It's still nice and warm

It's another warm and windy day today, we've had a couple of hot north winds in the last week, which has really put the water stress on already dry crops. Apparently there is rain forecast for early next week, so we're really looking forward to that. It really is like our income falling from the sky.  The current job on the farm is to get the sheep organised for our September shearing. You'll remember we did our first lot of shearing in July, well this is the rest of the sheep, including rams and lambs. So in the next  few days we'll be moving mobs around so they're close handy to the shearing shed for a start on Monday.

Is the glass half empty.. or half full?

An interesting title I know, but it's one way to describe the way the season is shaping up right at this moment. See we are right at the cross roads at the moment. The potential is there for a good season - the glass is half full, because we've had a relatively good start, a few snail and mice issues, but excellent opening rains. Things are drying out very quickly now though, and crops are showing signs of water stress - the glass is half empty.

So things are getting desperate for rain right now, and a decent drop would turn everything around and put us back on track for good season. But unfortunately I don't see those good rains on the horizon. It's hard out spraying the water stressed crops and listening to the radio, and constantly hearing how the weather is just getting better and better. But for us, at this stage, it's just getting worse and worse. I've had to stop listening to the radio and put some more uplifting music on so I can focus on what could be - the glass is half full, rather than be reminded of how it is - the glass is half empty.

Still Spraying

It hasn't taken long for the nice rains we've had in the last coupla weeks to dry up, and now the dust has returned. I'm still keeping myself quite busy on the boom spray, but as I have been raising dust as I go. The crops are hanging in there... but... more rain will be needed very soon. I still have faith that we will have a good season this year so I've still been pushing on with spraying out the liquid N fertilizer. That just gives the crops that little bit extra it might need, and should hopefully increase yields and protein for us. I had a b-doulbe load of this EasyN delivered just the other day - that's around 28thousand litres of the stuff. Within 24hrs I had sprayed basically all of that out. In other farming news, we are expecting the delivery of a brand new combine harvester shortly. A New Holland CR9070 with 40ft honeybee draper front. So to get prepared to use this machine I attended a header school for a coupla days last week. Yes they do teach us farmers how to use the new equipment (that way maybe they wont have to repair as many of them).

Here is a little tune that may be appropriate for the occasion.

Not quite so dry now

Well finally we've had a little bit of rain. About 15 to 20mm in the last coupla days. I know that's not the records breaking amounts that other parts of the state have been experiencing, but it's enough to keep our crops going for now. And, to be honest, it's nice to see a few puddles around the place again, rather than the dusty roads.

Our pastures have been eaten out pretty much completely. We've held over probably a few too many sheep instead of selling them off quickly. (and I may have planted just a few too many acres down to crop - but ya get that). A nice rain, and some warmer weather that should be coming our way soon should start to kick that along again. In the meantime we keep up the handfeeding of sheep.. giving them grain to eat every second day or so.

As far as the spraying program goes, it was full speed ahead with the rye grass spraying in cereal crops - I was using a chemical called Decision. That came to a sudden halt when the alternator in the tractor packed up and had to be sent away for repairs. It's now back and will go back in the tractor shortly, and I'll be straight back into it again.

It's a bit dry

Spraying crops has been the order of the day for me over the past week or so now that the crops are starting to come along nicely. But with the crops growing well, the weeds also grow well too, and the crops also need some nutrition as they grow.

Rye grass is the first weed that I need to take care of, particularly in the rapidly growing canola crops. A Leopard, Platinum brew, with a splash of spraying oil and ammonium sulphate and insecticide should take care of that nicely.

Do the words "Urea Ammonium Nitrate" mean anything to you? No, I didn't think so. Urea Ammonium Nitrate, or UAN as we know it, is a liquid fertilizer that is sprayed onto growing crops. It's the easiest way that I've found to provide all the Nitrogen that the crops require. The canola and wheat drink it up, at 100 litres per hectare. And the barley got a taste at 75 litres per hectare. I use streaming nozzles (red quintastream), which, as the name suggests, sprays the UAN out in streams down to the ground so the N (nitrogen) is taken into the plant via the roots, rather than in a "mist" to the leaves.

