AgLife - June 28, 2017 edition

June 28, 2017

‘As good as new’ Glenn Rowe came to the rescue when his dog Jack ran out of puff. Story page 27. Picture: PAUL CARRACHER

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Building networks at expo D

ata and data management are set to revolutionise the agricultural industry, but growers keen to be part of the direction will need to be willing to build trust.

This message will be explored at a Birchip Cropping Group Future Farmers Expo on July 5, where BCG chief executive Chris Sounness will discuss weather station networks with growers Paul Petering and Chris Colbert.

Mr Petering, from Murtoa, and Mr Colbert, Watchem, both own weather stations as part of a Data Farmer weather stations network, which enables participants to monitor weather data collected on their properties 24 hours a day.

Mr Sounness said the convenience of the information provided by this automated system was helping growers with many different farm-management decisions.

“Farmers farm because they want to farm, not because they want to spend time in the office keeping records,” he said.

“Anything that will increase the time for record keeping is probably not going to be used.

“What we come up with will need to be automated so workloads aren’t added to. The internet allows things to happen virtually

KEEP UPDATED: Weather data collection will be among topics discussed at BCG’s Future Farmers Expo.

automatically.” Connectivity is still an issue for many growers, whose access to weather information can be restricted when smart devices do not have adequate internet access.

Mr Sounness said there was recognition to tackle these connectivity issues to ensure farmers received fit-for-purpose solutions.

Attendees at the BCG expo can also learn more about farm data collection in a session with 2015 Nuffield scholar and Kaniva grower Jonathan Dyer.

Mr Dyer will discuss how his farming operation uses yield and protein monitors during harvest to

effectively market grain and make agronomic management decisions for the following season.

BCG partner Next Instruments will be available throughout the day in the exhibitor section to demonstrate a range of agricultural analysers.

“The wider farming sector and the rest of the value chain are very keen to get on board with data monitoring, but farmers are very wary of the value chain with a long history of feeling like they have come out second best whenever technology has been adopted,” Mr Sounness said.

“Industry needs to ensure the farmer gets the value proposition first, then the rest of the value chain gets some value from it.

“We’re keen to facilitate these discussions at the expo.”

The BCG Future Farmers Expo is at Birchip P-12 School from 11am to 5pm.

Entry is free for BCG members and $50 for non-members.

A tapas style dinner will follow the event from 6pm at Birchip Hotel. Tickets are $30 a person and are available by calling 5492 2787 or visiting website www.bcg.org.au.

Benefits of CropSafe 95 Nelson Street, Nhill CALL 03 5391 2106

Victorian agronomists going about their everyday work are contributing towards keeping Victoria’s grains industry exotic pest and disease free through participation in CropSafe.

About 180 agronomists who work across Victoria are part of CropSafe, an industry surveillance network.

Together they are continuously on the lookout for pest and plant symptoms that could potentially be an exotic plant pest or disease.

Agriculture Victoria agronomist Dale Boyd said exotic plant pests and diseases posed a significant threat to Victoria’s cropping sector.

“CropSafe surveillance is aimed at increasing identification and reporting of plant pests and diseases by agronomists,” he said.

“It is recognised as delivering a reassuring biosecurity service that protects the industry.

“CropSafe is delivered by Agriculture Victoria, in collaboration with major agribusiness companies. It involves 85 percent of Victoria’s agronomists.”

CropSafe agronomists undergo regular training on sample collection and identification, as well as ensuring they have access to all up-todate industry information.

“CropSafe works closely with other relevant projects such as GrowNote, Alert, eXtensionAUS and CropPro to ensure our agronomists have the tools and knowledge required to be efficient and effective in the field,” Mr Boyd he said.

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GREAT MATES: Gymbowen farmer Glenn Rowe with his working dog Jack, who is still alive following quick thinking on Mr Rowe’s behalf.

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“When a ewe gets a lamb stuck you press on them to get them going, but you don’t blow on them, you just press on their chest,” he said.

“I thought it would be much the same. I didn’t really think about it but I soon realised blowing wasn’t going to work, I was going to have to put my mouth on it.”

Mr Rowe, who runs a mixed sheep and cropping operation, has had Jack since he was a pup.

“He’s now about six, I suppose,” he said.

“He’s more than a pet, he’s a work-mate. We work together all day.”

Mr Rowe was reluctant about his 15 minutes of fame, which stemmed from a call about his feat to radio station 3AW. “I’ve had a few calls but I’m just a little too busy for it all,” he said, when The Weekly Advertiser visited on Thursday.

