The first two generations of Browns to arrive in the Ngararatunua district, north-west of Whangarei, spent the early part of the 20th century planting dynamite.

Blowing up the stumps of kahikatea and rata trees was part of their daily ritual until the early 1950s.

Both Tom Brown and his father were soldiers of the two great World Wars, and presumably had the inside-running on surplus army stock.

“Using gelly would certainly have been a lot of fun,” smiles Sam Brown, the first-born son of Tom and Shirley Brown. “And I don’t think getting resource consent would’ve been much of an issue back then either.”

From the elevated family home at Wyndale Farms, Sam surveys the property and comments:

“After they finished clearing stumps Tom developed the property to the point where he could run a jersey-stud. But Tom decided to go with freisians about the time a tanker collection started.

“It was then that he went from milking 180 cows to 320. Back in those days it was one of the biggest herds in Northland.”

Sam estimates his father began artificially inseminating the herd in the 1960s: “That’s probably about when our family’s relationship with LIC began. I carried that on with herd testing when I started in 1975.

“We went to cross-breds about 14 years ago, way before the emergence of KiwiCross^®,” Sam says.

“We were putting friesians over jerseys and jerseys over friesians, and we’re still putting heifers to straight jersey yearlings.

“We still wanted the quantities produced by friesians, while capitalising on the higher fat and protein contents of the jerseys. Excellent genetics in the herd is definitely a big factor.

“We’ve used Premier Sires for 35 years now, and all through that time it’s steadily built our herd’s breeding worth.

“But it’s not only that, genetic gain has to go hand-in-hand with good management,” he says.

“We use DNA-Proven because we don’t want to fall behind. We also want to be using what’s the best, and the best-value.”