Record Holder

record yield

The world record holder for the highest average wheat yield puts his success down to clever practices and smart machines

Above: Eric Watson with his Case IH Axial-Flow 250 Series combine used in the record-breaking yield, and at the controls of the combine 2020 has been a defining year so far – and there’s no exception in the world of wheat growing, with New Zealand farmer Eric Watson breaking his own Guinness World Record in February. Based in Wakanui, in Canterbury in New Zealand’s South Island, Watson achieved the world’s highest average wheat yield, of 17.398 tonnes per hectare, harvested from 8.6353 ha at Paddock 15a on his farm. Working with his wife Maxine, he set the previous record of 16.791 tonnes with feed wheat in 2017 on the same paddock. Irrigated wheat yields in New Zealand average about 12 tonnes per hectare. Watson says part of the reason for his success was a series of productivity gains across multiple facets of his business, particularly through using tractor and combine harvest technology.

cropscan secures

supply deal

Australian-made grain analyser provided direct from Case IH and New Holland dealers to customers under a new supply deal. Andrew Hobbs reports

Australia’s Next Instruments will be able to supply its CropScan 3300H on-combine grain analyser direct to Case IH and New Holland customers after signing a supply deal with CNH Industrial. Under the new arrangement, dealers can arrange for Next to supply its CropScan 3300H to customers directly from its Sydney Factory. Case and New Holland dealers will also be able to access Next Instruments’ sales, technical and service support team directly, which Next says will ensure faster and better support for dealers and their customers. The deal follows an initial supply arrangement signed in 2016 for the previous model, the 3000H, where Next supplied the analyser directly to CNHi for the company to install. Awarded Ag Innovation of the Year at the 2015 Wimmera Field He harvested the crop using a Case IH Axial-Flow 250 Series combine harvester, complete with the Case IH AFS Harvest Command software system, which uses sensors and optimised harvester settings to conserve grain and improve its quality. Sensors monitor air pressure on the sieves, warning of impending losses and allowing the combine to make adjustments before any grain is lost. “That new automation; it’s quicker than the human,” he says. “We always think we can beat computers, but you can’t beat that. The Harvest Command system knows what to do before you even see it on the screen.” Like many arable farmers, Watson says he uses tracked equipment to maintain soil quality. “I’ve stuck with tracks for years and I wouldn’t go away from them for cultivation because you get less compaction and you also get less slip,” he says. “With the Case IH Quadtrac you might run at 1 per cent but most of the time you’re running at zero. If you’re running a wheeled tractor at 10 per cent, if you’ve run 10 hours then you’ve lost an hour. And you’re also damaging soil structure by smearing it a bit.” Plus, Watson says: “If you’re using 80 litres of fuel an hour and you have to cultivate for an extra hour, well, that’s a lot of money.” This, plus other features including the Axial Flow mechanism in the harvester that reduces grain damage, goes a long way to ensuring impressive yields. Watson says he approached the 2020 Guinness record attempt in much the same fashion as his successful 2017 bid, albeit with a few key changes – born from working with Bayer’s New Zealand Crop Science team. To break the record, Watson switched wheat variety to feed grain Kerrin, bred by KWS, and used herbicides and fungicides from Bayer, as well as taking their agronomy advice. He also moved from solid urea to liquid, in order to improve spreading. “That played a big part as well, especially to get that extra 600kg a hectare,” he says. “When you’re getting up to those high yield figures it’s hard to get a big figure like that.”

Left: The CropScan sample head is mounted onto the clean grain elevator on a Case IH combine harvester

Days, the system measures protein and moisture in wheat and barley; and oil, protein and moisture in canola. Next Instruments chief executive Phil Clancy says early signs from dealers are promising, and the company has built up inventory stocks in anticipation of higher demand. Launched for harvest last year, the new CropScan 3300H has a number of added features, including a new sample head that increases the grain flow rate and reduces scan time to 5–10 seconds per measurement. The other improvements are a lighter tablet PC controller, better weigh scale communications and a cloud account and portal for the uploading of data mapped by the analyser. Retrofittable and used on all major harvester brands, the analyser affixes to a harvester’s clean grain elevator, taking samples and analysing them every time the sampling head is full. “That then gets presented to the grower on the screen and it gives him a moving average, then he can choose a number of different displays to have a real time field map,” Clancy says. Next Instruments is also working on new ways to help farmers use the data, through a new entity called CropScan Ag Solutions. “It is quite complex to use the software to develop all the field maps, so in some cases it has not gone any further,” he says. “So we are developing a system where we take the data, put it into the cloud, convert it to field maps and then post that directly to the farmer and their agronomist.”