The Oamaru-based Otago Sharemilkers of the Year run a slick business, with the focus on doing the basics right, being flexible and utilising the skills of their 10 staff and infrastructure on the Papakaio farm.
This is their last season sharemilking on the Waitaki Plains, having bought, with a business partner, a Maniototo dairy farm milking 2000 cows.
It will be run by a manager and some of their existing staff, and overseen by them from their North Otago home.
Entering the last year of a six-year contract, Mr Kirkwood said they decided to use their knowledge of the farm to increase this season's production to take advantage of the record Fonterra payout, in preparation for farming on their own account.
Judges commented that the Kirkwoods were determined, ambitious, disciplined and implemented sound systems.
They also noted the efficiency of the business and said, in most aspects compared with the top 10% of like properties, the Kirkwoods rated higher.
They fed fewer supplements - 500kg of dry matter (kg/DM) a cow compared with like properties which fed 733kg/DM; milked longer - 295 days compared with 278; but for every kg/ms produced, the Kirkwood cows ate 8.6 kg of pasture compared with 9.1kg.
Mr Kirkwood told the 150 people at a field day last week their secret was watching farm costs and having a solid working relationship with the farm owners, Pat and Anthea Finlay.
"We are aware of the farm owners' commitments and they are aware of ours. We are both honest and both realise the farm has to deliver.''
They utilise the strengths of their staff and also themselves: Mrs Kirkwood in managing the daily accounts and office systems and Mr Kirkwood on budgets and daily farm management.
Mr Kirkwood said communication with staff, regularly referred to as their team, was another key, so everyone knew their role and the aims and goals of the business.
It was a simple message: turn grass into milk as efficiently as possible. They run five herds, and Mr Kirkwood said each had to be fed and milked every day with the three drivers of pasture eaten per ha, pasture quality and pasture utilisation.
Their policy is to target peak production at more than 2kg/ms a cow without compromising feed quality.
The couple met in 1995 when Kelly was a charge nurse at Waikato Hospital supervising 30 staff and Greg was sharemilking 230 cows at Otorohanga.
In 1997, they moved to a 700-cow sharemilking position in Te Awamutu, where they stayed for five years until the farm was sold.
Mr Kirkwood said they wanted a large farm but there was nothing suitable in the North Island so they looked south and moved to Oamaru in 2002, starting with 1350 cows.
The property has three dairy sheds but only one, a 50-bail rotary, was working, resulting in long days in the shed, with cups on at 4am but milking taking until 9.30am or 10am.
The farm owners agreed to recommission the 40-a-side and 20-a-side herringbone sheds to speed up milking, but also because they could see benefits from operating all three.
Some cows did not like rotary platforms so were now milked in a herringbone. They manage five herds through the three sheds, segregating old cows and ones with health issues, which are milked in the smaller shed.
The second shed is used for late calvers and the rotary for younger cows.
Mr Kirkwood said they had benefited from the willingness of the Finlays to grow the business.
"Pat has never objected to buying [Fonterra] shares, which gave us the licence to turn grass into milk.''
This has allowed them to grow their business and to take the stocking rate to over four cows a ha. It also played to one of their strengths.
Mr Kirkwood described himself as a "control freak'' when it came to managing pasture residual. His focus was on pasture utilisation and he said he had learnt all his skills from reading scientific papers and information from universities and Dairy New Zealand.
"I'm not doing anything here that has not been tried by specialists somewhere.''
All staff were taught how to use a rising plate meter and were aware of the Kirkwoods' grazing guidelines for residual pasture cover - minimum post-grazing cover of 1400kg/DM a ha and 3000kg/DM a ha pre-grazing.
Anything above the pre-grazing cover is harvested for silage.
"Anyone who gets the cows in can make the call if the cows need to go back to the paddock or not.''
The area is reliable to farm, assisted by irrigation over summer.
Mr Kirkwood said he could get his cows to eat cover down to 1800kg/ha in early spring but be confident it would recover in time for the next round.
A 260ha run-off block has proved vital, providing winter cow grazing for 70 days along with calf rearing.
He has opted for a medium-sized cow, mating larger Friesians to a Jersey and smaller cows to a Friesian to achieve that.
"I don't want a 500kg of milk solid cow (kg/ms), but one that gets on calf each year and produces 400kg.''
Staff were given responsibility and expected to respond in the best interests of the business and therefore themselves.
The Kirkwoods' expectations of cow condition have also changed from their Waikato days, and they want fatter animals with a minimum condition score of five.
They employ 10 people, possibly two more than they needed, but Mr Kirkwood said that gave them flexibility and the ability to take people away from daily work for training, giving them the tools to do the job they were expected to do.
The staff answer to two herd managers ,who in turn answer to the Kirkwoods. They hold weekly staff meetings and use radio telephones to communicate on the farm.
They work 10 days on and two days off but work hours are, where possible, kept to a minimum. The result is high staff retention and staff with the skill and opportunity to do the job asked of them.
Mrs Kirkwood said they treated the farm as their own because it was an advertisement for themselves.
The new Maniototo farm has an area of wetland they propose protecting and planting, along with trees alongside other waterways.
Goals are another feature, something they continually talk about and review.
Their mission statement provides an insight to their thinking: The road to success is always under construction.