TC's 2009 farm thread
- Thread starter topcropper
- Start date
There's been about 60 mills since my last post. That would be fantastic if it went away now. But it's apparently just the start.
Certainly don't want or need any more now as it's all just running off now and going to waste, but there is 100 mills or more forecast for the next week. Also, the wheat was still green, but the longer it stays wet, the more chance it will end up downgraded.Wish I could just bottle up all the rain and have it all fall in January.
As with last year, the world is awash with weather damaged feed grains, and short of quality undamaged grain. A nice premium exists if quality grain can be harvested this season.
See ya's.
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What's with the low grain prices at the moment? Isn't grain supposed to be indexed to the price of fuel - grain is nearly as cheap as it's been in the last 20 years and fuel is nearly as dear as it's ever been. Maybe we need to crank up a few more ethanol plants and change the equation.
Yep, things are crook with feed grains.
We ended up with about 140 mills over that wet week. The falling numbers are about 180, so it's feed too, and a drop of about $100 per tonne. The grain was just too wet for too long. And there is millions of tonnes the same. Harvest pressure means those without storage have to take what they can get.
We will store all ours and hope for better prices later.
See ya's.
We ended up with about 140 mills over that wet week. The falling numbers are about 180, so it's feed too, and a drop of about $100 per tonne. The grain was just too wet for too long. And there is millions of tonnes the same. Harvest pressure means those without storage have to take what they can get.
We will store all ours and hope for better prices later.
See ya's.
Cheap feed grain can be quite handy if you are a dairyman
It's a shame that milk prices are not a bit higher to really be able to make some margin .
Great opportunities coming up in my area to buy more land . Confidence just seems to have evaporated . Some very tempting deals in my area compered to 2-3 years ago .
A well developed out block couldn't get a bid at 3500 an acre . Two years ago that would have sold around 5-5500 an acre....
I have my banker coming out this afternoon for a chat and a cup of tea . I have 7.10% fixed for two years offered ?? begs the question . My 30 day bank bill rate was 7.63 last time I looked ?
I think the rba may hold off dropping rates further for a while . What do you think ?
It's a shame that milk prices are not a bit higher to really be able to make some margin .
Great opportunities coming up in my area to buy more land . Confidence just seems to have evaporated . Some very tempting deals in my area compered to 2-3 years ago .
A well developed out block couldn't get a bid at 3500 an acre . Two years ago that would have sold around 5-5500 an acre....
I have my banker coming out this afternoon for a chat and a cup of tea . I have 7.10% fixed for two years offered ?? begs the question . My 30 day bank bill rate was 7.63 last time I looked ?
I think the rba may hold off dropping rates further for a while . What do you think ?
Coldest ever wheat harvest!
Been harvesting wheat for a week. This has got to be the coldest wheat harvest in my 26 years on the farm. Being so cold it holds things up. Can't start till 10 am when the due dries, and have to knock off at 8 pm as everything starts to get moist. Have to put a coat on at dusk. Weird.
Got rained out this morning with about 70% done. Nothing much yet, but the forecast is for a big dump. Don't want any of course. The grain is feed quality. As I posted before, we got 140 mills over a week. Even though the grain was a bit green, it stayed wet for too long. So that's about a $100 per tonne drop in price.
Some photos of the harvest.
The yield is really good, about 5 tonnes per hectare. That should be the average. Getting about 250 tonnes per day, just me and dad.
Overall, it was nearly a bumper crop, except for 100 mills too much rain right at the end. We will make a profit, but probably only a third of what it could have been.
The sorghum looks fantastic.
See ya's.
Been harvesting wheat for a week. This has got to be the coldest wheat harvest in my 26 years on the farm. Being so cold it holds things up. Can't start till 10 am when the due dries, and have to knock off at 8 pm as everything starts to get moist. Have to put a coat on at dusk. Weird.
Got rained out this morning with about 70% done. Nothing much yet, but the forecast is for a big dump. Don't want any of course. The grain is feed quality. As I posted before, we got 140 mills over a week. Even though the grain was a bit green, it stayed wet for too long. So that's about a $100 per tonne drop in price.
Some photos of the harvest.
