The weather was spectular today, about 30 to 35 C and humid, with an impressive thunderstorm around 5 PM.
We were able to discuss our proposed on-farm research with Tim and have some better ideas on how to proceed. After the discussion we headed out to the Dululu area to visit with two CTF farmers.
Joe and Rhonda Reddy and daughter Claire were very gracious hosts. They have come through a long drought and have managed to survive due to no-till and CTF. The systems really mesh together well.
Joe crops 460 ha and has about 360 ha of grazing land for his 100 cow/calf herd. The rainfall is very variable, with extremes like 4 inches per hour. Joe very seldom puts cattle on CTF cropped land.
He has a 3 M tram system and 9 M seeder on 15 inch rows. His advice was to develop long term goals for the farm, create a matching system such as a 3:1 system and move toward it quickly. He would also like to go to 20 inch tracks on the header (combine). Interestingly his wheel slip dropped from 24% to 10% when he removed the tines (shanks) on each side of the tramline tracks. When he moved from contour farming to up and down the slope with GPS he saved 20% on chemical.
He will grow two crops of Mung beans and one of wheat this year (12 month period). The cereals are important for cover/residue. Nothing like tripling your farm size by CTF, no-till and good management along with seeding three times.
Lunch was at the Dululu Hotel built in 1928. Rather quaint.
Our second visit of the day was to Neal Johansen’s. He has a 3 M tram systems and 12 M header and seeder. His header is a MacDon and the seeder a JD 1895 on 10 inch rows. He also has a large Mother tank. It is the collector bin that is parked at the end of a field and to which the chaser delivers grain. The Mother bin grain is transferred to a truck.
Neal grows mainly Mung beans and wheat. He is the first farmer we visited who had gone to 10 inch rows and was happy with that. He moved to no-till and CTF at the same time and will triple crop like Joe this year. An agronomist for his area was out to show us some trias on Mung beans.
Unfortunately our superb guide, agronomist, precision ag expert and driver Tim Neale of Precision Agriculture departed this evening. He has done a great job and we will keep in touch, tapping his expertise. Thanks Tim!
We saw a pretty song bird today with the name of Wonky Wobbly. Our naturalist, who shall remain unnamed, pick up a King toad last night. They happen to be poisonous – oozing from the skin. Fortunately he did not suffer any ill effects. The picture below is of a bottle tree.
The next blog will be in two days from Horsham, Victoria.
No comments:
Post a Comment