2018 FBG Spring Field Day

19 Sept

Our Spring Field Day for 2018 was held at Jacup and had a focus on deep ripping.

We started the day at the Jerry CRC with a market update from Rabobank, before heading out to Brad Bailey’s to look at his air seeder demonstration site, part of our One Paddock Challenge (supported by State NRM).

We then heard from the Hassad team and looked at some of their break crops, before hearing from Mark Seymour, DPIRD Esperance who gave us insight into suitable break crops for the Jerramungup Shire.

We then travelled out to Stu Bee’s to look at a deep ripping site coordinated by Glenn McDonald, DPIRD Albany, as part of the GRDC-funded Sub Soil Constraints project. This was interesting to compare to farmer-led ripping trials on Mick & Mark Lesters farm.

After lunch provided by the Jerramungup DHS P&C, we had a very interesting presentation from Brad Jones, Bungulla Farming who bases his decision making on available farm data and focuses on minimising inputs for a variable climate.

Our focus for the day was on deep ripping so after being updated on the GRDC Tactical Break Crop project, we moved onto Stu Bee’s farm where we looked at a soil pit dug on a site that had been originally deep ripped in the very wet 2016. In that year, it was too wet for the soil structure to support the deep ripping trial and it was abandoned in that year. This year, it has been revisited by Glenn McDonald, DPIRD Albany, as part of his soil research activities in the port zone.

His presentation sparked plenty of discussion, and this led into our Farmer Panel where Brad was joined by FBG treasurer, David Turner, along with host farmer, Mark Lester, and long term Needilup farmer, Bill Bailey. This session was well-received by our audience and led into our Sundowner kindly sponsored by CBH Jerramungup.

We would like to thank all our host farmers, our sponsors, Rabobank, our funding partners, State NRM and DPIRD (and in particular Mark Seymour and Glenn McDonald for your well-received and informative presentations), our caterers, JDHS P&C, industry representatives, and especially our attending farmers. We hope to see you next year, and if you have any burning issues or ideas for presenters, we would love to hear from you.