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Dunlop Park is believed to be named after a family called Dunlop who settled here in the early days of the Thirlstane district. When the district was first settled we are not sure, but there are graves at the New Ground Anglican Church which date to the 1860's. My great Grandfather , Arthur Tupper Lade brought his young family to Dunlop Park in the mid 1890's. The old homestead which is still standing was built around the turn of the century, traces of the foundation of an earlier home can be found in the paddock behind this house. My grandfather Clarence Lade returned to take the farm over after serving in the first world war. My mother Patricia Lade married my father Bruce Stewart in 1957 and they have been living here ever since. The property is currently run in a partnership with my parents and my brother Ian and his wife Judy.

Brian Stewart

The Property
The main property at Thirlstane in the North West of Tasmania has 285 acres (115 Ha) of predominately Krasnozem soil (red clay loam on basalt) for which this area is well known. Another property 'Oak Park' of about 90 acres (42 Ha), 1 mile from the main property, is used for grazing.

We run a mix of stud cattle and vegetable cropping enterprises. The stud has a herd of 100 females from which about 30 bulls are bred for sale each year. We also grow a wide range of crops, with around two thirds of the property being cropped each year. Crops include potatoes (Russet Burbank and Kennebec), peas, green beans, broad beans for McCains, poppies for Tasmanian Alkaloids and GlaxoWelcome and carrots for Vecon.

Below: A crop of poppies on Dunlop Park.

Piggery
Between 1984 and December 1997 the enterprise mix on Dunlop Park also included a piggery which grew to 70 sows in size and was being run as a 50 sow piggery until the decision was made to cease pig production in 1997.

Computer Software
The computer I use is an Apple Macintosh LC and unfortunately although the Mac is a wonderful computer to use, there is very little agricultural software for the Apple Macintosh currently available. Therefore I have adapted several programs for use.

For the piggery a Least cost feed formulation for pig feed diets was done with an adaption of the Excel spreadsheet using the solver function. A pig herd data base was set up using Filemaker Pro. I would be happy to share these with anyone who is interested. Contact me at bstewart@tassie.net.au

For financial records, Quicken is used. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has adapted Macintosh programs for agricultural use or developed new ones.