TC's farm thread.

[topcropper]

Howdy.

I've got a lot of PM's lately about rural issues, especially asking questions about farms and farming. A few people asked if I would start a thread about the subject. Seems farmers are rare on somersoft.

Well, this is it. I've been very busy the last month with sorghum harvest, but just about finished now. Believe it or not, it will be a great result. Yields will be a little below average, but prices are tremendous. I'm very happy.

We harvest twice a year. The winter crop harvest, [generally wheat, but can be barley, canola, beans, peas] happens in November. My wheat yielded exactly half it's normal tonnage, but prices were double. The summer crop, [generally grain sorghum, but can be corn, sunflowers] starts March. The sorghum yielded about 85% of normal average, but prices were up heaps. Not double, but almost.


The sorghum harvest,..

A view of the Liverpool plains over our barley crop a few years ago, lots of beer there!...

Not long ago worked out how to put pictures in.
Did my avatar

See ya's.


edit. Please don't think all farmers are doing OK in this rotten drought. I've just been extremely lucky.

 

[Jimmyjamjars]

Please don't think all farmers are doing OK in this rotten drought. I've just been extremely lucky.

TC, I think hard work and sweat might have had a lot to do with your doing OK too. Keep up the good work.

JIM

 

[our obsession]

Great pictures, the country looks so beautiful, I find it still amazing the contrast within this old country of ours...(meaning the soils and landscape).

TC do you run any livestock?

I don't quite understand the Liverpool Plains, the barley is like in strips? A patch of sown barley then a fallow paddock, then a barley, then fallow....are your paddocks sown in strips?

Just beautiful farming land....the trees are a sight for sore eyes.

Nice work, nice job.

 

[topcropper]

Livestock? We run about 25 cows and a bull. Just enough to be a nuisance. All our land is arable, so we just like the cattle so as not to have crops right to our back yard.

On our place, most of the country is less than .5% slope. That land we have in big wide strips. This is so in flood times the blocks of crops slow down the flow of water. When the country is over .5% slope, the blocks are planted up and down the slope with the flow of water, so it's like a corrigated iron roof. Each little furrow carries it's own water.

The strips are mostly in rotations of 3. Generally we will have summer crop in 2, and winter crop in the other. We make more from the summer cropping, so we grow 2 years of summer, one winter. For example. We plant sorghum in November. Harvest in April. Plant sorghum again in November, harvest in April. Plant wheat in June just two months later. Harvest in November. Fallow for 12 months to next November to plant sorghum again. That's 3 crops in 3 years, but in a wet time summer crop may go straight into the wheat stubble for 4 crops in 3 years.

We are 100% zero till. Have been for 15 years, and will never go back. I would guess 90% of farmers here are zero till now.

Trees? The plains are treeless. Always have been. Trees don't like deep black soil. In a wet time they can get waterlogged for months on end. In a dry time the soil cracks open up to 10 cm wide, and busts the roots. The sloping black country has sparce trees. Box, both white and yellow, and rough bark apple. Our land is mostly treeless. The ridge country is light red or even sandy soil, and the ridges are covered in trees.

Defoliating sorghum before harvest.

Planting wheat into sorghum stubble harvested two months earlier.

It annoys me when I read the media and they say Aussie farmers are trying to farm land like they do in Europe. Nothing could be further from the truth. All over the country, Aussie farmers have developed their own unique methods of farming that suit the local environment.

See ya's.

 

[MichaelW]

Awesome thread TC, thanks for sharing!

I'll be popping in here every now and again to see what you're up to. I'm very impressed by what you're doing.

The variability of cash flow would scare the bejeezers out of me. Not sure I have the stomach to be in your business...

Well done,
Michael.

 

[Macca]

Some of my family are graziers at Wallabadah, just up the hill from you by country standards.

They haven't got a level bit of land on the whole 2500acres I don't think

Totally different lifestyle to you, just let the stock eat, sleep and ...... breed .

They have been surviving but have had to cut numbers and hand feed for a while, better now but still not good.

To compare Oz farmers to the subsidised softies in Europe is an insult

 

[sailor]

Hi TC...this is an awsome thread with pics to suit. I was thinking you must have incredible night sky viewing...a sea of stars?
Excuse the newbie question: What does zero-till mean please?

 

[topcropper]

Excuse the newbie question: What does zero-till mean please?

It means that we no longer plough or cultivate the soil. The soil is left as is, weeds are sprayed with roundup, and the next crop is drilled straight into the old crop residue with minimal disturbance.

It is what has led to the big yield gains grain growing has had in Australia. Ploughing the soil just dries it out so much. All the moisture is lost. The soil turns to fine dust and blows away. It is why the big dust storms of twenty years ago are no longer. Drive through most grain growing areas and you now travel past vaste stubble paddocks, not bare ploughed paddocks.

