John completed primary school at the Prince Alfred College in Adelaide and has been farming for 30 years.  John is a fourth generation farmer on his family property which was originally purchased in 1910.  His two sons, who are established farmers, currently manage the property with John as senior advisor.

John has managed 15,000 sheep in both 450mm rainfall and pastoral country in the Flinders Ranges at 225mm rainfall.  Both his wether lambs and mature ewes were well sort after and the wool clip was always top or near top of sales.

John is experienced at both beef cattle and dairy cattle in a feedlot situation.  At present Black Angas are run on pasture and in the feedlot.  From late 1989 a dairy feedlot was established to value add the cropping enterprise.  For 12 years the dairy was in operation until dairy deregulation was introduced.

John is very experienced in animal husbandry.  He is also experienced in labour management and advancement of his staff.

In cropping, John was the first farmer in the mid northern area to incorporate stubbles into soils instead of burning them.  He also began continual cropping, using legumes in his crop rotation.

With the dairy feedlot, hay making and silage became very important.  Feed values were critical and good values were readily achieved through good methods of farming.  The dairy herd averaged 8250 litres per cow for 620 cows.

John was senior advisor to on-farm management courses for several years whilst his sons participated.

John was junior Vice President of SADA for two years. 

phone:  (08) 8267 1917

` Back to Our People