The yield is really good, about 5 tonnes per hectare. That should be the average. Getting about 250 tonnes per day, just me and dad.
Overall, it was nearly a bumper crop, except for 100 mills too much rain right at the end. We will make a profit, but probably only a third of what it could have been.
The sorghum looks fantastic.
See ya's.
I don't have much regard for Peter Andrews 'natural sequence farming' ideas. He's probably a nice bloke, I'm sure. But the fact is that he went bust on his own place, and there's nothing wrong with that either, as a few good farmers have gone broke before, but most bad farmers also go bust.
He's now running a horse stud for a billionaire. OK. but who knows what he spends on inputs? I've seen plenty of his stuff. He will put a whole truck load of manure on a gully to fix it up. If you put enough manure on any bit of poor dirt, it will fix anything. It's great stuff. But what about the cost? Does Gerry demand Peter make a profit from the truck load of manure he put on that one gully? I doubt it. Gerry wants a magnificent looking horse stud first and foremost.
He will slash weeds instead of spray them. Slashing weeds is very expensive compared to spraying them.
He blocks up creeks on purpose with logs and trees and stuff. The first big flood would take it all away downstream, and spread the trees and rubble all over his downsteam neighbours. No wonder he's not liked by his neighbours.
I just think that a lot of what Peter does on Jerry Harveys horse stud, would not break even on a commercial farm exporting nutrients and that has to make a profit, rather than just look great for a billionaire to show off to his mates. A horse stud owned by a billionaire, especially one run by Peter Andrews is importing way more nutrient than it exports. Most commercially run farms export nutrients. I export 8 thousand tonnes of grain a year. These nutrients must be replaced at great cost. So manure is too expensive for me to use. It's mainly used by the organic food industry. All organic fertilizer comes from grain farms like mine originally via all the grain that is fed to animals. It wouldn't exist otherwise. The organic farm industry depends on conventional farms to grow 2 billion tonnes of grain per year so that half of it can be fed to animals, so that it can get it's supply of organic fert via animal manure. There is no magic involved with organic farming.
See ya's.
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In Peter Andrews book he says that you should only crop 1/3 of your farm, but using his methods you will get 5 times the yield - sounds a bit far fetched to me. If TCs wheat is yielding 5 t/ha and he increases his yield that much then he will now yield 25 t/ha - the world record wheat crop is not quite 16 t/ha. Sounds like a lot of BS to me. I wouldn't pay any attention to anything he says about grain farming.
'Natural sequence farming' sounds pretty trendy though. I reckon what TC does could have a name like that, he naturally sequences summer and winter crops based on available moisture.
It annoys me too that the government is handing out money for people to implement these ideas. A farm near us has just diverted the runoff from their hill to run on the flat arable land, this will be a disaster in a wet year. They should be maintaining a bit of groundcover to stop the water running off the hill in the first place.
'Natural sequence farming' sounds pretty trendy though. I reckon what TC does could have a name like that, he naturally sequences summer and winter crops based on available moisture.
It annoys me too that the government is handing out money for people to implement these ideas. A farm near us has just diverted the runoff from their hill to run on the flat arable land, this will be a disaster in a wet year. They should be maintaining a bit of groundcover to stop the water running off the hill in the first place.
I've been very lucky here. No floods, just 100 mills of the softest soaking rain over a week. Couldn't have ordered it any better. And being at the head of a water catchment, no flooding from elsewhere. It's been a great season for the sorghum crop. The massive rain in November that ruined the wheat quality, set up the sorghum. Then there has been normal rain for the rest of the summer till this big dump. Also cool weather right the way through. Not a heat wave at any time. Sets us up for a big yield. Should go 8 tonnes per hectare easy, over the whole 850 hectares. The crop won't need any more rain now, it's set to finish fine.
Photo of the crop from about Monday when it was looking for a bit of rain for grain fill. It got it!
We ended up with a slightly below average rainfall from 2011. A bit over 600 mills compared to the average of 670 mills. Yet as an average over the whole continent, 2011 was the third wettest ever year in recorded history, and wettest since 1974.
