CANOLA ESTABLISHMENT NOW ‘CHILD’S PLAY’ AT YERECOIN

Having already ameliorated and spaded all his cropping country, Yerecoin grower Richard Field now considers a moisture retention agent at seeding the next key step for improving cropping productivity in difficult soils.

“With canola especially, we have always struggled to get it up, whereas now going forward, it will be like child’s play really,’’ Richard said.

“You just get full, even rows from one end to the other wherever you use it, so it will give us complete confidence when we get marginal starts to a season.’’

Richard, together with a strong team working at ‘Kintamani Farms’, continuously crop 6,700 hectares, including a newly acquired property near Lake Ninan, to wheat, barley, canola and oaten hay, although the latter was excluded from the program this season due to market conditions.

The properties feature soils ranging from sandplain through to good medium loams, clays and gravels, with the Lake Ninan property responding well this season to earlier applications of lime and gypsum.

Richard said he trialled the SE14™ soil moisture attraction and retention agent from DKSH, (previously known as SACOA) last year over 300ha of non-wetting land sown to barley and it helped to achieve a 100 per cent germination strike. This prompted applications throughout all of the canola and 800ha of barley sown this season, once the seeding rig was reconfigured to accommodate the moisture agent.

“Last year, we were not set up to do big areas with SE14™ – it was a big effort just to do the trial. But once we saw the response, we invested in additional equipment to do it properly,’’ Richard said.

Initially, the SE14™ was banded under the seed at 3 litres/ha in 80L/ha of water via their existing John Deere C650 tow-between liquid cart, displacing Flexi-N liquid nitrogen fertiliser and, hence, requiring topdressing of urea.

Trailing a reconfigured, 14,000L Ausplow cart behind the 18-metre Ausplow DBS bar allowed for the banding of both products this season.

The bar includes a standard knifepoint and press wheel system and features a Furrow Management Systems Australia kit for the SE14™ delivery.

All fertiliser is deep banded below the seed, with Richard preferring to avoid the risk of seedling toxicity, particularly considering seed costs of around $40 per kilogram for hybrid canola varieties.

Flexi-N is typically applied at 100L/ha, although this was reduced to 80L/ha this season due to the rise in fertiliser prices. Similarly, instead of receiving 80kg/ha of mono-ammonium phosphate (MAP) fertiliser, crops were sown with a fertiliser blend comprising 70kg/ha of MAP and 25kg/ha of muriate of potash.

Strong copper and zinc usage previously has prevented further use of those trace elements, however manganese deficiencies are addressed through applications with the Flexi-N, which also acts as a carrier for fungicides.

Seed rates are 80kg/ha for the wheat and barley and 2.1kg/ha with the canola, however Richard said due to the magnificent canola establishment since applying SE14™, this seed rate could be reduced.

“We applied it with about 250ha of canola on horrible non-wetting country on the west side of the new farm and we got a perfect stand of canola that we (otherwise) never would have got.’’

“The canola on the home farm is on non-wetting sandplain and gravels and the 800ha of barley is on awful non-wetting sandplain, where we got 100pc strike and it is thick and even.’’

He said the barley compared very favourably with about 1000ha on the other side of the road where SE14™ was not applied.

Some of the canola bounced out of the ground after seeding on March 15 earlier this year, which Richard said would not have occurred without the use of SE14™.

“We planted about 20pc of the canola before the cyclone to see what it looked like. We only got about 15 millimetres, but it was enough to get the crop going. It flowered about six weeks before the rest of the canola, which was sown around mid-April.’’

“Sometimes we have had to wait for a big rainfall event in May to get the canola up, so you could just miss out if it gets too late and there is a hot finish and you are dropping flowers. You want to flower in the cooler window.

“I feel now we have got all the tools in the armoury depending on what conditions are thrown at us. Mid-April will be the aim with the canola, but we won’t let an early rain go if the opportunity presents.

“If you dig it up now, you will see a tube of wet soil that assists the germination and establishment.’’

He said the quick and even crop establishment with SE14™ also provided for good crop competition against weeds and allowed for correct timing of chemical applications.

While the SE14™ will continue to be applied according to the specific soil types in future, Richard expected it would be used with about one-third of his annual cropping program.

“We planted about 20pc of the canola before the cyclone to see what it looked like. We only got about 15 millimetres, but it was enough to get the crop going. It flowered about six weeks before the rest of the canola, which was sown around mid-April.’’

“Sometimes we have had to wait for a big rainfall event in May to get the canola up, so you could just miss out if it gets too late and there is a hot finish and you are dropping flowers. You want to flower in the cooler window.

“I feel now we have got all the tools in the armoury depending on what conditions are thrown at us. Mid-April will be the aim with the canola, but we won’t let an early rain go if the opportunity presents.

“If you dig it up now, you will see a tube of wet soil that assists the germination and establishment.’’

He said the quick and even crop establishment with SE14™ also provided for good crop competition against weeds and allowed for correct timing of chemical applications.

While the SE14™ will continue to be applied according to the specific soil types in future, Richard expected it would be used with about one-third of his annual cropping program.