DAIRY share farmers Nick and Jane Smith, from Tongari in northwest Tasmania, like to measure their progress against other dairy farmers.
"The farm owner spent a bit of money (on the farm) and we felt obliged to find out how we were tracking." Nick Smith said.
So they decided to enter the ANZ Dairy Business of the Year awards.
"We put our figures in and got a surprise call from the judge," he said.
Nick and Jane won the Tasmanian Share Dairy Farm Award.
The couple milk 320 cows, mostly Holsteins, on 91ha owned by Claudia Green. It is their fourth year at "Greenfarm" and the second year they have taken out the share farmer honours. Their previous win was in 1998.
A massive 21 per cent return on assets was the key to their latest win.
Nick said the result was on a 50/50 basis, not on the overall farm.
Nick and Jane own all the cows and the machinery.
Last year their herd produced 152,000kg of milk solids off the 91ha, with 1.2 tonnes of grain fed per cow.
Up to 15 tonnes/ha of their ryegrass gets used by the milking herd.
The year the award was judged, the couple considered themselves mostly dry land farmers.
A problem with the bore linked to their new centre pivot irrigator meant they were only irrigating with the equivalent of about 15mm a week.
This year, Greenfarm received 127mm of rain in March, and 30mm so far this month.
Their pasture growth has been 60-80kg of dry matter a ha with nitrogen.
During the year of the award, 300 units of nitrogen was applied per ha.
