MSF staff have been out and about again the past week, running spring crop walks in SW NSW and the Millewa in NW Vic. The focus this year was on early sowing into moisture at depth, and deep ripping, as two strategies that can help get crops through in a dry year.
On Thursday, a group of 12 NSW farmers visited Nigel Baird’s place at Anabranch South, and looked at two wheat varieties (Hammer and Calibre, a longer coleoptile type wheat) sown at different times (mid-April, early May and mid-May) and depths (40 mm and at 75 mm).
According to Nigel, there was significant moisture at depth in the district at the start of the year due to significant summer rainfall, and early, deep sown crop did come up earlier than much of the later or shallow sown crop, and has developed more biomass. At this stage, Calibre is not obviously better than Hammer – but yield data at the end of the season will provide the best insight. Farmers also toured Nigel’s field pea and lentil crops, which were also sown early into moisture, and were impressed to see crops showing average or above average biomass for the district despite a dry winter.
According to Peter Baird, an agronomist in the district, earlier sown crops are obviously outperforming later sown crops this year due to good moisture at depth early, and poor rainfall since.
Above: The NSW group examining moisture at depth in early sown wheat.
Above: Later sown wheat pictured alongside early sown wheat (left and right) at Anabranch South.
NSW farmers looking at the Baird’s late April sown peas (above) and lentils (below).
On Friday, MSF held another crop walk in the Millewa, this time looking at a deep ripping site on Chris and Anthony Hunt’s property south of Werrimull. Here, the Hunt’s ripped approx. one third of the paddock (sandy loam soils on the higher parts of the dune swale landscape) in the autumn, with tynes at 370mm depth on 350 mm spacings, before rolling and sowing Maximus barley on May 17th. Dr Chris McDonough dug a soil pit across ripped and unripped ground, and highlighted how barley plants are obviously bigger with bigger root systems accessing more moisture at depth in the ripped areas. Chris identified that the ripping operation had only just reached a clay layer, and suggested further work was needed to identify the optimal depth for ripping, and how big the yield advantage would be and for how long.
Finally, the Millewa group visited a site at Tunart south of Meringur to see a site where Ballista and Calibre wheat had been sown at two different depths (40 and 75 mm) under different pre-em herbicide treatments – investigating whether deep sowing provides early establishment opportunities and allow a wider range of pre-em’s to be used safely. At this site, both varieties and sowing depths looked similar, with no visible herbicide damage on any plot, but the site still prompted great discussions about sowing depth, varieties and pre-em herbicides.
Here’s hoping for some cooler weather or even a spring rain, and we look forward to reporting in with yield results at the end of the season.
Above: Millewa farmers looking at how ripping has impacted barley plant performance in a local sandy loam soil.
Above: Ballista and Calibre wheat sown May 20 south of Tunart under different pre-em herbicides.
To hear from the farmers at the field day, listen to the MSF Farmtalk podcast recorded in the field click here
