2020 Spring Field Day Wrap Up

The 2020 FBG Spring Field Day was this year held on Wednesday 9th September, attended by around 50 farmers and industry. It started with a global grains and livestock markets update from Cheryl Kalisch-Gorden and Angus Gidley Baird of Rabobank (via Zoom). Thank you to Phil Thompson from Rabobank Albany for facilitating this successful technological hook up.

From there, we headed out to the GRDC National Variety Trials (Wheat & Barley), hosted once again by Trent & Tina Parsons. We were led through the NVTs by Pip Payne from Living Farm (this year’s contractor) and Georgia Trainor from Intergrain.

We then hopped back on the bus with a yummy morning tea provided by the Gairdner P&C and headed down to Lawson Grains, Jerry South, for a presentation on Precision Ag in Practice from farm manager Andrew Wylie. The site we stopped at focussed on a variable seeding rate trial, but Andrew covered off on how he uses ag data and incorporates it into the business on a practical level. Adjacent to this particular site was an area that had been worked by an H4 Reefinator with a seeding bar then put through it.

Heading further south, we then visited Michael Swarbrick’s farm on Meechi Road where he has been trialling deep ripping on his gravelly sands. We stopped firstly in a lupin paddock which had traditionally been an underperforming one with non-wetting issues. He had also deep ripped a significant portion of the rest of this farm, including a barley paddock and some canola. Responses had been excellent, and it was interesting to note that despite some setbacks following strong winds at seeding, crops were well advanced and looking healthy. We had excellent insight provided also by DPIRD’s Jeremy Lemon.

We were by this time pushing our schedule, and we unfortunately did not visit the second site in Mike’s barley paddock.

After a delicious lunch (thanks again to Gairdner P&C) at Richard Surridge & Reaghan Shalders farm between Gairdner and Boxwood Hill, we heard from the very impressive Sue Middleton, with her Moora Citrus and Rural Edge hats on. We heard a bit about her family’s journey into diversification, including their adoption of applicable agtech, as well as increasing agtech capabilities in Sue’s role with Rural Edge. A high calibre workshop will be rolled out across WA in 2021.

We then hopped back on the bus and crossed the road to Colin Green’s farm where we had a look at a site where Colin had been spreading on-farm clay. Colin has converted a mixed farm to a 100% cropping farm in the 3 years since moving from further north in the wheatbelt. With some challenging seasons, he has been setting up the farm with some significant soil amelioration projects using machinery that he has available, such as a plozza plough and his road grader. This generated a lot of discussion amongst farmers present, and again we heard from Jeremy Lemon’s extensive experience.

Back to the shed, we then heard from Johnny Inferrera from McIntosh Distribution about the Integrated Harrington Seed Destructor (iHSD) which again generated plenty of questions from farmers present.

We then heard more on agtech from Philip Honey, Smart Farm Coordinator with Stirlings to Coast Farmers. It was really interesting to hear of some of the projects that he is involved with in that region, as well as some of the potential for expansion and further RD&E

We then finished the day with an update from Rodney Scott and Suzanne Butter of CBH Group, before enjoying a sundowner also sponsored by CBH.

We would like to thank all of the day’s presenters for their input, our host farmers, our sponsors, visiting industry representatives and of course our local farmers for attending. We hope you enjoyed the day, found it relevant and had something to take home to your own business.

We would also like to note that an email was sent around to those who registered to attend with some presentations and further information. If there is anyone else who would like this sent out, please get in touch with Maddy Wylie on 0421 645 410 or at soilprojects@fbg.org.au.