Central Southland's Fernhill Limeworks will close its gates on Wednesday (31 Jul), after 83 years, with the redundancy of 6 people.

The Fernhill plant - just north of Centre Bush - was commissioned in 1940 by Fulton Hogan before being bought by a farmer consortium. In 2000 the HW Richardson Group successfully took over the operation.

Plant manager Craig (Oz) Harvey said the economic downturn was hurting farmers and the lime works was just a part of that, with annual lime sales dropping from 50,000 tonnes to 30,000 tonnes in the last few years.

"We're definitely directly related to this economic hardship the sheep and beef boys are going through."

Oz said that it was "a good wee lime works" that supplied clients from as far afield as Mount Linton Station and Central Otago.

"The farmers are not too pleased really. It's all a bit of disbelief, I think. It's come hard and fast as well."

Fernhill Lime works closes on 31st July 2024.

Oz said Southland was deficient in calcium, so would always need lime.

"We basically turn sour ground into sweet ground."

Lime was also good to balance out nitrogen use and release phosphates in the ground to let the grass grow, he said.

Oz said Fernhill had also branched into lime and magnesium salt brews that were used alongside molasses and palm kernel feeds.

"When the [closure] notice went out, the dairy farmers were pretty quick [sending] in some more big orders," he said.

Top dressing pilots also preferred Fernhill's coarser lime, which allowed them to more easily release their load should they need to do so for safety reasons, he said.

Following Fernhill's closure, Southland will be left with just three operating lime works, AB Lime (Browns), Kings Rural Transport's Clifton Lime (Clifton) and Ravensdown's Dipton Lime (Dipton).

Both Clifton and Dipton now use woodchips to fire their plants while AB Lime uses a combination of traditional coal, and gas (from their Kings Bend landfill). Fernhill had a consent to use coal until 2035.

"She's a sad day and it's a bit strange coming to work with just a skeleton crew," Oz said.

"[I'm] awesomely proud of the team here. Right to the last day they worked their butts off," he said.

HW Richardson Group were unavailable for comment at time of publication.