I've not done much work over January. Been camping and on holidays in New Zealand. Dads been loading and trucking out wheat from our silos, ready to take all the sorghum when we start harvest in about 6 weeks.
These floods are going to be really bad for cotton crops north of here where the rain was much heavier, up to 300 mills for the week. Where cotton is underwater for a few days, it will die. It will be a disaster for plenty of farmers.
See ya's.
Photo of the crop from about Monday when it was looking for a bit of rain for grain fill. It got it!
We ended up with a slightly below average rainfall from 2011. A bit over 600 mills compared to the average of 670 mills. Yet as an average over the whole continent, 2011 was the third wettest ever year in recorded history, and wettest since 1974.
I've not done much work over January. Been camping and on holidays in New Zealand. Dads been loading and trucking out wheat from our silos, ready to take all the sorghum when we start harvest in about 6 weeks.
These floods are going to be really bad for cotton crops north of here where the rain was much heavier, up to 300 mills for the week. Where cotton is underwater for a few days, it will die. It will be a disaster for plenty of farmers.
See ya's.
Nice looking crop TC. Did you see the bloke at Parkes having a crack at dryland sorghum? It was on the back page of The Land this week.
Our season has been too wet, 850mm for the year. This is worse than any drought we've ever had. More annoying is that just 10Km from me on lighter soils and a bit less rain at the right time they have wheat doing 5 t/ha.
Our season has been too wet, 850mm for the year. This is worse than any drought we've ever had. More annoying is that just 10Km from me on lighter soils and a bit less rain at the right time they have wheat doing 5 t/ha.
Yeah. Looks like he'll crack a good crop this year. But I don't think sorghum is viable at Parkes. They don't have a reliable enough summer rainfall, nor soil that is deep enough or holds water like my soil. I reckon more years than not the crop would fail.
Parkes average rainfall, Nov, 49, Dec, 52. Jan, 57. Feb, 46...... For a 583 mills annual total.
My average rainfall,...., Nov, 65, Dec, 78. Jan, 84. Feb, 70...... For a 670 mills annual total.
Add to that I could have 300 mills of stored water before I start, compared with lighter soil at Parkes having maybe 100 mills? We often have to last 5 or 6 weeks without a drop till the next dump arrives, same as at Parkes. A 6 week dry period at Parkes in the middle of summer and the crop would be stuffed. Not so here.
See ya's.
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TC, are you gunna start a 2012 farm thread? (If you decide to, link this one on will you please).
Would be nice.
You might be interested in this, I've had for a while, only just read it:
How to make the food system more energy efficient
Would be nice.
You might be interested in this, I've had for a while, only just read it:
How to make the food system more energy efficient
Well, I think I've had enough of it. And I don't frequent here as much now as I used to either. Including the first 2 threads and then this one I've covered nearly 5 years and 5 full winter and summer seasons. I hope people learnt a bit about farm life and it was fun for me too.
But you never know? I have said before that I was finishing up? And if I start doing something very different, like growing cotton or GM corn or such I'll let ya's know.
Ta.
See ya's.
How are you folks going in this rain? Word is 80% of NSW (heading) flooded?
We're are not expected to get anything more than light showers. We are happy with that. I have sprayed out some sorghum with roundup, so it will be ready for harvest in about 10 days. Planted some grazing oats for mums cattle.
We don't really need or want rain at this time of the year. A dry autumn would be great. If I could order rain on demand, I would basically want normal winter and spring rain, then a wet summer, and then a bone dry autumn.
This rain event seems to be stalled over southern NSW. Some massive totals are being recorded. It's actually a bit frightening how much is still forecast to fall on top of rainfall already. Good luck to anyone under it, and I'm glad it's down there and not over me.
See ya's.
We don't really need or want rain at this time of the year. A dry autumn would be great. If I could order rain on demand, I would basically want normal winter and spring rain, then a wet summer, and then a bone dry autumn.
This rain event seems to be stalled over southern NSW. Some massive totals are being recorded. It's actually a bit frightening how much is still forecast to fall on top of rainfall already. Good luck to anyone under it, and I'm glad it's down there and not over me.
See ya's.
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TC. I tried to find the 2013 farm thread. It doesn't appear to be here. Perhaps time for some updating?
