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Southern, 10 Apr 2021
Confidence secures role for pulse
Lentils are not as difficult to grow as they sound – that is the major lesson Brad Dennis says he learned in his first three years of growing the crop at Baroota, north of Port Pirie on the east coast of South Australia’s Spencer Gulf.
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Southern, 09 Apr 2021
Grower groups prove a valuable learning curve
The GRDC Southern Pulse Extension project was established to help growers maximise income from pulses. Ground Cover spoke to some of the people involved in the project about its outcomes.
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Southern, 06 Apr 2021
Fire adversity turned to opportunity
South Australian grower Steve Jaeschke has turned the adversity of a fire into an opportunity for intensive soil amelioration works on his family's farm near Bordertown. The Jaeschkes' amelioration program includes clay spreading, delving, spading and deep ripping. It has not only remediated charred non-wetting sands, but also lifted the overall productivity and profitability of the family's farm business since the fire in 2018.
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Southern, 30 Mar 2021
The road trip that delivered feats of clay
From testing the waters to full immersion, South Australian grower from Karkoo, Scott Crettenden, recounts his clay spreading journey from novice to becoming his region’s principal contractor. Scott ameliorated non-wetting sands with a Claymate machine developed specifically for clay spreading as part of a contracting business on SA's Central Eyre Peninsula. Scott estimates the business spread clay on about 12,000 hectares of the region's water-repellent sands between 1997 and 2003.
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Southern, 22 Mar 2021
Tackling acidity becomes a mine field for SA family
South Australian grower Scott Crettenden has developed a lime sand mine on one of his properties near Karkoo which is helping tackle widespread, increasing soil acidification on the Eyre Peninsula.
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Southern, 26 Jan 2021
Narrow row spacings set up ‘opportunity enterprise’
The transition to narrower crop row spacings has led to higher yield potential, reduced in-crop weed pressure and increased plant biomass on Richard Konzag's property at Mallala in South Australia's Lower North region.
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Southern, 17 Nov 2020
Researchers profile Red leather leaf disease
New southern research findings have highlighted the grain and hay yield losses caused by a common, yet previously little-known, oat cropping disease – Red leather leaf (RLL). The ongoing research led by Agriculture Victoria research scientist Dr Mark McLean shows the disease can cause grain yield losses of up to half a tonne per hectare and hay yield losses between 0.5 and 1t/ha.
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Southern, 05 Oct 2020
Versatile vetch a winner for Murray Plains mixed farmer
Vetch is highly versatile and can be grown for grazing, hay, green or brown manure, or grain production. South Australian grower Adrian Bormann says vetch is also reliable and can handle a wide range of soil types.
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Southern, 16 Sep 2020
Timely safety lessons emerge from header fire
Mallee grower Ian Hastings has devised a new system to enable fire-fighting from the safety of the tractor cabin, instead of standing in the paddock, after he was seriously injured fighting a blaze in a barley crop on his family's property during harvest last year. The Hastings family – Ian, Cathie, Michael and Megan – crop about 4600 hectares at Ouyen in north-western Victoria.
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Southern, 25 Aug 2020
Ripping combination aims to remediate sands
Deep ripping combined with liquid nutrient injection could be the recipe needed to remediate Tristan Baldock’s Mallee-type sands by 2029.