Cane is Emerging.

The plant Cane is slowly coming after planting we have had the weather come cold , not real cold as yet but still in the 25 to 30 range but it is getting down to 8 degrees Celsius in the mornings. It is amazing to see how much more moisture the permanent bed paddock has held compared to the paddock that we had to work , in fact we have irrigated the conventional block because there would not have been enough consistent moisture to get the cane up .We have done a spray of Gramoxone to burn off the small weeds that have started to come after disturbing the soil, so in the pictures you will see a little chemical burn. The existing bed configuration has come out on top cost wise so far , by $150 per Hectare which is pretty much what we expected. That might not sound like much but that is only the saving in the planting operation, when you add $ 23 per Hectare for harvesting , and what we wills ave on tractor passes you can see that the savings start to be quite substantial.Our local Productivity guy organised a field day/ walk to expose other farmers to some of the things that we have done, there was a pretty good turn out considering they had to drive 100k's , we provided a handout detailing our actual costs, and it was interesting to see peoples reactions to what was presented.