I’m Nick Rishworth and I farm our property near Padthaway SA. I farm with my Wife Felicity and 4 children continuing on from my parents that have retired. Our land size is 570 hectares of sandy loams with our main production being sheep and lambs with 20 to 50 hectares aimed at lupins. The lupins are used as a paddock renovation tool to help control weeds, cultivating the soil and replacing nitrogen for the following seasons pasture. I have been managing the farm for 2 years and continuing my father’s farming program.
This year has had a strong season break and I have managed to get crops sown in May compared to July of previous year. I have had a tremendous problem with birds compared to other years, having problems after sowing, early growth stages and returning into ripening before harvest. They have been a continuous pest needing constant deterrence consuming a lot of my time.
Last year’s crop was met with great spring rains exciting the lupins to flower 3 times and enough continuous rain to fill the 3rd set of pods. This gave the total harvest nearly close to double a normal year. This late rain also meant harvest was delayed into January, because ripening did not happen to late December.
This year’s crop had a great early start before earth mites became a concern. It germinated well and could follow up with a winter grass clean earlier as to not delay flowering window. But without the spring rains, the lupins have finished and seed size does appear smaller, so harvest will most likely before Christmas this year.
I’m a qualified mechanic by trade and have been working for 15 years in the industry before being given the opportunity to continue onto the family farm. With farming income being down this year I am trying to offer mechanic services in between sheep and cropping work to help supplement income and try and support my family.
I would like to explore growing different crops in a rotation to help clean paddocks of problem weeds before planting back to pasture. But with inputs being high and hard to secure fertilisers at reasonable cost, these plans will need to wait until supply and operating costs return to a more sustainable level.
I enjoy growing and aiming to make a good product and can only hope that next year’s season is kinder and less troublesome than this year, noting that it’s so much the amount of rain but more importantly the timing of the rain.
