2013 Farmer of the Year Matthew and Cherie Coddington
Matthew and Cherie Coddington own and manage Roseville Park Merino Stud on 3240 hectares just south of Dubbo in the State's Central West.
Roseville Park has a client base of 700 buyers and sells up to 700 rams and 3500 doses of semen annually.
The Coddingtons also run trade and breeding cattle, prime lambs, a Charollais sheep stud and crop 450 hectares for fodder production to safe guard the stock in drought and to improve pastures.
Matthew and Cherie also raise five children (3 girls and 2 boys) so it is important to them that their farming practices are sustainable, both environmentally and financially.
To work around the challenges of climate and commodity prices the Coddingtons run a mixed farming enterprise of cropping to supplementary feed their livestock and utilise a stocking rate to maintain ground cover and conserve soil moisture.
Their calendar has been organised so key individual operations occur at set times for labour efficiency, timing of markets and timing of climatic effects.
Management operations such as lambing, marking, joining, shearing and crutching take place to fall in line with Roseville Park's annual on-property ram sale in mid-September each year.
This management system ensures all of the rams prepared for sale meet quality assurance guidelines for age, wool length and body weight for data entry to Sheep Genetics to generate sheep breeding values for clients to select their rams.
Their ewe flock is run under the principals of the "Lifetime ewe Management" program which maintains breeding ewes in condition score 3 throughout the year ensuring an average 7.2 kg fleece weight at 18.0 micron, and a 40kg average weaning weight for 16 week old lambs, with the top Merino ram lamb weighing 63kg at weaning.
The cropping program is used to grow fodder and improve pastures. Paddocks are usually only cropped a maximum of two years in a row with minimum till used with knife points and press wheels.
The Coddington's grazing principals work in well with the creek systems that run throughout their properties. They have seen a great response in plant life along the water ways with many trees, shrubs and grasses growing and re generating naturally, complementing the trees they have planted along tree lines and wind rows.
Matthew is closely involved in cutting edge research developments and uses this involvement to rapidly develop genetic gain within the Roseville Park breeding flock.
This genetic gain has been quantified by the fact that Roseville Park has 22 out of the top 30 sires in Australia that are trait leaders for fleece weight.
The use of genomics research has made it possible to measure gene markers for economic and hard to measure traits such as worm resistance, staple strength, meat tenderness, omega 3 content in meat, lean meat yield, fertility, growth and wool traits.
Matthew has been an industry representative advising on sheep genetics, breeding and selection to Australian Wool Innovation, Meat and Livestock Australia and the Sheep CRC. In 1996, he learnt to laparoscopic artificially inseminate (A.I) sheep and now is able to use the stud's top 10 sires across 3,000 breeding ewes annually.
Cherie's background in education has helped with the development of annual workshops and farm tours run at the Roseville Park tourist and education centre, educating clients, school students, university students, overseas delegations and industry representatives.
The workshops have included programs such as "Bred well Fed Well" and "Ram Select" workshops as well as Chemical Certificate training. There have also been specialised days for wool buyers, overseas wool processors, consultants and stud stock agents.
In the last 12 months, Matthew has also run workshops for Merino breeders in New Zealand and Uruguay on genetics, breeding objectives, understanding industry profit drivers, ram selection, nutrition and artificial breeding.
Roseville Park also has a very comprehensive website listing stock for sale, semen sires, client's results, testimonials, a client feed- back section and a blog called "Matts Matters". Roseville Park also has a Face Book page and a You Tube video channel linked to their website covering farm events.
To insure against disease, Roseville Park is Brucellosis accredited free, part of the National Ovine Johnes Market Assurance program with MN3 Status and is accredited under the Livestock Production Assurance program.
Matthew is a councillor on the NSW Stud Merino Breeders Association and is the Chairman of the Scientific Liaison Committee of the NSWSMBA. He is also a founding director on the board of Merino Link. Among a number of other roles he is also the Senior Deputy Captain and President of the local Bush Fire Brigade. Matthew and Cherie are also members of and are active in the Dubbo show society, Little River Land care group, Dubbo Pony Club, Dubbo Touch football, Dubbo Netball Club and Dubbo Softball Club.