It has increased yields, and decreased labour. I can spray 400 hectares in a 8 hour day, using not much diesel. 20 years ago it was a 14 hour day to plough 40 hectares and burn massive amounts of diesel.

The stubble on the surface provides shade and decreases evaporation. It reduces soil erosion. Soil microbes thrive in the undisturbed soil. Organic matter is increased.

One disadvantage is that you need much more expensive planting gear to get through the stubble, and in winter, even the best gear can't plant at night, as everything gets blocked up with trash. That photo of me planting, see the stubble? 20 years ago it was bare soil.

Australia is a world leader in zero till because we are so dry. Every bit of moisture saved means a lot. A lot of Australias old soil is prone to wind.

Some farming areas are almost all zero till, and others aren't. Where I am, we are.

See ya's.

 

[pursefattener]

Very interesting TC .Good for you .

Farmers are not as rare as you may think on SS . I am a dairy farmer near Camperdown in Western Victoria .... and been lurking about on here for ages off and on .

I thought about what i read in one of your other threads somewhere about how city investors have driven values in rural land and the relationship to commodity prices and thought I would mention what has happened to prime dairyland values in our neck of the woods over the last few years .

MIS coming in and buying up land to plant into trees has been largely to blame but there have also been a steady trickle of cashed up NZ farmers having a go . The result is that values have more than doubled the last couple of years .

The forecast for our industry is very good for the next few years . This years spring rain was dismall though and I have had to buy several hundred tonnes of hay (mostly failed canola and wheat hay ) along with most people in our area .

We have used forward and futures contracts to secure our grain in the past at halfway decent prices to get some sort of margin out of it but this hasn't really worked this year . I cannot recall a tougher year...At present we are feeding a mixtue which includes palm kernel extract for the first time .

What is going to happen with the demand from the ethanol industry in a few years ..... You should have a license to print money if you can just get the rain to grow the stuff eh!

Cashflow with dairy farming is great but it's all about cost control really...but isn't everything ? The huge gains in the value of our assets has allowed us to leverage into other things these last few years .

Public opinion about dairying is very low (and farming in general) It used to bother me once what people thought but I havn't got time to worry these days... It was only last week I was at a meeting and a nice lady I was talking to asked me what I did . When I said dairyfarmer she scoffed and said "Oh bugger that" . Then I asked her and she said she worked as a personal care-er . I wasn't rude but I thought ....F me , give me a break . Not that there is anything wrong with being a personal care-er mind you !

Why would you want to work for someone for 150k a year when you could own your own farm/s and create your own portfolio of investments ?

It's called Alchemy .

A man could live no better life ....


Shawn

 

[Sultan of Swing]

Thanks TC for starting this thread and thanks Shaun for your post too. It gives some interesting insights into the agricultural industry.

I like reading about the nuts and bolts of it from people that are doing it.

TC, forgive my ignorance, but where are the Liverpool Plains?

Cheers

 

[sailor]

Zero till!

TC, thanks for this explanation. I didn't know Aussie farmers were world leaders in this method. Very impressive.

I'm just thinking about how I can apply this method to my own wee garden....wouldn't round-up hurt my plants?

 

[AlmostBob]

Fantastic photos
Zero till is great, and it should be everywhere
I see farmers here, 16000km away, plough up n down the hills, 3-4 times, then harrow
clear all the stalks and plough them under in autumn,
wnter is heaps of rain and snow
then the snow melts in spring, and the first job is to dig all the top soil out of the creeks and roadside ditches at the bottom of the hill, and spread the soil, and the winter dung from the barns, back where it was on the field.
dont know how much soil ends up in the creeks out to sea, but its a lot, the soils very good, but it wont be if there isnt any left

 

[handyandy]

It means that we no longer plough or cultivate the soil. The soil is left as is, weeds are sprayed with roundup, and the next crop is drilled straight into the old crop residue with minimal disturbance.

It has increased yields, and decreased labour. I can spray 400 hectares in a 8 hour day, using not much diesel. 20 years ago it was a 14 hour day to plough 40 hectares and burn massive amounts of diesel.

See ya's.

Hi TC

I can appreciate the benefits of not disturbing the soil and allowing all the good stuff to build up but at the same time can't help thinking that there may be a down side to extensive use of herbicides.

What sort of quantity of roundup do you use and what will be the long term affect of these quantities applied on a continueing basis.

Also what is the affect on your health?

I read somewhere about all the health problems in the Coffs Harbour area as a result of the sprays used on the bananas. Is there any possibilty of the orange agent type long term affects?

Setting aside the health concerns what are the cost involved in the herbicides relative to the fuel savings/time costs.


Cheers

 

[keithj]

It has increased yields, and decreased labour. I can spray 400 hectares in a 8 hour day, using not much diesel.