“I’m trying get some work done before the rain comes on the weekend. I’m re-sowing some paddocks that burst with the rain – I don’t have time to be a celebrity.”

BRACKE

So, he was surprised when the lengths he went to to save his canine co-worker Jack attracted widespread media attention.

Mr Rowe gave Jack mouthto-nose resuscitation last week after discovering the kelpie was ‘not looking too good’.

He had left Jack tied to a four-wheeler motorbike while he used his other dog to round up sheep.

“I thought I’d use the younger dog to give him more training,” he said.

“We got the sheep in and shut the gate. I walked back to let Jack off and noticed he was hanging off the side of the motorbike.

“Even though his back legs were touching the ground, he didn’t think to jump back on and he strangled himself.

“I honestly thought, ‘gee whiz, I can’t believe I’ve done this. I can’t afford to lose him, because he’s just too handy’.”

Mr Rowe pressed on Jack’s chest but he did not respond.

“I thought, alright, I’ll try to get air into him. The only way I could think to do that was through his nose,” he said, “I put my mouth on his nose and blew in a few times and pressed his chest. Then he started to gasp for air and I thought, ‘you beauty, I think I’m going to get him going here’.”

Mr Rowe said he urged Jack to come around.

“I was saying, ‘come on Jack’ and I kept working on him for a bit and he actually took a breath,” he said.

“And then he’d stop again.

Then he’d go a bit more. Eventually he got going.”

Mr Rowe said he was concerned Jack would not fully recover.

“I was a bit worried he might not be right – I thought he might have been a bit brain damaged or something because he was a bit glassy eyed,” he said. “But he came good and he’s good as new.”

Prior to saving Jack’s life, Mr Rowe’s CPR experience was limited to a lesson in high school, along with lambing time.

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Facelift for grains-research group 95 Nelson Street, Nhill CALL 03 5391 2106

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national commitment to advancing Australia’s grains industry has prompted a ‘realignment and refocus’ of the country’s leading grains-research investment organisation.

Grains Research and Development Corporation has revamped its structure and operations to better position and resource itself to continue to encourage enduring profitability for Australian grain growers.

GRDC managing director Dr Steve Jefferies said the organisation’s remodelled business structure and adoption of a fresh investment strategy would propel grains research, development and extension, into the future.

The changes were designed to enable growers to adapt to ever-increasing challenges and grasp new opportunities.

“Change in our grains industry is occurring at a rapid pace,” Dr Jefferies said.

“We are constantly seeing advances in technology, increasing climate variability, consolidation of farms, globalisation and shifts within the market place.

“It is therefore imperative that as Australia’s major investor in grains research, development and extension, the GRDC is not only keeping pace with that change but is at the forefront of change and leading the industry

MOVING FORWARD: GRDC managing director Dr Steve Jefferies is confident changes in the organisation will help enable growers to adapt to challenges and to grasp new profit-driving opportunities.

response through targeted investment.

To do that, we need to have the right people with the right skills in the right place so we can respond to grower needs with agility, leading to swift, positive impact in the paddock and ultimately on grower profitability.”

GRDC is bolstering its workforce, particularly in the regions, boosting the organisation’s outreach to growers, advisers, farming systems groups, researchers and agribusiness. “We need to have the right skills and experience

on the ground to actively manage the research, development and extension portfolio to ensure it delivers value to growers,” Dr Jefferies said.

“We have created a raft of pivotal new positions within the organisation, so I encourage anyone who is keen to play a role in advancing this most inspiring grains industry of ours, through the delivery of relevant and impactful research, development and extension, to consider applying for one of the positions now available.”

Among the many positions on offer are six new grower relations manager roles – two in each of the GRDC’s southern, western and northern regions.

Grower relations managers will be responsible for helping ensure important research findings focused on improving grower profit are adopted on-farm.

They will also look to identify the more innovative growers to help further ‘stretch’ them with focused re-

search, but to also help lead others in the adoption of new technologies.

This ramping up of personnel and associated expertise and resources coincides with a new five-year strategic research, development and extension plan.

“The research, development and extension plan for 2017-22, which sets out the GRDC’s primary, strategic objectives for the coming five years, will unapologetically be focused on driving grower profitability,” Dr Jefferies said.

“The GRDC recognises that to achieve this critical goal, on-farm transformational technologies are necessary and so our investments in research, development and extension going forward will be geared more towards breakthrough science and high-impact outcomes for growers.”

GRDC will soon start consulting with growers and industry on the new plan.

“It’s critical that GRDC invests levy dollars in research, development and extension that has high impact on grower profitability,” Dr Jefferies said.

