Every year, GroundCover™ tracks a group of growers throughout Australia as they navigate the cropping season. In the second part of this year’s series, our 2025 participants are busy getting paddocks and machinery ready. Some have had rain while others are contemplating what can be sown dry
Western Australia
Jo Ashworth farms with husband Wal, son Morgan and daughter-in-law Libby at Goodlands and Kalannie, 300 kilometres north-east of Perth, WA. Wheat dominates the rotation, with oats sown for feed, hay or seed, depending on the season. The area planted to canola and lupins varies depending on rainfall. They also run a 1000-ewe Merino flock and 20 beef cattle.
We received 5.5 millimetres of rain in mid-March. The amount was not hugely useful, but we started planting in mid-April with oats that may be used for feed, hay or grain, season depending. We then moved on to lupins and wheat.
We seeded at 15-inch (380mm) spacings with double shoots separating fertiliser and banded UAN (urea ammonium nitrate) from the seed, reducing any potential toxicity issues. We use a Morris Contour bar with press wheels for this job.
We were not going to plant canola this year after getting burnt last year. But we have decided to plant a small area to use up some leftover seed. To get ready for seeding we have tidied up some weeds. We had some stubborn melons that had managed to hold on. Rotating sheep has also helped weed wise.
With good results from spreading 2 tonnes per hectare each of lime and gypsum last year, we will continue that process. The yields were about 0.5t/ha better on these paddocks compared with adjacent untreated paddocks.
We will also spread MOP (muriate of potash) on a few paddocks before seeding at 50 kilograms/ha. It is mostly needed at the Kalannie property due to soil type and age
of farm.
We had been hoping to purchase another spray rig but have not found one that fits the bill yet. We will also purchase another JCB telehandler for loading efficiencies across the two farms, which are 50km apart. It will make life easier to have another one.
Western Australia
Michael and Amanda Altus with six-month-old Amelia on their Broomehill, WA, property. Photo: Evan Collis
Michael Altus farms in the Broomehill and Nyabing shires of south-west WA with wife Amanda, baby daughter Amelia and parents David and Chris Altus. Michael worked as a stock agent for more than a decade and returned to the family farm in 2014. The family grows canola, wheat, barley, lupins, oats for hay and vetch. They also run 3100 Merino ewes.
Rain has helped get the season off to a really good start. We were flat-out getting ready for seeding following rain that started in mid-March.
In that first rainfall event, we received 58 to 65mm at the home farm and 5mm at the Nyabing farm. By the second week of April, we’d received another 26mm at both farms.
The rain made us busier in a shorter timeframe. It has also seen us spraying at night to knockdown weeds ahead of the canola plant. We have not needed to do a knockdown weed spray for the past
three years.
Starting the season on this rainfall is good. We’ve got water in the dams, we’ve got vetch out of the ground, and canola is in. The plan is move onto lupins and then barley. With such a good start, we have been trying to get as much in as we can while there is moisture at the surface.
Lambing started in the first week of April. So, before that, we were busy prepping, getting the sheep close to where they needed to be. It was great they had some green pickings too.
South Australia
Craig Kelsh farms with wife Amanda, their sons Dylan and Rhys and their sons’ partners Zoey and Jessica. Together, they farm at Witera, 50km south of Streaky Bay on the west coast of Eyre Peninsula (EP). They crop wheat, barley, lentils, canola, field peas, lupins, vetch and oats. The family also operates a transport business carting bulk commodities and livestock, and runs a self-replacing Merino flock and crossbred lambs.
We were really busy through February and March, doing what was needed without spending too much money coming off the drought; maintaining the tractors and air seeders, fencing, spreading snail bait and shearing 4000 ewes and 2200 spring-dropped lambs for the feedlot.
In our small transport operation, we had two trucks running full-time through to April carting fertiliser, and, because of the dry conditions, a B-double busy carting livestock off the EP as well.