Hi TC,

So you spend around 48 hours per year spraying, how much time planting & reaping ? And there are 2 families running the place. No wonder you spend so much time on SS .

Cheers Keith

 

[willair]

I've got a lot of PM's lately about rural issues, especially asking questions about farms and farming. A few people asked if I would start a thread about the subject. Seems farmers are rare on somersoft.

You don't see many photo's in SEQ any more like those 2 pic's,just
goes to show how much work is required to run a Farm like you have..
well done i like the open plains..........
good luck willair..

 

[topcropper]

Hi TC

I can appreciate the benefits of not disturbing the soil and allowing all the good stuff to build up but at the same time can't help thinking that there may be a down side to extensive use of herbicides.

What sort of quantity of roundup do you use and what will be the long term affect of these quantities applied on a continueing basis.

Also what is the affect on your health?

I read somewhere about all the health problems in the Coffs Harbour area as a result of the sprays used on the bananas. Is there any possibilty of the orange agent type long term affects?

Setting aside the health concerns what are the cost involved in the herbicides relative to the fuel savings/time costs.


Cheers

Yeah. It's not all win win.

Roundup is fairly safe though. It's the other chemicals that are a worry. The agent orange types were banned long ago, but there are still nastier chemicals around. Pesticides are bad too. I don't use them myself. If I have to, I get in a professional ag pilot.

Farm chemicals are a neccessary evil. You can't grow crops, and have more weeds than crop. Same with pests and disease. Same with fertilizers. Fertilizers are just chemicals. We would all love to not use them, but to keep production up, there is no choice.

There is organic production, but it has a very low output. Anyone who wants to buy organic, go right ahead, but organic could never feed the world. A lot of inputs for organic agriculture come from conventional farming. For example, the straw and manure. Organic is not really sustainable with 6 billion people in the world. It would be with 1 billion.

See ya's.

 

[topcropper]

Hi TC,

So you spend around 48 hours per year spraying, how much time planting & reaping ? And there are 2 families running the place. No wonder you spend so much time on SS .

Cheers Keith

We don't just spray a piece of land once a year. Probably average 6 times a year. Each time it rains we have to tidy up the weeds that germinate. It does mean a lot more time to spend on somersoft though. We can spend more time with the family, doing maintainence, checking pests and diseases, and going on field days to learn more about farming. We have a farmers group where once a year we visit a different farming area to see what those blokes do. It's all good. No where have I said I work 14 hours a day, every day. I do work 14 hours a day some days, but then I have a good rest. 20 years ago it was a slog sitting on a tractor all day. Glad those days are gone.

The sorghum harvest just gone, I suppose it took a month. Not constant though, just as the crop came in. 8 to 10 hour days.

I think Handy Andy asked this, about the economics of roundup verses ploughing? Roundup has been getting cheaper and cheaper for decades. Diesel has been getting more expensive. Soon, it won't be economic to plough the ground at all. Ploughing the soil just to kill some weeds is really silly if you have a long think about it.

My father is on the place too. He is 67 though. He helps out when things are busy.

OK, I'll admitt it. The reason I havn't replyed for a few days is because I ducked of to Coffs Harbour for a few days with the family as we just finished harvest and I hadn't spent much time with the kids for school holidays. Still here, till Friday. Lucky ehh.

See ya's.

 

[Andrew_A]

Interesting thread + photos.

Seems like a good place to have kids grow up as well, country air does seem to make them taller from what I have seen. Also you get to shoot guns, ride all the machinery, have a few pet animals, maybe even fly a plane, does have it's perks.

I have to ask my Dad a few more questions about such things farming next time I see him. Last visit to the country for me was 99 when I had the chance to fly above Cubby station in QLD for a look, easy to lose touch with the country when you live in the city.

 

[Brenda Irwin]

I grew up on a farm. We had pigs, chooks, cows and cultivation. Life was fun, work was fun (for a kid) and I learned to live with nature, not just to enjoy it.

Those chicken dinners didn't come frozen on the farm. You had to hatch the chickens, raise them and then unfortunately lop off their heads and pluck and gut them. It wasn't pleasant for a kid but you learned to live with it if you wanted to eat.

I loved it when dad planted watermelons or peanuts. All you could eat and plenty left to sell.

Glider plains would sometimes land on our cleared fields. In those days, you could land anywhere and no permission was needed.

One year dad planted a new crop, navy or soya beans. It was one of the first in our area and turned out a bumper crop. Dad showed me the cheque of payment and I had never seen so many zeros behind a number!

Unfortunately, due to those nasty weed killer chemicals of old, Dad contracted stomach cancer and died the day after his 50th birthday. We sold up and moved to town.

 

[pete_w]

What do you think of AWB? Do you think having a single desk is the way to go, or should farmers be able to negotiate directly?