Over the past 25 years farmers in South Otago have raised the carrying capacity of native undeveloped tussock land from 0.6 su/ha to 15 su/ha through techniques of cultivation and oversowing. The success has been achieved by a whole range of mterrelated operations, which have evolved from cultivating ploughable undeveloped tussock land and sowing into pastures with white clover/fyegrass cultivars. and oversowing the rougher undeveloped hills with similar Pasture species. Soils of the region lacked molybdenum and phosphate, and topdressing with molybdlc superphosphate greatly increased white clover yields. In the 1950s animal production was based on breeding and selling store stock, but today the emphasis is on retaining stock and fattening for export The results of development over the last two to three decades have put the farmers in a good position to meet the future, especially the economic problems facing the industry. Keywords: molybdenum, oversowing. grarmg management, productivity, cultivars, tussock hill country