We sow to conditions rather than particular dates. Our sheep are on medic pasture and you really need a germination on that, so we sow that by rainfall if we can. Also, a lot of wheat is sown into pasture. If you plant that early, you end up with a nightmare trying to get the medic out of it once it rains and everything germinates.
In saying that, we planted some medic and barley for feed in late April. Beans and vetch can also be planted dry.
The super-dry summer reduced weed pressure and we mopped-up what was there with the camera sprayer. This kept chemical costs down, so that was good. Our soil tests showed we had low sulfer levels, so we applied gypsum to our paddocks going into canola.
Everything is sown with 70 to 80kg/ha of MAP (monoammonium phosphate) and the barley on wheat stubbles is also spread with 50kg/ha of urea in front of the air seeder. Top-dressing rates will be based on our soil tests and the season, depending on what yields we’ll be chasing.
Our host trial plot with our local Nutrien branch is looking at several crops and herbicides. It’s the best tool we’ve got because we get to see what works and what doesn’t in our environment.
There’s never a dull moment here. I don't like getting too tied up on one thing because things can change so quickly, especially with world markets and tariffs at the moment. So we try to diversify and do a bit of everything.
Craig Kelsh and his family run a diverse farming operation at Witera, on the Eyre Peninsula, to help combat world trade volatility.
Victoria
John Bennett farms with Allison Bourchier and their children, Sophie and Hamish Bennett. They run a mixed farming enterprise at Lawloit, between Nhill and Kaniva, in western Victoria. They crop wheat, barley, canola, vetch for hay, oaten hay, faba beans, lentils and field peas, and run a Merino flock for prime lambs and self-replacing Merinos. With a newer property in south-eastern Wimmera, they have a mix of soil types from self-mulching to lighter soils.
We had more of a ‘normal’ summer in east Wimmera with 150mm of rainfall, so we have a bit of stored moisture. In the west there was only 30 to 40mm, which wasn’t enough to build up moisture. But the lesson from last year is that we had a crop due to stored moisture despite the poor conditions, so no matter what the season looks like, being on time with your program is the best strategy.
Sowing began in April with pasture, then canola and oaten hay. We’ll slot in a winter wheat depending on moisture and then go into beans, lentils, wheat and barley. We applied imi (imidazolinone) chemistry to our canola last year so, given the dry spring, we’ll use imi-tolerant cereal varieties to make sure there’s no adverse effect on this year’s crops.
We’re focusing on doing things that are cost-effective but pay dividends, so we have a sowing calendar for variety this year as well as crop type. Jon Midwood, who was running focus groups for the (FAR Australia) Hyper Yielding Crops project, has also worked with us on plant populations and thousand-grain weights, informing our sowing strategy to optimise establishment. We may have been missing a bit of potential yield by not getting some of those fundamental things right at the start.
We are quite high users of fertiliser – we do try to push our crops, but we’re strategic around nitrogen timing. Soil testing is the starting point. We also deep band N at seeding, which gives us the luxury of crops not running out of nitrogen before we come back for top-dressing. That’s been something that’s really worked for us.
Zinc is applied with MAP (monoammonium phosphate) because we’re a bit deficient in the Wimmera. And we’ll put potassium down the tube in some places. It’s a pretty straightforward system. Disease is a constant issue – rust and Septoria in wheat, net blotch in barley and fungal diseases in wheat – but applying flutriafol to our seed has been a game changer.
We have a couple of 18-metre Horwood Bagshaw air seeders. It’s not new technology, but we’ve spent a fair bit of time making sure they’re sowing with precision. Our system doesn’t throw too much dirt and we’re a bit fussy about that. We attended a GRDC seeder set-up day in Kaniva this year and rather than investing in new machinery I think there’s a lot of opportunity to extract a better outcome with what you’ve got.
