Hughes Contractors Paeroa Ltd

Hughes Contractors in Paeroa has grown quickly in recent years to become a major player in the Waikato contracting industry, running nine tractors, two balers and employing up to 25 staff.

Hughes Contractors was formed by Philip Hughes 15 years ago and for the past six years has also involved his son Dean and daughter-in-law Jessica

The company offers a wide range of agricultural services from spraying out to cultivation, including maize planting, harvesting, regrassing,round and square bales and mowing

"My father started off with square baling and then bought his first forager, an older Claas machine, about seven years ago," Dean says.
"He then got into maize harvesting and grass harvesting and upgraded to the one we got five years ago. At that time he also bought cultivation gear and then got into trucks. It's grown from there."

Today Hughes Contractors operates a Claas Jaguar 850 forage harvester that is primarily used for grass and maize, Pottinger front and side mowers, two ploughs and a set of Simba discs, a brand new 5m Maschio power harrow and a 4m Celli power harrow.
Dean and Jessica own a Krone BP88 big square baler and a Krone VP1500 round baler in a Gowell combination.
"The two Krone balers were bought this last season. Before the square baler we had a Case 8575 which we ran for nine years. It had done more than 100,000 bales," Dean says.
"We switched to the Krone square baler because it was available. Last year it was hard to come by second-hand square balers. We bought it at 25,000 square bales and we've done about 8000 this year, but that number is down due to the drought we had this year.

Dean and Philip had hoped to do up to 11,000 bales with each baler last season.

"With the payout and drought the farmers are looking to grow more maize and grass. Last year we harvested 700 hectares of maize and this year we're predicting it will be up to about 1000 hectares. It's a 30 percent increase in maize, which is going to be huge.
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