CTF Australia December 9, 2010

The day turned out pretty good, no rain although we did have grasshoppers hitting the van and sounding like hail. We visited three farmers in the Horsham and Ballarat areas.

The Postlethwaithe’s are pioneer in CTF. They have built most of the equipment they needed and that has led to a farm fabrication business. They build shielded sprayers, build, revamp and repair headers and sell, service and install GPS guidance systems among other things.

They have changed some tramline to go across the slope to reduce erosion. They also have a similar problem to Robert Ruwoldt. As the biological activity has increased in their fields, decomposition of residue has increased. Sounds good until you start harvesting crops and lasts year’s stubble, which is still standing won’t cut because it is barely attached at the surface. It plugs up the knife and drags along instead of cutting.

The shielded sprayer design was very innovative and flexible. We wanted to take some units home. One of them will work on 13.5 inch rows. There is potential for a lot of savings using these in crop.

Our second visit was to Steve Lanyon’s. He and his father farm about 10,000 acres. He is much more relaxed about his CTF system, and has set it up on 3 M trams and then 10 M equipment widths. He has a 20 M shank seeder (66 feet), 10  M header, 30 M sprayer.

It was good to see something much closer to where we are in Alberta. His row spacings are 13.3 inches. Steve tries to keep things simple, like pulling off the tramline to unload or turning the chaser around in the middle of a field if need be. He showed us one field that was 1800 acres in size, 3.5 km runs I think.

Steve also built his own Weedseeker 20 M spray rig. It is attached via a 3-point hitch. The savings in chemical can be very significant.

All of the guys in CTF seem to be saving fuel and are very pleased with their ability to get on the field in tough conditions, the traction packed trams have and the general operating efficiencies and ease.

Our last visit of the day was to Highleaze Seeds. They have their own cleaning plant and market grass, legumes and cereals. There are looking to move to CTF but current only inter-row seed on 10 inch rows.

Our day end late again with a show called “Blood on the Southern Cross”

Tomorrow we are off to see four famers as we work our way to Melbourne and home.

Ballarat area