Raised a townie in Whanganui, she was 16 when she visited a dairy farm for the first time.
"I fell in love."
After finishing school, she entered dairy farming and began progressing, including winning the Manawatu Dairy Manager of the Year at the Dairy Industry Awards.
She and her husband, James, and son, William, moved to South Otago to 50:50 sharemilk in early 2023.
"The first six months were crazy."
The worst drought in 60 years was biting in South Otago.
"Settling in and learning a new farm and cows ... [was] made more challenging by the fact that James was away working, driving stock trucks in the North Island."
Mr Martin works on the farm during spring, and for the rest of the year works off farm, such as driving stock trucks and tractor driving.
"It’s another income source for us," Mrs Martin said.
"The farm is mostly a one-person farm once the busy period is over and the crops are all in."
Currently they milked 250 cows on 100ha for Hamish Anderson in Balclutha.
The herd was mostly Holstein Friesians and some Ayrshires.
The herd produced 380kg of milksolids per cow in the 2023-24 season.
She was happy to put that season behind her.
"We came into the most terrible year, with the worst drought — we had just over 500mm of rain in 12 months, which meant limited grass growth and a farm spending a year under too much pressure."
Extensive regrassing and oversowing this season was slowly turning the farm around.
"We are getting a lot of comments from local farmers saying that when they drive past, they can see a huge improvement in how the farm looks, which means we are tracking in the right direction."
Last season, she set a production target of 100,000kg of milksolids, about 400kg milksolids per cow, on a predominantly grass-based system.
They exceeded the target, producing 109,000kgMS, or 430kgMS per cow.
She was surprised the herd did so well, considering 70% of the farm was under water from flooding in early October 2024.
About 160mm of rain fell in 24 hours.
They had plenty of supplementary feed to get through the deluge.
"I thought I was as prepared as possible, but I just wasn’t prepared for how much of the farm went under water."
They kept 65 replacement heifers and 30 beef cattle on the property.
"We are surrounded by river, so we keep beefies to keep the flood bank pasture down and maintained."
Mating starts on October 24 and involves six weeks of artificial insemination and five weeks of Hereford bulls.
They brought 50 cows with them from the North Island, a mix of Holstein Friesians and Ayrshires, and bought most of the herd already on farm, which was LIC Holstein Friesian cows, or "the commercial herd".
"We’re looking for a happy medium between the large and small Holstein Friesians."
Big and tall Holstein Friesians struggled a bit on a low input system, she said.
The breeding objectives included producing udders which were higher and wider at the top.
Other objectives included increasing fertility in the herd and components in the milk by using fat and protein bulls.
"Longevity and somatic cell count are important considerations for us. The herd we had was all young; there was no longevity. We love having cows for as long as we can."
Her favourite calves this season were by bull Westcoast Almamater.
"They were standout calves and a good cross over some of the commercial cows."
A calf from the sire made her show team this season and won Junior Champion Holstein at the South Otago A&P Show.
Another big focus on the farm was getting cow families established in the herd.
They tracked down some descendants of her husband’s family’s herd, from the original Rosedene stud, which was dispersed 15 years ago.
"We bought six embryos from Katy Button, who still owned one of the original cows from James’ parents’ herd, and we managed to get one heifer from the embryos."
This season, Logan Kelly gave them a calf, which was a descendant of the herd.
They now run the Rosedene stud in South Otago.
"To get the stud going we are focusing on buying in the odd good cow and getting sexed semen into them and our good cows." — Allied Media
