MID North farmer Nick May, Pinery, was named the SA Durum Growers Association’s durum grower of the year at the Carnevale Italian Festival in Adelaide in early Feburary.
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As part of the Carnevale celebrations, pasta company San Remo hosted a group of durum growers at a lunch prepared by well-known chef Adam Swanson, where the award was announced.
The award included a trip to Italy, from San Remo.
Last year’s winner of the durum grower of the year award was Mark McInerney, Riverton.
It was the first time Mr May had been nominated for the award.
Mr May said the win had come as a surprise, but he was looking forward to the trip to Italy.
He and his family are long-time durum growers.
“We’ve been growing durum for a good couple of decades,” he said.
Mr May said the crop had become an important part of their cropping rotation and there was a lot to like about it.
“The pricing has been good for the past couple of years,” he said.
“We’ve also got better-bred varieties like DBA-Aurora coming through.
“The crop is also well-suited to our soil types.”
Mr May said durum had given his farm enterprise some of its best gross margins in recent years.
“On gross margins, it’s up there with lentils and oaten hay, which we grow as well,” he said.
Durum, lentils and bread wheat comprise roughly a third each of the May family’s 2100 cropping hectares, with some oaten hay completing the mix.
“Bread wheat was always more predominant in our cropping program in the past, but the durum area is roughly on a par with bread wheat,” he said.
Durum is generally sown into lentil stubbles because of higher nitrogen levels in the soil and benefits from the organic matter.
A wheat or hay crop then follows, depending on ryegrass levels, before lentils are sown.
The preference is to grow durum on Mallee loam and red brown earth soil types.
Durum crops are contracted to a buyer for San Remo, with the company the major end user in SA.
Mr May said utilising hectare-based contracts minimised the risk to the grower.
Last season Mr May trialled new durum variety Aurora and it performed well on his farm.
Aurora is known for its low screenings and premium protein levels,
While there was not a lot of yield variance – Aurora at 3.1 tonnes/ha compared to 3t/ha for the popular variety Saintly – the new durum performed better on screenings, protein levels and test weights.
