THE amount of grain still being harvested after this year’s extremely dry season are a testament to the soil protection techniques being undertaken by local croppers, according to inaugural Nufarm National Grain Innovation Award winner Tom Robinson.
The Mid North zero-till cropper and former SA No-Till Farming Association president said in his district, there had been reasonable crops produced and minimal soil erosion despite the lack of rain and recent windy conditions. He believes this is due to better ground conservation, such as no-till and stubble retention.
“It’s fantastic to see on minimal rainfall that we’re still reaping crops and still producing grain,” he said.
With his wife Cassi and parents Ashley and Kaylene, Tom crops about 1500 hectares of canola, wheat, barley, lentils, chickpeas and peas at Hoyleton.
He said the season had been one of the worst since 1914, with only 180 millimetres of rain since January and growing season rainfall of about 165mm.
The GSR average is normally 425mm.
“Back then though, grandpa said they harvested nothing,” he said.
“Our crops have been holding on better than expected. The grain quality might be disappointing but it could be worse.”
Tom said the toughest decision this year was figuring out crop nutrition rates, particularly nitrogen.
“It was hard to know how much to spend on the crop in such a dry year,” he said.
“Thankfully we didn’t have much frost to contend with as well.”
The Robinsons have only just started harvest, using a Case IH 7230 with a 10.5-metre Shelbourne stripper front, so have yet to see how bad the damage has been.
The Nufarm National Grain Innovation Award recognises graingrowers demonstrating innovative practices on-farm.
At the Robinson farm, zero-till, control traffic farming and full stubble retention are at the heart of the cropping program, with summer and winter cover crops, and new crops, such as sunflowers and flax linseed, incorporated.
The family have also recently introduced cattle back onto the property to trial adaptive grazing on cover crops, working in collaboration with Duane Wilson from Arabar cattle stud, Balaklava.
The cover crops comprise a mix of wheat, barley, peas, lentils, beans and flax linseed sown in May.
“Cover crops are good for ground cover and diversity of crop species. The legume root systems also inject N into the ground, enabling us to reduce N inputs,” Tom said.
“We had initially planned to roller crimp the cover crop and seed a summer crop into the mulch, but then when the crop grew better than expected, we decided to bring the cattle in and trial adaptive grazing.
“It’s called adaptive because we adapt how much feed we give the cattle according to how much growth there is and how many cattle are in there.
“The cattle generally get moved twice a day every day, like cell grazing but more intensive.”
Tom says he will use the award money to study inter-cropping and relay cropping in Canada and the United States.
“We have inter-cropped – grown two crops at once – in the past, but just this year, due to our rotation, we weren’t able to,” he said.
”We grew canola and peas together successfully – about the same yields but reduced our fertiliser inputs because of the N the legumes produced, a huge saving.
”We also grew flax linseed and chickpeas together, which worked well last year, but we were unsure of the right chemicals to use. Friends overseas have grown them together successfully, as the combination reduces the disease spread in chickpeas, resulting in reduced fungicide use.”
Tom said he planned to incorporate relay cropping on-farm next season.
Relay cropping is generally a wide row of cereals sown in winter, with a summer crop then sown in between the rows in spring, when soil temperatures warm up.
“We may try a few different combinations,” he said.
“We might do wheat or barley on the wide row, and then back in with sunflowers or soybeans, or maybe even summer feed for the cattle to graze on after harvest.”
