Texas

Texas was the next stop , right down in the south on the Rio Grande river that is the border between Mexico and the U. S. This was probably the closest thing to home that I had seen climate wise and soil wise, these guys furrow irrigate like us and like the majority of the Burdekin they pre harvest burn. Water is scarce here so that is pretty much there limiting factor . Here I visited Rio Farms which is a independently funded research centre that focus more on propagating and comparing new varieties available for release. There setup was very good model in my view they had enough land to grow farm trials so they could accurately monitor performance and on the rest of there land the grew commercial crops to provide revenue for there research.They were also looking at ways to add a break to there sugarcane crops and were experimenting with "Tillage Radish" these are pretty amazing plants that can exert 300psi of pressure at the tip of there roots, hence the name tillage radish they are natures answer to a plow.