This rigorous focus on native trees and bushes, forming a green border to each paddock, has seen Mr McKenzie plant a whopping 50-60,000 trees since the purchase of the main property in 1988, serving as shelter, wind breaks and habitat for birds and insects.

He chose inland red gums, sugar gums, yellow gums, swamp yate and sheoaks.

“I wanted trees which would grow reasonably quickly and be a reasonable height and for shelter.”

At the same time, salt bush was planted through the centre of each paddock, utilised as a secondary grazing point for the sheep flock and also for wind protection.

“I have a tree line right around each paddock, which works out to be about every half-mile there’s a tree line because of the way the paddocks have been fenced.

The farm, long and narrow, has leant itself to the redevelopment and since 1998 has been reformed with fencing to divide the property into 41ha boxes.

More work is yet to be done on two new blocks added to the fold: 243ha adjacent at Killara’s west end in 2002 and a further 486ha across the road in 2007, bought with nephew Brenton McKenzie who will join Mr McKenzie on the farm when he completes his mechanical apprenticeship.

The home property began its refurbishment in 1999 and is now all but finished, with the second block hot on its tail. To date 40 kilometres of fencing has been completed and over 41ha of trees and salt bush planted, covering nearly 20pc of the entire farm.

The property across the road began its make-over last year and is currently being planted with rows of trees.

Lacking the book work to compare harvest tonnages or tests revealing changes in the soil structure, Mr McKenzie relies on his eye to note the changes and stated his impression quite simply: “I like what I see.”

The largest developments have been detected in weed structure with problem weeds radish and broome grass before he converted to organic, now all but gone.

“With us spending years and years of spraying, weeds have adapted to grow in the conditions that we’ve made for them and they’ve been tough to cope with.

“A little bit of mustard weed was pretty easy to get out of a crop in the old days, but now you have to take into account people’s chemical bills to get rid of a lot of these weeds.”

Recently he has had to apply dosages of magnesium to rebalance a deficiency and has done so through applications of foliage fertilisers, varying from composted chook manure, to fish and kelp fertilisers and even molasses-based fertilisers, which stimulate the microbe population in the soil and return nutrients to the soil, applied about a month before cropping.

A simple soil test has shown a turn-around, with soil rubbed between his fingers no longer “harsh sand-papery” but getting “a lot smoother”.

“To me, the soil is the important thing; short-term the plant is because that’s where the dollar comes from, but long-term, the soil is what grows the plant.”

“If you go back to nature the soil will look after the plant, you don’t need any inputs from us to make that plant grow in a natural system.”

For full story see Stock & Land, October 9.