We mainly grow wheat, barley, sunflowers, sorghum and chickpeas (when we can) on our black clay soil. Our 10-year average rainfall is 550mm, however last year was much wetter where we received 780mm for the year. We’ve currently got 600ha of both sunflowers and sorghum growing. The sunflowers are doing ok, but we did have a flood go over them not long after planting. However, they are now ripening and should do ok. This year we planted our summer crop with a new Precision Seeding planter set up on an existing bar (24mt, 1.5m/60” row spacings), which has done an excellent job – we wish we had it sooner.
Our region and farm were badly affected by flooding late last year. Currently, we are fixing up paddocks where washouts occurred as well as repairing flood damage. We are also catching up on spot spraying, we had been holding off waiting for a few rain events that didn’t eventuate and are also spot cultivating some patches of feather-top and barnyard grass. With sorghum out in head, we are likely to need to spray for grubs in the next few weeks depending on the level of beneficial insects within the crop. Prep for a winter crop is also upon us and we will need to start spreading sulfate of ammonia in the next week or two.
One of my biggest concerns is chemical and weed resistance. With the cost of chemicals, it can be a bit stressful once a spray has been applied to see if it has worked, only for it not to and then have to start chasing those weeds again! This summer has been a terrible one for herbicide application, with short spray windows, inability to physically get on the ground due to the wet/flooding conditions and then very quickly we went the other way where weeds are too stressed to spray. It has been very frustrating.
Better soil health is always on our mind, it is such a difficult variable to measure. If only we had a simple solution like instant soil analysis with a drone measuring soil microbial and carbon activity.
We’ve been very lucky to find two full-time workers who work well within our business. It can be hard to find good people who know how to do various jobs, particularly when it comes to harvest. This has had big impact on our business.
For the future, I’m interested to see where the autonomous space goes, autonomous spot spraying will be a huge benefit for the grains industry. Some new chemistry is also much needed. I’m also keen for a system where you can book your rain dates in!
