THERE are few crop competitions left in SA, so taking out the annual Browns Well event is always a prestigious title.
More than 70 farmers and agricultural industry representatives attended the 2016 Browns Well Crop Competition on Tuesday last week.
Attendees visited six wheat crops across the Browns Well district in the Mallee, including Paruna, Alawoona, Taplan, Meribah and Peebinga.
Everyone attending the day had the chance to judge the district’s crops.
Crops were scored out of 100, based on estimated yield, weeds, disease, agronomy, crop achievement and workmanship, with the average scores tallied to produce the overall winner.
This year the overall competition was won by Peebinga farming family Bernie, Kay and Justin Lehmann, with an average score of 83.6 out of 100.
It was with a crop of Katana wheat that had an estimated yield of 2.9 tonnes a hectare.
Katana has early to mid-season maturity, with good grain size, test weight and powdery mildew resistance. The Lehmanns also took out the prize for the highest gross margin.
Their Katana wheat crop was sown using no-till methods on May 17 at 55 kilograms/ha. The fertiliser rate was 55kg/ha of a 27:12:0:7 sulphate of ammonia and DAP blend with Flutriafol.
The paddock had previously been put to pasture and grazed, and was then browned out with a spray.
“I’ve been growing Katana wheat since it was first released by Australian Grain Technologies,” Bernie said.
“Katana has been in my cropping program for the past six years and it’s a terrific variety for this part of the Mallee.
“It really performs in any season, and goes especially well on sandier country.”
Bernie said their family last won the coveted title 23 years ago. He said the growing conditions this year would be on a par with the outstanding 2010 season.
“We had a very dry start, nobody expected this year would end up the way it has,” he said.
“While we didn’t get a good ‘start-off’ rain, since the end of May we’ve had plenty of rainfall to keep the crops growing nicely.
“It would be a record September in this district for rainfall, most people in the area had 100 millimetres of rain for the month.”
Pest and disease pressure has also been low this year.
“Russian wheat aphids are here, but there hasn’t been many people spray for them, and it doesn’t seem to have mattered,” Bernie said.
“I’d say the natural predators have got them anyway.”
Bernie said harvest would usually start in about the first week of November.
“This year will be a lot later than normal, I’d say two weeks later at least, so mid-November,” he said.
Attendees at the Browns Well Crop Competition not only had the chance to have a close look at how the region was faring, they could also inspect some of the latest technology.
New Holland’s Peter Thompson and Matt Clancy demonstrated the company’s new grain analyser.
“It measures protein, moisture and oil as the grain is being harvested,” Mr Clancy said. “The analyser comes on new NH combines, or it can be retro-fitted. You get a real-time reading at harvest.
“It allows farmers to measure how much nitrogen is being removed from the paddock, making it easy to work out how much you need for the following year.”
Mr Clancy said farmers could then use variable rate technology to target their fertiliser usage.
As well as creating N removal maps, the analyser can also provide gross margin maps.
The Browns Well Crop Competition has been running since the late 1960s.
There has only been one year since that it hasn’t been held – in 1972 – because of drought.
This year, the competition runner-up was Adam and Jodie Flavel, Meribah, with Mace wheat that scored of 81.7 out of 100 and had a yield estimate of 2.8 tonnes a hectare.
Bulla Burra, Loxton, came third, scoring 80/100 with Correll wheat that had an estimated yield of 2.7t/ha.
Taplan farmer Clinton Scholz’s Kord wheat crop had the highest water use efficiency, producing an estimated 17.7 kilograms of grain for every millimetre of rainfall.