“Growers need to take the time to ensure they have input into the plan so they can ensure the high-priority issues that drive grower profitability are addressed.”

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Wait-and-see approach as winter grips 95 Nelson Street, Nhill CALL 03 5391 2106

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inter conditions have set in across Western Victoria, which is always confirmed by the number of folk walking around day to day commenting ‘geez, how bloody cold is it this morning?’

Although it feels like winter gets brisker every season, according to the statistics, temperatures remain slightly above average for this time of year.

The cooler temperatures and short days filled with foggy mornings and limited sunlight throughout the day has rapidly slowed the growth of freshly sown crops for the time being.

It has also allowed pests such as slugs, mice and mites to maintain high levels of pressure on crops, many of which are still in their infancy.

The constant presence of pests has forced many growers to grasp the nettle and re-sow parts of, or whole paddocks in the more extreme cases.

with Mick Phelan

The re-sowing of crops combined with a period of stop work due to wet conditions during general sowing have provided a large spectrum of sowing dates, from early April to now.

All in all, seeding has generally been late this year, with some growers in southern areas abandoning parts of or in some cases, their whole cropping programs for the season mainly due to wet conditions.

With the winter solstice now behind us, we are over the hump in regards to sunlight hours during the day, although cool, to cold, to freezing conditions will no doubt remain for

some time yet. The season continues to be poised in an intriguing position whereby conditions remain seemingly excellent with ample moisture, water still lying in paddocks and machinery never far from getting bogged if ventured too far onto heavy ground.

There is, however, an odd air of dryness across the region, especially in the northern Wimmera and Mallee where rain has ceased for a many weeks. Comments from sundry have suggested that on ground where it felt like tractors were pulling tractors in order to get the crop into the ground only a matter of two to three weeks ago, now possess a certain surprising dry quality.

Although subsoil moisture is undoubtedly present, growers are beginning to exercise caution when it comes to lavishly applying unessential post-emergent inputs until they are

confident this subsoil moisture has been tapped into and crops become more established.

Once such input is urea. The topdress season started with a bang in late May, prompting fears of an early tightness of supply that was set to create a pinch point mid-way through this month.

Conditions that have ensued have turned the tables in a matter of weeks and supply is plentiful with more ships on the way.

Suppliers are now faced with being flush with stock unless consistent rain begins rolling through the region, particularly in the north.

Strangely enough, only a hat-full of too much rain in the south would be enough to prevent machinery accessing paddocks without making a mess.

A timely reminder of what can happen when dry conditions take hold are

being experienced in the wheat belt of Western Australian and the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia, where it has been extremely dry for the majority of the first half of the year.

This has caused seeding to be late for opposing reasons than here locally.

Growth stages are well behind that of the same time last year.

Although an average crop is still expected for Australia as a whole, forward projections for this year’s winter crop production on a national basis have already been cut back by about 30 percent compared with last year.

While hardship placed upon farmers in other parts of the country is never a joy to see, fortunately for our immediate region conditions are such that when purely looking at yield, growers remain placed in a very good position to achieve excellent results later this year.

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Trial sowing program nearing completion

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he 2017 Birchip Cropping Group sowing program is almost complete with only one time of sowing, TOS, trial left to be sown on Saturday.

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BCG Industry Crop Walk. Longerenong

The Longerenong trial site hosts a diverse range of trials this season including canola varieties, early-sown wheat and pre-emergent herbicides in lentils.

Frosts have seen temperatures at Longerenong plummet in the early hours, slowing down crop progress across the site.

Generally, an early frost will not inhibit plant growth and damage is rarely seen from a frost early in the season.

Early assessments are being completed on all trials to check for emergence issues.

BCG staff look for crop evenness across each plot and make notes of mouse damage, blocked seed rows, uneven distribution of seed throughout the plot, phytotoxicity effects due to chemical application and treatment effects such as different fertiliser rates. An emer-

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gence count on each plot determines the number of plants per square metre. To do this, BCG staff members count the number of plants per one-metre row, times by 100, then divide by the row spacing.

After this calculation has been done, it is matched to the target plant density, which was used to calculate a seeding rate.

If the emerged crop is less than the plant density there could be issues with emergence, seed stock or seeding depth. Identifying these issues now will help combat problems in subsequent seasons.

To capture early responses to treatments, BCG staff use a hand-held GreenSeeker, which uses light reflectance to determine how ‘green’ a plant is.

Normalised Difference Vegetation Index, NDVI, is calculated from the visible and near-infrared light reflected by the plants.

