Beef farmer Bex Trotter has transformed a roadside paddock into a strawberry field at Luggate in Central Otago.
Despite a lack of tourists, Red Bridge Berries has been well supported in its first season by locals wanting to pick their own fruit.
Bex Trotter and Stephanie Dyson Photo: RNZ / Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
Beef farming and growing a commercial crop of luscious sweet strawberries don't often go hand in hand but Bex Trotter says the combination has worked well for the family farming business.
"It is nice to have that diversification and different income streams coming in throughout the year," she says.
"Strawberries come in flushes and I think we're on our fourth or fifth flush. We've got the most strawberries we're had all season out there at the moment."
Punnets of strawberries and real fruit ice creams are also sold from a shed, making the strawberry patch a tempting stop off for travellers between Wanaka and Cromwell.
The young farmer says it took quite a bit of work to set up the business.
"We talked to growers around the country, people from the North Island came down and laid all of our rows, then we had a crew of seven planters put in all the plants over winter."
Photo: RNZ / Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
Over the fence on the farm, Bex and her husband Ben are in an equity partnership with Ben's parents Pauline and John Trotter.
They bought the 135 hectares property four years ago and now lease another 400.
One thousand bulls are grown out on the farm, arriving at 100 kg and heading off to the works when they are almost 500 kgs heavier.
