Country Life

Herlihy Family shearathon, Little River Support Group hosts the Giant Pumpkin Festival, and the Coronation Garden in Little River.

Neighbours, friends and strangers took to the boards recently in Whangamomona for a 24-hour shearathon to raise money for suicide prevention. Michael Herlihy, a talented shearer and the youngest of eight children, died last year at just 20.

Country Life's Cosmo Kentish-Barnes was very thankful for his gumboots when he visited the extremely muddy South Island Field Days in Kirwee. The three-day event is the oldest and biggest demonstration field days in New Zealand.

Tutsan's days are numbered. Thanks to years of fundraising and work by a team of mainly volunteers, the invasive weed is now on the menu for a moth and a beetle that have been brought to New Zealand to control it. Tutsan takes huge amounts of farmland out of production and costs the country millions in lost earnings.

Kerikeri kiwifruit grower Sandy Mecredy wanted to hear her daughter and friends biting into golden wafers of thin kiwifruit, so ten years ago she started drying the fruit that was rejected by a nearby kiwifruit packhouse.

Many North Island farms have saturated soils after a week of rain and in-between the downpours contractors are trying to harvest maize. In the South Island rain is destroying grape crops in Malborough while in Southland more rain would be welcome.

Ashburton farmer Eric Watson has become a Guinness World Record holder after producing the world's highest yielding crop of wheat.

South Island Field Days, Tutsan Action Group, Kiwi Bites, Wheat Growing Record.

Tutsan's days are numbered. Thanks to years of fund-raising and work by a team of mainly volunteers, the invasive weed is now on the menu for a moth and a beetle that have been brought to New Zealand to control it. Tutsan takes huge amounts of farmland out of production and costs the country millions in lost earnings.

More than 50 years ago Jaap and Sue Van Dorser cleared and then planted up a small section of the Awahou Stream which flows into Lake Rotorua. Over 20 years ago they were joined by another couple and since then they've worked together every Wednesday morning, clearing and planting the river banks.