John Bennett, who runs a mixed farming enterprise at Lawloit, Victoria, finds sowing on time is the best strategy for his crops. Photo: Adrian Gale
New South Wales
Emma Ayliffe and her partner Craig Newham farm 4000ha across four blocks near Lake Cargelligo in central NSW. They grow wheat, mustard, canola, lupins and oats and run 1000 ewes joined to Suffolk rams for first-cross lamb production.
Our biggest concern has been moisture. From 1 January to 24 March, we measured about 65mm of rain – enough to keep the sprayer busy. Our goal has been conserving moisture by controlling summer weeds, mainly heliotrope and hairy panic.
By 24 March, we needed another 25mm of rain to combine the 20 centimetres of moisture in the topsoil with that down to 60cm and start our sowing program.
Grazing wheat was scheduled to be sown from 10 to 15 April. We are sowing Illabo for the first time as a grazing and grain option.
Typically, we sow Yarran oats for grazing, but this year we also put in 40ha of Goldie oats. Next year, we would like to try some canola for grazing and grain.
If we receive more rain, we plan to start sowing canola by mid-April. We have pencilled in 650ha of canola, but how much goes in will depend on the rain we receive. We are sowing Hyola Blazer TT and Griffon TTI canola. Griffon TTI is a stacked triazine and imidazolinone-tolerant hybrid.
We earmarked Griffon TTI canola for our new farm to deal with the weeds there. It also performed well in our local National Variety Trials.
We plan to sow 130ha of mustard this year. It is only our second year of growing it and last year it suffered frost damage. It is an effective weed management tool if it is sown before June. It can also be delivered to our local grain receival point.
Our early season wheat variety is Boree. Not much of that variety is grown in our area, but we have had success with it. Our late-season wheat variety is Condo. We do not love it but have yet to find a solid alternative.
We have planned to sow Luxor Albus lupins across about 400ha.
Regarding starter fertiliser, we planned to apply an average of about 60kg/ha of monoammonium phosphate (MAP) at sowing.
To ensure we use the correct rates, we will run a double rate and a zero rate of MAP somewhere on the farm with wheat. We also plan to run some urea versus foliar nitrogen trials and various urea timings versus urea rate trials.
Emma Ayliffe and Craig Newham, with baby Cam, have had enough rain to keep their weed sprayer busy on their farm near Lake Cargelligo in central NSW. Photo: Nicole Baxter
Queensland
Charlie Clark farms with his wife Jess and three young children in the Billa Billa district, north of Goondiwindi in south-western Queensland. The operation is part of a larger family farming group with Charlie’s parents, two brothers and their families. While they share a central office, they operate independently with their own staff, plant and equipment. Charlie and Jess farm irrigated cotton and wheat, dryland wheat, sorghum and chickpeas. The Lundavra National Variety Trials site is on the property.
By the end of March, we’d had 260mm of rain – 100mm of that in March alone – a pretty good spot to be in a month or so out from planting.
It has changed our plans, and we will double-crop our sorghum paddocks into chickpeas. The 24-25 sorghum result was well above average. We normally do 2.8 to 3t/ha. This year we harvested 4.5 to 5t/ha.
Charlie Clark farms in the Billa Billa district, north of Goondiwindi in Queensland. Photo: Lucy RC Photography
Our normal rotation would have been to fallow those paddocks into wheat next year. But the rain has allowed us to have 80 per cent profile meaning we need to consider the double-crop chickpea option.
Unfortunately, we can’t have rain without weeds, and we have had to do some aerial applications to get on top of them.
We have recently been picking up bulk grain storage bunkers. We had a few issues with wildlife this year – corellas and other birds. They picked some holes in the bunker tarps. Although we do have a bulk silo storage facility, every now and then we use bunkers for overflow. Rain periods with high humidity over the summer period have meant we’ve had heavy weevil pressure.
The storage bunkers were delivered before the rain in mid-March, which was good. We did get cut off for a little while with all the rain, but not as bad as those three hours west of here.
The rain delayed our cotton picking. We will need to give the cotton some more time before picking to help address any potential discolouration issues.
