WHILE Mace wheat has become a staple within most SA rotations, the Nickolls family at Pinnaroo have decided to give the reliable crop the heave-ho to make room for new higher-yielding variety Scepter.
“Mace made up 40 per cent of our rotation because it yields well (averaging 4 tonnes a hectare),” fourth generation farmer Wade Nickolls said.
“But this year Scepter out-yielded Mace (averaging 6t/ha).
“It was a good season though, and it was grown for seed on a post-lentil paddock so the true test will be when a tougher season arises, and it’s grown back-to-back.
“That’s where Mace has stood up – it’s not a flashy looking crop, but it yields better than it looks.”
Wade said another strong performer at harvest was wheat variety Trojan.
“We sowed a lot of Trojan because it can go in early (April 15-20) and has a longer growing season, but it has also been our best-yielding wheat the past two years,” he said.
“This year, it averaged 5t/ha across a large area – 500ha – compared with only 30ha of Scepter.
“We like to give new varieties a go because they’ve had the research and they have been tested. Plus, they generally yield better and have more agronomic benefits.”
Clearfield wheat variety Grenade is also in the mix for grass management.
The Nickolls Partners operation, which also includes Wade’s father Jeff, wife Danielle and brother Chad, crops 5500ha of wheat, barley, lentils, canola, lupins, vetch and oats for hay.
Their barley – Compass, CL Scope and CL Spartacus – also yielded well, averaging almost 4t/ha, despite frost events, Russian wheat aphid and rust taking the shine off some paddocks.
“We sprayed fungicide to keep the damage to a minimum,” Wade said.
“We don’t plan to change varieties to offset this as yield is our number one focus for profit ahead of susceptibility.
“Plus, it was a wet spring – normally these things are not a major issue.”
The Nickolls family were also impressed with how well their canola, lentils and lupins fared this season.
Lupins are grown on sandier ground, while lentils are allocated to better country.
“The breeders really do deserve a pat on the back from farmers as the varieties have come along way in the past five years,” Wade said.
“Back in the day, you used to aim to break even with your pulse crops, whereas these days they can often be more profitable than cereals.
“This year our lentils and canola yielded above average, almost double, compared to last season.”
Harvest finished on lupins last week, while spraying has been under way since November.
“We had to get started on our early-sown crops because the weeds were starting to use valuable moisture and nutrients,” Wade said.
“We will need to monitor flaxleaf fleabane because of the wet spring, and because it is a tough plant and more expensive to kill.
“But the weeds haven’t been too bad, considering the wet, and from years of targeted summer weed management with our WeedIt sprayer.”
Alisha Fogden
Journalist at Australian Community Media newspapers since 2007.
Journalist at Australian Community Media newspapers since 2007.
