Palgrove would like to thank Coles and Weekly Times for honouring us with the prestigious Farmer of the Year 2016 award at their presentation event held in Melbourne recently.
We would also like to acknowledge the other very worthy finalists in all categories and recognise the contribution each is making in their chosen field of agriculture. One thing common to all finalists was the fact that they recognise importance of understanding what their customers want and striving to exceed their expectations.
The work we do at Palgrove is a team effort and we would like to say thanks to all our dedicated staff for their continued commitment to producing quality cattle backed up with quality service.
We appreciate the congratulatory messages we’ve received over the last few weeks and thank everyone for their kind words and support.
(Pictured L-R: John Durkan, Coles Managing Director, Prue Bondfield, David Bondfield, Ed Gannon, Editor Weekly Times) Photo courtesy of The Weekly Times
Palgrove’s renamed Hunter Valley Bull Sale was held on Friday 3rd June 2016 at the Scone Saleyards. There were 46 exceptional ‘market-focused’ Charolais bulls offered for sale on the day with a 100% clearance. The sale averaged $9,858 and we would like to sincerely thank both new buyers and long term supporters of our sale for your confidence in our breeding programme.
We know to expect exceptional calves out of these great commercial Charolais bulls and look forward to visiting the Hunter again next year and track their progress. They are the perfect article over a range of breeding females and in great demand in the weaner and feed-on markets. We encourage you to contact us so we can drop in and inspect your calves (in a good season hopefully). In the meantime, check out the video of our 2016 visit to the Hunter.
All the best with your purchases and if you missed out on securing a Palgrove bull at our Hunter Valley Sale, we invite you to attend our 2016 Palgrove on-property Sale at Dalveen (via Warwick) on Friday 9th September.
It was smiles all round on Tuesday, 13th October when Queensland’s iconic steak restaurant, the Breakfast Creek Hotel proudly raised $30,000 for Prostate Cancer research at their Annual Charity LED Steer event!
Kicking off the day on the front lawn of the Hotel with a live auction, bidding on the Champion 700kg Charolais x Limousin steer affectionately named, “Biscuit” was fast and eager with a winning bid of $25,000 from Bruce Mathieson Jnr from ALH Group. Spirits were raised at the exceptional result – a great win for the chosen charity of the day, the QHA’s Hotel Care’s initiative supporting Prostate Cancer Research.
Guests then enjoyed a three course charity luncheon and gave generously to the Charity raffle as they dined on the EKKA champion steers purchased by the Breakfast Creek Hotel in August.
Guests included Rugby League legends Chris Johns, Gorden Tallis, Kevin Walters,Gary Balkin and legendary coach Wayne Bennett along side local radio personalities Dobbo, Lutsy, Kerry Lonerghan and event host Campo. Many of the beef industry’s movers and shakers raved over the perfection of the Ekka steers including Terry Nolan, auctioneer Darren Perkins, Ekka dignitaries Angus Adnam and Gary Noller. The sold out luncheon was greatly supported by Hotel regulars and beef industry identities. (Thanks to the BCH for this story)
Palgrove was very proud to be associated with this event, with the charity steer sired by a Palgrove bull. Steaks from Palgrove’s Champion Pen of Six Steers from the 2015 Royal Show (purchased by Nolan Meats and the Breakfast Creek Hotel) received great feedback from the discerning crowd! The gents at the ‘Palgrove table’ by all accounts were quite well-behaved as well.
Palgrove enjoyed some great results at the recent Brisbane Show with Champion and Reserve Champion Pen of Six and Reserve
Champion Pen of Three in the Prime Cattle Section. The Charolais x Angus and Charolais steers were only 11 months of age and were sold for an average of over $1,700.
Look out for the Breakfast Creek Hotel promotion in a couple of weeks, where they’ll feature our winning Palgrove steers on their menu.
To our delight, we were also placed fourth overall in the prestigious Paddock to Palate competition with a ‘first time’ entry of Charolais steers. Over 800 steers were entered and points were awarded for weight gain, carcass, meat quality and taste.Three of the top five place getters were Charolais steers – quite a result for the breed!
Thanks to everyone who attended and supported the Palgrove Scone Sale on Friday 5th June. The 47 Charolais bulls offered all sold to a (Scone Sale) record top of $20,500.
Bulls averaged $7,042, with commercial beef producers from the Hunter and further afield securing bulls from $3,000.
We were really pleased with the support from repeat clients, with 72% of bulls sold to buyers who had bought Palgrove bulls previously. Long time supporters, the Gill family, “Alexander Downs”, Merriwa, (pictured) purchased the top-priced bull, Lot 3 Palgrove Jackaroo (Pictured above).
The 22-month-old bull, by Silverstream Evolution from Palgrove Panache, weighed 850kg and had EBVs of +23 for 200-day weight, +36 for 400-day weight and +55 for 600-day weight. The Gill family also purchased the second highest selling bull, Palgrove Jamboree for $14,000.
Another long time Palgrove supporter, Ellerston Station, Scone was the volume buyer on the day securing six bulls.
Sons of Palgrove’s new polled sire, Silverstream Evolution proved extremely popular with buyers with the three bulls offered for sale averaging $13,400.
