Our Story
The History
Glenwood homestead circa 1920’
The Smith family has been breeding merinos at Glenwood since 1898. Norm and Pip are fourth generation Smith’s on Glenwood.
Glenwood was originally a part of a large acreage of land taken up by the Martin family as squatters based at Gunnegalderie in the mid 1800’s.
In 1898 part of this land was purchased by Henry Smith of Geurie Station with a loan to his son Norman of £2000.
Over a number of years adjoining blocks were added to Glenwood until at one stage it comprised over 9000 acres. As well as Glenwood Norman also owned Glenrock and Bulbudgeree.
Norman HL Smith ran quality merino sheep and in 1902 won the champion Ram at the Dubbo and Wellington show with a ram called Storm.
Quote from the Sydney Mail –
How would you like to shear these?
“Storm is not yet two years old, and is the property of Norman HL Smith, of Glenwood near Wellington. His sire Billy, first in the age class of the same section is of principally Mudgee blood – of the JD Cox strain. The old ram has great length of body, rather too much so whilst his son is compact and nuggety. His best quality is the great evenness of the fleece all over his body. I have seen denser fleeces but few that handle better.”
Spreading super 1950’s at Franz airstrip
In 1914 Norman Smith purchased top stud rams from the renowned Zara stud in the Riverina due to the severe drought at the time. This promoted the quality of wool produced from the progeny of these rams as noted in the Sydney Mail in 1919.
In 1929 Mr. Norman Smith purchased 2 rams and 297 ewes from Bundemar to establish Glenwood Merino Stud.
HL (Lester) Smith continued the management of Glenwood through from the 1930’s until the 1960’s. He continued the fight with rabbits and further improved the production of Glenwood. He was one of the first farmers in Australia to spread superphosphate from the air and later sub clover which greatly increased the carrying capacity.
The merinos through this period continued to improve and develop to suit the land base. Malcolm McLeod was the stud classer photos also show how much the sheep had changed from 1902.
Building Big dam behind woolshed 1953
In the mid 1960’s Brian Smith took over the management of Glenwood and continued a great tradition of innovation and absolute pride in all that was Glenwood. He became a pioneer in establishing improved pasture from the air and divided the property up into more productive areas and built dams in all paddocks on the property. In 1982 he purchased Tilbelah and built a house, woolshed and irrigation system to drought proof both properties.
In the mid 1990’s Norm took over the management and passion for Glenwood.
Since 1996 the stud has used SRS® genetics with outstanding results. The breeding technologies developed by ex-CSIRO researcher, Dr Jim Watts, have accelerated genetic improvement, improved animal welfare and improved overall enterprise profitability exponentially.
Norm and Pip live on Glenwood with their five children – Chloe, Amber Maggie, William and Daisy.
Today and the Future
Glenwood is situated about 29 km East of Wellington on the Central West Slopes of NSW.
The property is 600 metres above sea level and averages approximately 650 mm (26”) of rainfall per year which is neither winter nor summer dominated.
Glenwood runs predominately a merino breeding enterprise including 1300 stud ewes and 3000 flock ewes.
The pastures are dominated by winter and summer native perennials which have been complimented by a super and sub clover history. Today Norm and Pip manage Glenwood in a holistic manner to balance outcomes for the landscape, the livestock, the business and the people.
They are encouraging greater diversity of desirable perennials with time controlled grazing enabling short graze periods and long rest periods.
Norm and Pip are managing the livestock so that they can minimize chemical use. They are lowering worm burdens by better grazing techniques and eliminating the need to jet for fly strike through genetics and management.
Through all of the above Norm and Pip have lowered the cost of production or the inputs while dramatically improving the outputs.
Long term this management will take the business into the future where consumers and the public are looking for ecologically and ethically sound products and landscapes.
Glenwood is also monitoring the progress using indicators for the people, the business and the landscape.
In the future Glenwood as a business continues to improve land management and profitability. Rest periods may become even longer and development needs to be based around getting a higher density of animals onto any given area for a very short period of time.
The future of the merino industry will be to provide a ethically and ecologically sound product to a growing and ever discerning customer.
