The Big Picture.

Last week was a busy week, I gave a presentation to the local year 12 business, communication, technology class on Friday morning about the innovation and technology that it being used on today's modern sugar cane farms. It was quite interesting to see there interest, in how the industry that supports the community they live in, has adapted to the pressures of surviving in a global market place. It was also a chance to share some of my Nuffield experiences from around the world, I guess the one thing that I hoped they took from my presentation was the importance of looking outside your area to see new ideas and ways of thinking.I then gave a presentation to a local river catchment advisory group on the importance of soil health, and how the people I met on my Nuffield scholarship where all dealing with the same soil health issues.On the following Tuesday I travelled up the coast 4 1/2 hours to be the dinner speaker for an industry conference. Actually it was a conference that was created by sugar cane farmers for sugar cane farmers, the whole reason for the conference was to bring farmers together to learn from other farmers, pretty cool Huh! This was the 5th one and as usual it was well attended with over 100 attending. My dinner presentation got off to a bit of a hiccup when we couldn't load my presentation, but thanks to Deb we got it up so the guests could see what I was talking about.I talked about the opportunity that Nuffield presented for the sugar cane industry, I have to say because this was really the first time I had presented to farmers I was a little unsure of the reaction I would get.The main point that I wanted to present is really summed up best by a quote that I read painted on a research stations wall in Obregon Nth Mexico. The quote was by Dr Norman E Bourlag who is well known as Noble Prize winner from 1970, and the father of the green revolution he said. "It is very important that farmers get involved to protect research from the vagaries of politics".The first question that I was asked at my conclusion was "why have we not heard from me sooner", I replied that despite my efforts I had not been invited to do so at any forum up until now.I feel for this industry to prosper it is critical for the emerging leaders be exposed to such a program as Nuffield can deliver, there is no better investment in human capital that I have been involved in. On another note the inter cropping trial seems to be picking up , I have attached some photos.

More Machinery.

We have decided to diversify a little, we are starting a new harvesting business this year, another learning from my Nuffield experience.So we have purchased a second hand John Deere cane harvester and another Case IH transporter to haul with, we have been busy in the shed going over them and refurbishing so they will be right for the upcoming harvest. Since my last post we have had 150mm of rain which was over about a week so it all soaked in and gave us a break from irrigating. I have been invited to a couple of speaking events to speak about my Nuffield experience and how we farm, I am looking forward to sharing my stories and experiences from my travels. It is encouraging that the Australian Sugar cane industry has decided to seek some value from my scholarship, and many to come I hope. Also due mainly to my exposure from Nuffield we have had several requests from researchers from both here and from the university of New South Wales, they are wanting to see the difference between our soils that are in a new farming system compared to soils that are still being farmed conventionally. My aim from my speaking engagements is to leave the audience with the curiosity to think about how they farm and to consider how they might be able to improve.I know that after my eye opening experience there are things that I will be doing.

Inter crop update.

It has been a month since I updated my blog , where does the time go? Well I had a bit of time away from the farm and went to visit my mate Ray Vella and his family at there home in Bald Hills.It was good to catch up and it was the first time my wife Sue had been there.It seems that our farming business is continually evolving and we are now venturing into contract sugar cane harvesting, never really anticipated we would be doing this , however circumstances have changed and we need to change with them to be able to remain farming in the Dalbeg area.So there has been much organising of machinery purchases as well as recruiting people to work for us operating the harvester and haulout machines, the up shot for us will be that we will have more time to be better farmers now that we can focus more on our farm management.I have put up a photo of the beans growing in the cane and where the beans have been untouched they seem to be doing quite well, overall the trial seems to be picking up. I have also put up a photo of the cane that was minimum till planted last may it is really powering now and has 6 foot of cane on . Oh I almost forgot we had our first cyclone in the end of January was only category 2 so no damage was done, we have not had much of a wet season so we have been flat chat irrigating as well.

Better late than never.

Finally got to plant soy bean into the last of our fields to be converted to 2 meter permanent bed, probably a bit late, but it is better to have something in the soil to give some ground cover and break the good old monoculture.The planter that we use is "old school" a Nodet vacuum seeder they didn't come out this wide from the factory but we actually, out of 3 old planters made this 9 row unit, it actually does a really good job.There is plenty of sub-soil moisture in the block however 10mm of rain would be perfect, we could irrigate but because the field has been deep ripped to 450mm the amount and time it would take to get down the 650m rows the beans would be water logged. So we have taken the risk , hopefully fingers crossed we will end up with a good crop.The news in our inter cropping trial does not look so good, the wallabies have given the soy beans a complete hiding and as a result the population is very low, what has survived has nodulated as you can see,the problem is there are not enough. The trials and tribulations of farming, just once I would like all the stars to align to see just what I could achieve, here's hoping.

2014.

Well it's a new year, for me the only thing that has changed is the 3 to a 4 at the end of the year. Christmas has been hot and we have not stopped irrigating our crop, we have had quite a few plus 40 degrees centigrade and with the hot dry winds moisture goes real fast. I have been checking on our trial with beans planted in the growing sugar cane crop and unfortunately the native wildlife has taken a real liking to the young soy chewing them off to about 100 mm hopefully they will kick on, where they have not been eaten they are about 300 mm high. Unfortunately there is not anything I can do about it, the joys of agriculture I guess. On a positive note the no till plant cane is really going well with close to one metre of stalk, the crop looks very healthy and reinforces our resolve to keep with the principle of minimum tillage and residue retention. I have attached a photo of my dog "Charlie" after he has been chasing some of the perpetrators of the soy destruction. Also a photo of the no till plant cane that I have documented in past posts. I hope everyone has had a good Christmas and has a prosperous new year.

Beans are coming through.

It's been 10 days since the beans were planted, since the photo's were taken anyway, and I have to say I am a little disappointed with the consistency of the emergence . The problem was that we didn't plant the beans sooner, the way our planter is configured the planting depth control wheel had to run over the cane that is growing, so because the cane was starting to put on stalk this meant that the depth wheel rode over, bringing the seed out of the soil. However we had 35mm of rain just the other day so when we were looking we could see beans germinating in the moist trash.We had a visit from the people from University come and have a look , so the photo's were taken by Susanne Schmidt who is leading the project.Hopefully all is not lost and we will have enough population to have a recordable difference in the treatments.We have three different nitrogen treatments across the field and two different soy seeding rates along the paddock.

Planting our Inter crop of Soybean.

It has taken ten years lots of time and money a Nuffield Scholarship overseas research, a collaboration with the University of Queensland and we have finally planted another inter cropping trial, and I was not there.I was in Brisbane attending a company directors course to be able to have a better understanding of the business of farming, it was some pretty serious stuff I would have rather have been home planting the trial, but this is something that can have as much of an effect on our business as the operational stuff that I usually do. My brother planted the trial and we were very pleased with the way the planter performed as you can see from the picture there is a lot of residue to work through, hopefully next week we will see the beans emerging.We have had 120mm of rain since my last post and are just starting to irrigate again, this time of year is peak growing time so we have irrigate as necessary, makes it hard around Christmas time but when you consider that Cane can grow up to 35mm per day here, good moisture management really pays off in the long run.Have to say even though the week in Brisbane was quite full on it was good to meet new faces and catch up with the old friends.