We have an outstanding selection of 150 Charolais and Ultrablack bulls currently being catalogued for our Annual Bull Sale on Friday 21st August. We look forward to introducing producers to sons by our ‘new generation’ Palgrove sires.
The team at Palgrove is proud to present our new “We’re all about BEEF” video. We wanted to tell a story about our business – who we are and what we stand for.
We’re in the stud cattle business but we’re very conscious of the downstream effect our genetics have on the final beef product, making our business as much “about the BEEF” as it is about the cattle.
We were fortunate to be able to gather together such a talented group of staff, friends, clients and associates who were willing to help us tell our Palgrove story. We had a lot of fun making this short presentation – so hope you have a minute to enjoy it. Click Here to View.
We’d like to let you know that we have a super group of Charolais paddock bulls available for private sale. The quality of these herd bulls is every bit as good as those offered in our bull sale in August and they are running on oats and ready to get to work. Most are polled and there are some red factor available as well.
Our paddock bulls are sensibly priced and we have up to 120 Charolais available right now. Call us to see if we can satisfy your bull requirements and make sure you secure the pick of this outstanding group. They may not stay around for long once it rains! The quality of these rising two year old bulls will not disappoint.
Phone: David Bondfield 0419 665 971 for a description.
The huge crowd that attended the 30th Annual Bull Sale held at Palgrove on Friday 22nd August witnessed a full clearance of Charolais and Ultrablack bulls. The strong front line of bulls saw strong competition from both stud and commercial breeders, with Lot 7, a red factor polled sire taking out the top price honours, selling for $44,000 to Hopgood Charolais, Goondiwindi.
The top priced Ultrablack bull was sold for $9,000 to Ray Vella, Marlborough.
For more details on the sale results Click Here
The following is an excerpt from the Australian Brangus Journal Autumn 2014:
A new style of Brangus is being developed in Australia to help northern producers leverage off the powerful Angus brand and access additional markets in the south.
Among the breeders developing the Ultrablack in Australia are David & Prue Bondfield of Palgrove, a stud better known for its quality Charolais. Mr Bondfield sees the new breed as providing northern beef producers with a broader range of options to sell their cattle into southern premium markets.
The Bondfields’ Ultrablack journey began about five years ago when their Charolais clients were looking for a third breed option to use over their Charolais/Brahman replacement females. We saw real value in adding Brangus into the genetic mix and by limiting the Brahman content in the bulls, the resulting progeny would be fit well into southern premium markets. The bonus for producers is that Angus genetics can be maximised so that they are able to survive in hotter, more humid environments than purebred bulls. The genetic combination of Brahman/Charolais/Angus also provides a huge boost in hybrid vigour, to maximise performance through this perfect crossbreeding equation.
The couple travelled to the USA four years ago and looked at Brangus cattle in southern states that had a similar climate to their commercial clients. They found that the Ultrablack retained the meat quality of an Angus but was more tolerant of heat and humidity than the Angus.
Since then, the Palgrove Ultrablack has been developed using a combination of Australian and US genetics from both the Angus and Brangus breeds. “This gives us a really good balance of constitution, breed character and a sleek skin with fine hair – that’s the advantage of using Australian genetics.”
Mr Bondfield said, “what we want to do is produce measured genetics with full performance records, particularly on carcass quality and weight gain, just like we do with the Charolais and that will enable us to look after our clients with the best options for their specific herds and markets.”
As with many other breeds of cattle in Australia, demand from commercial cattle producers for polled Charolais is on the increase. Palgrove recognised this trend about ten years ago when we began developing our breeding program to enable us to satisfy our buyer’s demand for polled genetics.
It has been a systematic and carefully designed selection process over this time that now establishes Palgrove as Australia’s largest polled Charolais female herd with over 1000 polled breeding females joined to calve this year. In 2014, we will offer over 300 polled Charolais bulls to stud and commercial markets with this number set to reach over 550 in 2015.
We have been mindful of the environment that our bulls have to perform in when making breeding selections. It would have been simple to just cover our female herd with the most popular homozygous, North American polled sires that have performed well for breeders in the States.
However, the majority of our commercial producers target a grass fed product requiring progeny to stand on strong bone, adapt to difficult environmental conditions and have the ability to finish easily off available paddock nutrition.
These limitations narrowed the field of available sires somewhat and required a more critical look at the traits of the North American sire offerings. This led us to introduce a large percentage of our own proven, consistent-breeding polled sires into our program. We have never joined a sire to any Palgrove female based on the fact that he is polled alone, believing that every sire must fit our breeding objectives first and foremost.
As a result of this approach, we believe the cattle produced from the Palgrove polled program have retained the body capacity, substance, character and doing ability that have made Charolais the breed of choice in profitable commercial crossbreeding programs.
One of our newest polled sires, Palgrove Formula (P) (pictured above) has been performing up to all expectations, with his new crop of calves absolute standouts in their contemporary group. They demonstrate all of our benchmark traits for Palgrove-bred cattle.
We welcome visitors to our main breeding property at Ben Lomond anytime to see how Palgrove’s polled breeding program has advanced. We have more than met our high standards with paddock after paddock of females with ‘picture perfect’ udders, volume and fertility now producing the next generation of world class polled Palgrove genetics.