Subsoil moisture delivers best crop of 2023 season for Mid North producer

Mr Hall crops a bit over 900 hectares around Jamestown with a split of about 600ha of wheat, 110ha of beans, 170ha of barley and 90ha of Lucerne.

His best crop was a 30ha wheat crop which ran to 4.7 tonnes/ha around Bundaleer on the hillier country.

"It was high protein and graded H2 which was terrific," he said.

"We sown there in early May over a good, grass free, clover base from last years pasture," he said.

"It was all about conserving moisture and would have had a summer spray for weeds.

"Our last spring was really the reason why we're reaping what we have got now, we are still living off last years subsoil moisture."

Mr Hill said when the Scepter wheat was sown it also went in with 100 kilograms of DAP.

"We followed that with 120kg of urea in July and had broadleaf weeds done at the same time," he said.

"It was a mix of MCPA 570 at 1 litre/ha, Accensi Clopyralid 300 at 0.05L/ha, dimethoate at 100ml/ha and 125SC fungicide at 0.5L/ha.

"We also had Aerotech do some aerial spraying on September 19 with a fungicide mix of Amistar Xtra and Trojan to get on top of armyworm."

He said everything looked to be going well before two frost events occurred.

"We had one really early but the wheat wasn't out in the head," he said.

"It did affect it because in that situation, once the crop developed there was a few grains missing in the head, but the grain did fill out really nicely.

"The second frost event was a big second frost, but we were luckily it had already matured so it didn't actually affect it the second time.

"We were just bloody lucky."

Mr Hall said when the crop flowers was when it was at its weakest and his crops on the flats at Bundaleer weren't so lucky.

"We've always known frost to hit when it's flowering, that's the most critical time," he said.

"When the heads out and it's full flower - with all plants when it's flowering it's putting all its energy into flowering so it's the most weakest time.

"If the last frost came another week later we would have got away without any damage across the farm."

He said crops sown on the same day North of Jamestown as the Bundaleer crop did not get affected by frost as it was earlier country.

But Mr Hill said this years yield was a bit below their three year average with the average across this years production, 3.3ha.

"The subsoil moisture is what has got us through," he said.

"If we didn't have that we would be reaping half of what we have got."

Carunna Vale's Tim Hall, Jamestown, has a broadacre operation he was looking to expand to enable him to crop 100 per cent of his land hold instead of holding back land for pastures.

"We are only 50pc cropping at the moment," he said.

"With the rest of that, we run Poll Merino's but things will change next year with potential expansion."

He said his cropping rotation with pastures was making delaying his potential in crop yields.

"One of the reasons I want to change is because our pasture paddocks are quite hard, and they will need a decent rain to be able to sow whereas if you have a lot of stubble grounds, that means that we can dry sow because there's a lot looser in the ground," he said.

"It means we can start sowing at Anzac day and we would have enough time to get over the whole program.

"It's proven here this year that anything sown early, has the best yields as long as you can dodge the frost.

"It's all about spreading risk and farming is risky."

He said they were becoming more efficient with water by utilising direct drilling technology.

"Every drop we get, we count," he said.

"We would have lost so much more moisture to the to the environment from tilling it all the time.

"So we will become more efficient and better at what we are doing to cover more land in the same amount of time."