A healthy plant will reflect a large proportion of infrared light where a plant in poor health will reflect less infrared light. Using the GreenSeeker provides a good indication of

treatment effects that are not detectable by the human eye.

BCG is being kept busy baiting trial sites for mice.

The Longerenong site has already received several applications to keep mice at bay.

Baiting along fence lines has been especially important because they are often heavy with mice holes where stubble cover is higher.

As crops have emerged across the Wimmera it’s time to start thinking about applying urea.

Determining the right urea rate to match soil nitrogen levels and crop nitrogen requirements can be challenging.

Where possible it is best to try to delay urea application until there is greater confidence in the seasons forecast, however, knowing soil nitrogen levels is important to ensure there is adequate nitrogen to meet growth stage 30.

To talk to BCG staff about how our trials are progressing, head along to the BCG Future Farmers Expo on July 5 at Birchip P-12 School. Details are available at www.bcg.org.au or by calling 5492 2753.

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eason 2017 is producing mixed fortunes in terms of canola diseases for growers in Australia’s southern cropping region.

While the risk of blackleg disease has reduced with the lack of consistent rain in many parts of the region, there has been an increased incidence of canola white-leaf spot.

Growers of canola are therefore getting advice to take a considered approach to disease management this year.

Oilseeds disease expert Dr Steve Marcroft of Marcroft Grains Pathology, undertaking research through Grains Research and Development Corporation investment, said seasonal conditions had so far not been conducive to severe development of the blackleg fungus.

“Blackleg likes continual wet conditions for spore release and germination, which is why blackleg severity on seedlings was so high in 2016,” he said.

“In contrast, a large area of southern Australia has received rain in only a couple of major weather events, and conditions have remained dry between these events.

“Consequently, blackleg le-

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

sions are only starting to occur now.”

Dr Marcroft advised that if crops were already past the vulnerable seeding stage, one to four leaf, and had no or few lesions, these crops were unlikely to develop severe crown canker and therefore might not benefit from a foliar fungicide application.

“However, if a crop was sown later, has a moderately susceptible or lower blackleg rating and is currently still in the vulnerable seedling stage, it might develop severe crown canker and therefore benefit from a foliar fungicide application,” he said.

“Growers should monitor crops for blackleg lesions on the first four leaves, estimate the potential crop yield and decide if it is economical to protect the crop.

“Foliar fungicide has the highest efficacy against blackleg crown canker if applied at the four to six-leaf stage, but is still very effective up to the eight to nine-leaf stage.

“If growers are unsure about the blackleg severity on their crop and the potential yield, they can wait until the eight to nine-leaf growth stage and then

make a disease management decision.”

Dr Marcroft said an increased incidence of canola white leaf spot had occurred in many parts of southern Australia this season.

“The disease is distributed worldwide, but in Australia it is not usually severe enough to cause yield loss,” he said.

“However, if environmental conditions are favourable, it can result in significant defoliation, causing reduced plant vigour and subsequent yield loss.

“White leaf spot is not usually severe enough to warrant fungicide control.”

Dr Marcroft said white leaf spot normally only occurred on oldest leaves near the soil surface.

Beyond this growing season, Dr Marcroft encouraged an integrated approach to managing white leaf spot, including controlling cruciferous weeds and volunteer canola, employing strategic crop rotations and reducing infection from windborne spores by not sowing near the previous year’s canola stubble, because both the white leaf spot and blackleg fungus survived on canola stubble.

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imon Severin from Agritch Rural in Horsham has gained insight into strikingly different cropping circumstances while on an agronomy tour of the United Kingdom.

Mr Severin travelled with seven other agronomists from across Australia and representatives from Advanta seeds and Syngenta for the week-long tour.

During the tour he visited Syngenta wheat-breeding site at Cambridge, Daltons Seeds and

a Cereals 2017 field day at Lincolnshire.

The group also visited firm Hutchinsons, which operates 34 agricultural stores and employs 200 agronomists, Syngenta head office and laboratories, which employs a staff of 800 including 200 chemists, and oilseeds producer ADM London, an oilseed processor on the Thames, which ships about 450,000 tonnes of Australian canola for processing.

The delegation also visited the Cotswolds, Stonehenge and var- HOW IT WORKS: The Australian delegation at Syngenta ious castles and abbeys. head office at Jealotts Hill.

UP CLOSE: The touring group was also able to get up close GREEN TRIALS: Cereals 2017, the United Kingdom’s largest to Stonehenge. farming field days at Boothby, Lincolnshire.

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Wednesday, June 28, 2017