EYRE Peninsula farmer Ben McNamara is busy running an operation that includes a feedlot and cropping, so timeliness at harvest is key.
Mr McNamara is based in Tumby Bay but crops more than 4000 hectares on the Lower EP, from Port Neill to Whites River as part of Jamalka Farming Enterprise.
“A lot of time and a lot of work goes into the feedlot,” he said.
“I put about 5000 cattle and up to 10,000 sheep through the feedlot a year.
“I’m busy all year round, but especially so at harvest. I really wanted a header that could help the harvest operation become more efficient.”
This need to reap as quickly as possible led Mr McNamara to buy a New Holland CR10.90 header with a MidWest Durus Premium 18.3-metre front after this year’s Eyre Peninsula Field Days.
It is the biggest header/front combination in SA.
Mr McNamara said it had been 15 years since he bought a new header.
“A lot of technological advancement has happened since then and it was time to update anyway,” he said.
“I also thought this year was a good year to buy. There wasn’t a lot of header sales happening so there were some good deals.”
Low interest rates and a grant for investing in a more efficient machine also prompted him to make the purchase.
”It is a fair capital outlay, but it was a great opportunity with interest rates so low and considering how long my last header lasted,” he said.
Mr McNamara’s old header had a 12.5m front.
“That was big, back in those days,” he said.
With his new 18.3m wide front, Mr McNamara has been averaging 23ha/hour on his more marginal ground and about 10ha/hour on his thicker crops.
After a good but patchy season, Mr McNamara’s crops have been going anywhere from 1.8t/ha to 6t/ha.
He started harvesting in the first week of November and finished last week.
While cropping is an important part of his operation, a lot of the production feeds into his livestock enterprise.
Mr McNamara is a major purchaser at the annual Ellison circuit sale, buying 3000 to 5000 lambs every year.
“They come home and go on the medics,” he said.
“I grow a lot of oats and peas. Lupins are the only crop I buy in. I choose not to grow them because peas are the better yielding crop.”
Wheat and barley are also grown but most of the barley is stored in silo bags for the feedlot.
Mr McNamara has been surprised by how well crops have held up this year.
“At the Port Neill property, it’s only had 125 millimetres for the whole year,” he said.
“Unfortunately the biggest rain fell at harvest. But what’s been grown on that 125mm is quite incredible. I sowed the last paddocks at Port Neill in June and it went better than the earlier stuff, going up to 3.8t/ha.”
Record breaker
The CR10.90 header is the largest New Holland makes and is in the Guinness Book of Records for harvesting the most grain of any combine brand in an eight-hour day, with 797.656 tonnes of wheat reapt in eight hours.
New Holland business manager Peter Brooks said Mr McNamara’s CR10.90 was the first to be sold on the EP and it was the first unit to be fitted with a 18.3m front in SA.
Midwest national sales manager Peter Welsh said the company took the 18.3m front to this year’s EP Field Days after exhibiting the 15.2m version at the event two years earlier – with this unit purchased by the Baldock family at Kimba.
The Dalby, Qld-based company has been manufacturing combine harvester platforms for more than 20 years and the 18.3m front accounts for its highest volume sales.