Each year, GroundCover follows a group of growers from across Australia as they manage the cropping season. In this first installment for 2019, we introduce this years participants.
Victoria
Bernard and Simone Lindsay farm at Lah, in Victorias northern Wimmera. They grow wheat, barley, canola, lentils, faba beans and vetch for hay. They also run 600 Merino ewes.
Average annual rainfall: 340 millimetres
Farm size: 3200 hectares (leased, shared-farmed, owned)
Professional advice: Agronomist, accountant, farm business consultant
Memberships: Birchip Cropping Group
Key changes: We bought a disc seeder a couple of years ago on our journey to full controlled traffic farming (CTF). Its meant big changes to our agronomy and is working well. Weve also changed our approach to chaff spreading. Previously, big stubble loads were difficult to handle but we now have our headers set up properly. On the livestock side, weve switched from crossbred ewes to Merinos.
2019 goals: To further improve our disc seeding and fine-tune CTF tidying up our AB lines, changing paddocks, putting in new fences and implementing chaff lining. Were also finishing some extra containment paddocks to keep stock in dry years.
Challenges and opportunities: Climate is our key challenge. Herbicide-resistant weeds are there, but were always working on new systems, such as chaff lining. I believe CTF is an opportunity that will eventually make us more productive. However its a work in progress.
R&D wish list: Id like to see more accurate medium-to-longer-term forecasting outlooks.
New South Wales
Evan and Katrina Lord farm at Mirrool, in south-western NSW as part of the DB Group, with Matt and Sam Dart and Richard and Trudi West. They grow wheat, barley, canola, lupins, vetch for brown manure and oats for feed. They also run 1800 Dohne ewes.
Average annual rainfall: 450mm
Farm size: 3700ha
Professional advice: The DB Group is a unitised trust with three directors. The structure involves an agribusiness and a farming component. DB Group employs a business consultant to the agribusiness and uses agronomists, a sheep adviser and a grain-marketing consultant.
Key changes: We have introduced vetch a profitable pasture legume for this area into the rotation, where we previously relied on chemical fallow. This has provided feed and nitrogen fixation benefits and we no longer need to crop the country as hard. We can generate an income while spelling the pastures.
2019 goals: Implementing more precision ag tools, breaking paddocks into zones according to soil type, or production based on previous yield. Were adding nitrogen and potentially other inputs to existing variable-rate lime and gypsum. We want to ascertain if our poorer areas are always going to be poor and whether were handicapping higher-performing areas.
Challenges and opportunities: There are many ways to collect data, but the challenge is to use the information and make informed decisions. Another issue is the limited number of suitable pre-emergent herbicides for our single-disc system. Finally, there are the seasonal conditions. Were managing soil moisture but, unlike the past two years, our profile is bone dry. We have to be flexible around canola and other risky crops. Were excited about the new winter wheats released. We had good yield results last year from Longsword (PBR) and, while it didnt make milling grade, there are more varieties coming through the pipeline.
R&D wish list: Flexible wheat varieties, platforms to manage data and more research into hard-to-control summer weeds, such as windmill grass and barnyard grass.
South Australia
David Giddings, partner Kerri and their children Amelia and Jiah farm at Wanilla, on the Lower Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. They grow wheat, barley, canola and lupins and run 3500 Merino ewes.
Average annual rainfall: 450 to 500mm
Farm size: 3000ha
Professional advice: Agronomist, accountant
Memberships: Lower Eyre Agricultural Development Association
Key changes: Twenty-five years ago we started clay spreading. All our country is non-wetting and I wanted to move to dry seeding. We moved from clay spreading to delving, then six years ago to ripping and spading. Now all the arable country is done. Part of that process is spreading lime, gypsum and trace elements prior to ripping and spading. Over this period, we have also moved into CTF. These interventions have seen our yields increase by about 25 per cent.
2019 goals: To continue our program of improvement. We bought another farm last year and want to implement the same approach ripping and spading on new country, as well as sowing kikuyu. All of our existing pastures are now perennial, and the kikuyu has shown promise.
Challenges and opportunities: There are some unproductive pastures that need renovation, due to poor soils. Sowing kikuyu should help these along. Our opportunity is to take advantage of the current commodity prices.
R&D wish list: Soil amelioration. Anything that can improve yields by 10 per cent or more should be a priority.
Tasmania
Simon Burgess farms at Conara, in the Northern Midlands of Tasmania, as an operating partner in a private equity business. He crops wheat, canola, poppies, barley and faba beans. He also runs 300 Angus breeders, backgrounds and agists steers for Tasmania Feedlot, and has a breeding flock of 2500 ewes.
