While putting together a report for a client recently, some of the information was estimated crop yields.
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As you'd expect in a document like this, there was reference to the individual paddock names. One called "Deaf Mick's" piqued my interest and got me thinking about farm paddock names.
Back in the day, ours were pretty standard and lacked imagination. Names such as the front paddock, back paddock, tank paddock, ram paddock - you get the picture.
I have come across all sorts of colourful names clients have used, which obviously have specific meaning to them as they seemed nonsensical to me.
Others are more clinical with paddock names and run with purely numbers or geographical references with numbers as subgroups.
For the modern farming business, the naming of paddocks takes on more importance, particularly in relation to efficiencies.
Most agribusinesses these days are more reliant on people coming onto the property to provide certain services, such as agronomists, carriers and even visitors that may come out into the paddock.
If you are relying on an external contractor to fertilise or spray a certain paddock, it pays to have the technology to ensure they are in the right paddock. The wrong application applied in an incorrect area could have a catastrophic outcome.
Often with the use of technology, it's easy to find paddock locations using pindrops. I have been directed out to certain locations a few times via this method. Phone coverage - while nowhere near perfect - is much improved from say 20 years ago, so the technology is more reliable these days.
The other simple innovation that assists greatly is road side numbers.
Once you get your head around which direction the numbers start from, it's a simple and accurate way to find where you want to go. Of course, there are other benefits such as ease of finding properties by the emergency services.
Another way of finding your way onto a farm is via physical markers.
On a recent trip on-farm I was directed down the road until I came across a couple of drench containers out on the road. These were primarily for the benefit of the contractors carting grain, but worked well for me too.
Apparently, this farmer uses different colours of drums depending on the primary purpose. This seemed to work well for him and for the contractors that were coming on-farm.
This discussion is another demonstration of the efficiencies a modern high performing farming business employs.
The savvy farming business has a lot of moving parts and there are lots of opportunities for efficiencies to be introduced. Some of these may seem small and innocuous, but what counts is the sum total.
Like elite athletes, the best farming businesses are constantly striving for improvement, no matter how minute those efficiencies are. They will compound in time and make a real difference.
