2018 Scholarship Recipients Announced

At the core of the Craigmore culture are our nine Sustainability Principles, encouraging us to behave in ways that leaves the world no worse off for our actions and allows the generations that follow to continue to earn a living from the land. Craigmore launched a scholarship in 2014, for the benefit of a second/third year student at Lincoln University studying a Bachelor of Agricultural Science. The scholarship, valued at $5,000, gives a student the opportunity to work on a Craigmore farm over a period of 3-4 months. The scholarship recipients are chosen based on research interests that align with the Craigmore business and sustainability focus. The research papers provide valuable findings and insight to our farmers, and their farm sustainability.

This year, with some very high quality applicants, Craigmore has awarded two Scholarships, and we would like to congratulate Oscar Beattie and Gemma Payne.

Oscar Beattie

Born in the United Kingdom and raised on a dairy farm in Tasmania, Oscar moved to New Zealand in 2014. In New Zealand Oscar has worked with farming enterprises in horticulture, sheep and beef, deer and dairy.

Oscar’s honours thesis focuses on a potential alternative for dry land dairy farming. The traditional spring calving system is not viable without irrigation, due to the low summer rainfall. The potential to autumn calve and milk through the winter, utilising winter active pasture species, drought resistant legumes and bought in feed, is yet to be tested. Oscar will use the Lincoln Ashley Dene farmlet, to test feasibility and practicality using three different computer models (culminating in the DairyNZ Whole Farm Model). Once the modelled system is operational, variables can be changed to test the system under different variables. The main variables to be changed are the water/rainfall that is applied and the nitrogen inputs into the system over a standard five year period.

Oscar is hoping that the research has the potential to create a system with a reduced environmental impact maintaining income through the winter, utilising winter milk premium prices.

Gemma Payne

Gemma Payne grew up on a farm in Canterbury, south of Christchurch. She is now a postgraduate student at Lincoln University where her area of interest is photosensitisation in livestock.

Gemma completed her study at Lincoln University, which combined Agricultural course into a Bachelor of Commerce and Diploma of Agriculture, as well as a Diploma of Agribusiness Management. Gemma subsequently worked with PGG Wrightson at Kimihia, as an animal nutritionist and plantain plant breeder. Gemma is undertaking an additional two years Masters of Agricultural Science, leading to a PhD study with the aim of working in the commercial research field.

Specifically, Gemma has undertaken a study of secondary plant compounds in brassicas, with an emerging interest in photosensitisation in livestock. Photosensitisation occurs when an animal consumes a feed resulting in increased UV light sensitivity. Animals present with swelling and reddening of areas which have reduced wool and pigmentation such as the nose and ears. There are many plants, which can cause clinical photosensitivity, but she is focusing on brassicas inducing primary photosensitisation or ‘rape scald’. She is investigating the compound causing rape scald and management factors to reduce the incidence of the condition.

Her hypothesis is that dark green leafy brassica plants have an increased incidence of rape scale, likely due to the breakdown products of chlorophyll. Her thesis compares and contrasts forage rape and a recently released forage species, raphnobrassica, an intergeneric hybrid of Brassica and Raphanus species. Nitrogen fertiliser will be trialled to determine if this heightens the risk of photosensitisation.