Quality hay pays in upper SE

Mr Hansen farms with his family, including brother Andrew, at properties from Cookes Plains to Ki Ki in the Upper SE, with the main base at Coomandook.

The family enterprise has grown from covering 400 hectares in the 1960s, to encompassing 7000ha of owned ground and 1500ha of leased land today. It is a true mixed enterprise, with about 3000 ewes run and 120 cows, as well as cropping. 

Mr Hansen said oaten hay played a vital role in the enterprise, particularly as it gave the option for non-herbicide control of weeds.

“Our hay is mainly aimed at the export market and goes through Lithgow Enterprises at Tailem Bend,” he said.

“The majority of our hay goes export, depending on the season. Last year most of it went export, but the year before only half did.”

With frosts sometimes an issue in the area, the ability to cut for hay offers some risk management.

“It’s good to have hay in the mix so you can be pro-active in managing any areas affected by frost,” he said.

Mr Hansen said in the past 10 years, hay often offered the highest gross margin of all the crops, but canola had also been a strong performer in recent years.

“We like to average five tonnes a hectare to 6t/ha with the hay,” he said.

This yield offers a good balance of tonnage without sacrificing quality.

“We’ve stuck with the (oat) variety Winteroo because we haven’t found any other variety that performs better,” he said.

“It’s just a consistent performer, whatever the season.”

Mr Hansen has been fortunate enough to visit China and meet with hay buyers, and he says there were a few key messages he took away.

“Quality and colour are key, while buyers want to see feed tests, they still like to look at the product and give it a chew,” he said. 

Mr Hansen said dairies were the main driver behind the Chinese demand and could see one significantly growing its fodder needs.

“With some of the Chinese dairies, rather than selling off their bully calves as bobbies, they are starting to grow them out, because the red meat demand is so high,” he said.

Also potentially boosting demand are trade tensions between China and Australia’s competitor – the United States.

While the Chinese are increasingly growing their own hay, Mr Hansen said there were climatic issues with this production. When he was visiting China, he saw crops cut for hay and when returning the next morning, there was snow on the cut hay.

Mr Hansen says investing in a Seed Hawk parallelogram seeder has proven its worth.

“We used it for the first time last year, and it confirmed out belief that we were having issues with fertiliser toxicity,” Mr Hansen said.

The system pushes the seed into the side of the furrows, away from the fertiliser going down the front tyne. 

Mr Hansen said the use of a Reefinator on limestone country for the past three years had also produced good results.

“It’s helped reduce machinery breakage and also helps with harvesting, by taking the reefs out,” he said.

Soil types on Hansen Farms range from semi-saline to deep sandy country.

The sandy ground is often sown down to lucerne and veldt, as a way to access deep moisture.

While livestock has traditionally made up less than 10 per cent of the farm’s gross returns, with the upturn in the sheepmeat and wool industries, that figure has grown to about 15pc.

The family devote 400ha to a mix of barley and vetch for sheep feed, so there is a good feed base for ewes lambing in June.

Crop-wise, a rotation of wheat, then another cereal – either barley or oats that are cut for hay – and then canola is used, with lupins sown rather than canola on sandy ground.

Beans have also been added into the mix recently.

“Last year we started putting some beans in, and we’re putting some more in this year,” Mr Hansen said.

“We hadn’t been growing beans because radish had been an issue, and it’s hard to control in bean crops, but now we’ve got on top of it.”