Have you ever noticed strips of worked up ground in paddocks and wondered why have they done that? It is called wheel track renovation.
These areas or strips of land are continuously travelled over with boomsprays, thanks to controlled traffic farming and accurate GPS technology, and they pack down hard.
Over time they may need to be turned over aggressively to ensure the ground remains level, ensuring consistent seed placement in the single pass seeding operations.
There is a reason for those strips after all.
How dry is it?
A local farmer finally got a brief shower last week and it caused quite a bit of excitement, in fact he was so excited he ran out into the rainstorm and promptly fainted!
His good wife had to throw two buckets of dust onto his face to revive him!
There have also been unconfirmed reports that the dairy cows at Donava Farm, Blyth have only been producing evaporated milk for the last three months!
Let’s hope rain is on its way soon!
Arise a Farmers Hope
About 14 months ago cattle and grain farmer Glen Ballin bought a property near Wilcannia called Volo Station. The 59000-acre station includes a lake called Poopelloe, one of the largest lakes fed by the River Darling.
It fills about twice every 10 years. Covering an area of 30,000 acres Glen owns around 8000 acres of the lake.
The lake has receded to empty from its full level when Glen and his family took over in 2024, the receding lake however provided an opportunity for Glen.
Sown last year on the 21st of April, he planted 600 acres of Planet barley on the receding lake and about two weeks later he followed up with another 1400 acres at just 30kg of seed per hectare.
The crop just went crazy and tillered like mad and they were also fortunate to pick up another 50mm during the growing season.
Glen ended up cutting about 250 acres for hay and the rest of the crop yield was around 5.2 tonne per hectares or 31 bags per acre, which he harvested in October-November.
Wilcannia’s average rainfall is just 250mm per year its semi-arid climate means it has a high evapotranspiration rate and its barrenness means it
is classed as a desert climate. The phenomenal yields make for a very interesting story.
The property about 70km east of Wilcannia supports 600 head of cattle plus feral goats.
Glen is a fourth-generation farmer and will be speaking at Adrian Cooks farm north of Mintaro over several nights next week, on the topic Arise a Farmers Hope from May 14 to 17.
These are men’s nights, but on the final night it will be open to the whole family. See advert in the Plains Producer for more details.