Average annual rainfall: 518mm
Farm size: 4400ha (2600ha cropped, with 2400ha under irrigation)
Professional advice: Financial controller, legal counsel, occupational health and safety consultant, agronomists, animal health consultant, IT/precision-ag consultant
Memberships: Southern Farming Systems, GRDC Southern RCSN group, Greening Australia
Key changes: We bought the neighbouring property in 2016 and have undertaken significant irrigation development and fencing. Weve also been experimenting with green manure and biofumigation crops. Following poppies, we sow forage brassica or tillage radish and harvest these with livestock.
2019 goals: Weve done a significant amount of work on surface drainage and there is more planned for this year. Were also planning some underground drainage systems. Having legumes in our rotation is a key future goal.
Challenges and opportunities: Herbicide-resistant ryegrass and radish, frost, and keeping crops from lodging in high-yielding situations are key challenges. Inconsistent soils and climate can also give us problems. Having been through a significant development phase, there is the opportunity now to get all those moving parts working together and capitalise on the economies of scale.
R&D wish list: Annual ryegrass control is our number-one requirement and management of herbicide-resistant weeds more broadly. GRDC is doing good work in zero-till systems but Tasmania has different tillage requirements due to the diversity of crops in our rotations, such as poppies and potatoes.
Western Australia
Tim and Victoria Harrington and their children Rose, Louis, Sofia and Eve farm at Darkan, in WAs high-rainfall zone in the states south-west. They crop barley and canola. They also run 5500 ewes and 800 wethers.
Average annual rainfall: 490mm
Farm size: 2700ha (1900ha owned, 800ha leased)
Professional advice: Icon Agriculture and local agronomists
Memberships: Compass Ag Alliance (president), Southern Dirt (grower group)
Key changes: Reintroducing livestock to manage risk and expand the enterprise. Some of our soil types arent conducive to high-input crops and there are areas prone to waterlogging, so weve fenced according to soil type and use livestock to capitalise on areas not suited to cropping. In the past five years, weve completed our succession plan, with our family taking over from my uncle (Ray Harrington).
2019 goals: Low barley prices are forecast so our focus will be on keeping costs down, and Ill be looking at soil amelioration to cure some non-wetting issues. Weve had good results in some GRDC-invested trials with mouldboarding. However, the biggest issue is cleaning up the stones and tree roots afterwards.
Challenges and opportunities: Machinery costs are an issue you can be over-capitalised with restrictions in this area on the amount of land available. I want to remain a lean operation, but I also want to spray larger areas more efficiently. There are opportunities for us in our rotations, particularly with lupins and wheat. The metribuzin tolerance and improved disease package now available in lupins has allowed us to reintroduce them into our rotation for animal feed. Ive also trialled some LongReach Beaufort (PBR) and RGT Accroc feed wheats. They performed well, so it would be handy to get them back with the chemical package they have to offer.
R&D wish list: We have high-phosphorus-buffering-index soils and phosphorus is our biggest nutrition issue. How do we get enough phosphorus into our plants and make it more efficient? Id also like information on handling the June droughts that are becoming more common.
Queensland
Stephen Gibson farms with parents Brian and Kaylene and sister Ann-Maree at Dulacca, on Queenslands Western Downs. They crop wheat, barley, chickpeas, sorghum and mungbeans.
Average annual rainfall: 610mm
Farm size: 10,000ha
Professional advice: Agronomists, grain buyer
Memberships: Looking to start a Western Downs grower group
Key changes: Rainfall records over the past 100 years show were now getting fewer, heavier falls. This has implications for our cropping choices. Because we have little autumn rain, were moisture-seeking at seeding. We plant chickpeas to access moisture, so we now grow more pulses for that reason.
2019 goals: To build-up good ground cover. Were trying to stay away from Kelly chains and plant with a disc seeder to preserve cover, even if it means using contractors. Another goal is to chase yield through varieties and agronomy. Weve grown a direct release from CIMMYT called Borlaug 100 (PBR), which did well on less than 50mm of in-crop rain last year.
Challenges and opportunities: Sporadic rainfall and herbicide-resistant weeds. In the past two years we have seen 100mm of rain midway through harvest. The grass germinates and, before we can get residuals down, it is up and growing. Its also been unusually warm and windy, so conditions arent conducive to spraying.
R&D wish list: A second summer pulse option like a Pigeon pea suited to our conditions.