Alliance Group chairman Owen Poole presents Mimihau farmers George and Kathryn Smith with three awards, including the gold Alliance Group Limited Terminal Sire Overall award at the Sheep Industry Awards in Invercargill last week. Photo by Beef and Lamb New Zealand

An interest in genetics at school has been a part of George Smith's fibre for many decades.

As a farmer, his schoolboy lessons about dominant and recessive genes came into play when determining desirable traits in his sheep and he was recording genetic information about his flock during the 1970s before it was common to do so.

''Genetics came into [my] studies and I have tried to apply that to sheep,'' Mr Smith said.

Mr Smith farms 282ha on his family property at Mimihau with his wife Kathryn Smith and his son Hamish Smith.

The farm carries 3600 Texels and Texel/Romney/Coopworth composites on rolling hill country.

The couple celebrated 100 years of family ownership in July.

''It was basically just a commercial operation with a few cattle. In 1963 we bought in a few stud Romney ewes because of my interest in genetics,'' Mr Smith said.

The couple took over the farm, which was previously a partnership with his father and brother, in the early 1970s.

Initially he developed his own system for recording genetic traits in his sheep using a manual ledger.

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