in each of our six-hectare systems, and last year we upped that to 22 or 23,” Gilbert says.
Bluebridge was able to support more bulls per hectare thanks to the impact of last year’s drought on their weight.
“But also lift in soil fertility, better pasture utilisation, which also improves pasture species, and also having the confidence to push it a bit further,” he says.
“We have 32 systems wintering a mix of rising one year and two-year-old bulls. We still have seven systems left to develop and some smaller areas that we won’t develop.”
Techno-grazing has seen Holstein-Friesian bull numbers double on Blueridge Farm over five years. Kent’s helicopter hanger is in the background. Photo: Chris Gardner
They typically pick up calves from local dairy farmer and raise them until they are ready to go to the works via Greenlea Premier Meats in Hamilton.
Techno-grazing is going so well that Kent and Gilbert are about to replicate the system on another farm daughter Ella-May Kent will lease with partner Matt Smith.
Five-hectare blocks will be at the heart of the new farm containing 15 paddocks each rather than 10.
“We are giving them a head start,” Kent says.
“We have already made all the mistakes and figured out all the short cuts for them,” Gilbert says.
“I am hoping that it will work really well for them.”
Kent and Gilbert have other strings to their bows too.
Kent runs Heli Ag Waikato from the farm, clocking around 300 hours in the air in his Bell Long Ranger helicopter serving farms across the Waikato every year, although he is quick to point out, he spends another 700 hours a year working in the business.
Gilbert, who grew up on the family farm near Waitomo, also works as a consultant for Total Ag, joining the team in 2015.
Blueridge Farms partners Heather Gilbert, left, and Elliot Kent on their Te Pahu farm in the shadow of Mount Pirongia.
