AWARD-winning nodules are helping push production for Upper Eyre Peninsula farmers, the Beinke family.
Josh Beinke, who farms with wife Erin and parents Neville and Lynette Beinke at Cootra, via Kyancutta, grows wheat and barley to sell, plus oats, lupins, vetch and medic for stock feed.
Following a field day about five years ago, Josh was inspired to try inoculating the vetch and lupin seed with a slurry.
“Inoculating encourages nodule growth, which means more nutrients back into the soil,” he said.
“The paddocks after a lupins or vetch all have a good crop, especially since we started inoculation.”
Josh said the benefits of inoculation were highlighted after they tried vetch seed last year that was not inoculated.
“The stuff that we inoculated was up quickly,” he said.
“The (non-inoculated vetch) eventually caught up, but the nodules were nowhere near the same.
“It will be interesting to see how the wheat in that paddock goes this year.”
Josh said the inoculant had a compost-like consistency, which was mixed with the seed in the airseeder.
Last year the Beinkes won a competition called Show Us Ya Nods, supported by Free Eyre, GRDC and Profarmer Australia, with the prize being a soil moisture probe supplied and installed by Agbyte.
Josh said the probe was already being used.
“We always get it up on the phone and it’s useful when spraying,” he said.
“We haven’t had a harvest with it yet but it will tell us our fire danger index.”
The Beinkes crop 3500 hectares of their 4500ha property.
The remaining land is used to run about 1500 ewes, 500 of which are mated to Merinos in a self-replacing flock, and the remainder joined to White Suffolk rams for prime lamb production, which are then sold as suckers.
Josh said they also traded lambs, which they put through their own feedlot, with all feed rations grown and mixed on-farm.
The Beinkes grow about 800ha of vetch, with one paddock set aside for seed, while the remaining paddocks are used for hay and grazing.