First barley crop a success for Baker family, Orion

The Baker family farm on two properties, Bareena Valley and Wandana, both in the Orion region, with a combined area of 3800 hectares. 

The operation is predominantly focussed on grains, but Mr and Mrs Baker said they recently purchased 50 Brangus heifers and a bull in an effort to diversify the business. 

Leading into summer, Mr Baker said it was looking as if he would not be planting a crop for the second year in a row, after a dry summer last year left him with only winter crops. 

In the ground for winter was a wheat crop (700ha, averaged 3.65 tonne/ha), chickpeas (1650ha, averaged 2.9 tonne/ha), and barley (950ha, averaged 4.1 tonne/ha). 

Mr Baker said he “took a punt” on the crops, which paid off in droves. 

“I dry planted all of my barley, all my wheat, and 1200ha of the chickpeas,” he said. 

“Our planter wouldn’t go deep enough to find the moisture, so we didn’t deep plant - we dry planted. 

“I subscribe to a weather bloke and he convinced me it was going to be a wet winter, so I had all the wheat and barley dry planted, and had 1200ha of the chickpea dry planted and the night I finished dry planting the last paddock, it started raining.”

Between June and October, the Bakers saw 335mm of rainfall.

Barley was a first for the Bakers, who had never planted the crop before.

Mr Baker said high salt levels in paddocks after the heavy 2011 rains which caused vast flooding in the Central Highlands had left some of his best paddocks “a bit sour”. 

“Barley is tolerant of salt, so I tried it in those paddocks and it went really well,” he said.

“It yielded very well, so I think it will be a part of the rotation now, it also has a good stubble cover, it has about 30 per cent more stubble than wheat so it’s good for the country.”

Mr Baker said if rain did come in December or early January, he would consider planting a mungbean crop, but said he would not be planting sorghum because of the low prices.