Now another thing about using UAN is that it is more effective if the soil is a little damp... well at least not dry. This surely wouldn't be a problem at the moment now would it? What with all the record breaking rainfall we've been having in the last week or so.. Well actually... I've heard our, very reliable, television weather presenter, Mr Ragless, telling us all about the record breaking rainfall we've been having across the state, but as for Southern Yorke Peninsula, we have barely had a drop. Only a few mm since the start of August. But Mr Ragless never mentioned that for some reason. So yes, it's getting a little dry round these parts. It's a good thing we're still running on sub-soil moisture to keep the crops growing, but we will need some rainfall soon or things will start going downhill.

Just a progress update really

Now that the shearing is completed, I've made sure to clear the shearing shed out as quickly as possible. I had the carrier come in a few days later and take all the wool bales off to the wool stores in Adelaide, ready for sale. And then the local wool buyer come round to collect all the odds and sods that didn't fit in with the main lines of wool. It was necessary to clear the wool out as soon as possible as we have quite a bad mouse plaque here at the moment. They were quite plentiful in the shearing shed, and they will eat through just about anything, including wool bales, if they think they may find something to eat in there. They potentially could do a lot of damage very quickly. So the wool was moved out at the earliest convenience. Mice also do a lot of damage out in the paddocks, with the young crops trying to get a foothold in the cool conditions, the mice have done a fair bit of damage in some paddocks, to the point where I'll have to re-sow some crops. It's also time to start looking at the crops to see what weeds are also coming up in them, and planning a spraying program to try and keep them under control. The first up is grass sprays in out canola crops. Grass sprays remove rye grass and other grasses as well as volunteer cereals (wheat or barley) that may also germinate. The weather has been quite dry since seeding, with only a few quite minimal rainfall events. We are lucky in that we have had some quite heavy falls earlier in the year, so the sub-soil moisture levels are really quite high, so, at this stage, it should still be all good.

Back into it now holidays are over

It's been great to have a week off with the family but time stops for no man and neither does the farm work. So it's been straight home from holiday and into the shearing shed. Our July shearing run started Monday and will run through until tomorrow (Friday). It takes a little to organise for shearing. Mobs of wooly sheep need to be moved up to the shearing shed and held in the sheep yards to empty out, and dry out if it's been raining. The shearing shed needed a bit of a tidy up too, there was still a bit of wool left around the place from the last time we used the shed. On Monday the 2 shearers pulled in and started at the normal start time of 7:30. half way through the second day on of our shearers had to pull out due to tendonitus in his arm, so I had to take over with the hand piece and shear a few myself. Not a problem.. as farmers are known to be jack of all trades.. (but masters of none). Well it's smoko time now.. better go organize myself a quick cuppa.

Seedings all done, good chance to take a break

Finally I'm finished seeding and, well, most of the crops are coming up nicely and at this stage looking like a promising season. I always get very nervous during the time it takes from planting the seed til it actually comes up... cause ya always wonder if it's actually going to. So what better time to take a break and spend a bit of quality time with the family. I think they'd almost forgotten what I looked like, so it wasn't before time.. even got a chance to get over to the big smoke and have a bit of a look around. I'll be back on the land soon and we'll start our July shearing then.

Still seeding, but we're gettin there

Still seeding here, but we're not too far from the end now. All the wheat has been planted, I should finish the barley in the next coupla days, leaving only the peas still to plant. So by this time next week I'm hopin it'll be all done and dusted.   I've been pondering lately the importance of what I'm putting in the ground. Ya see, the seeds that I plant are the seeds that will grow - sounds pretty basic really doesn't it? I don't want to be planting wheat, for example, that has been contaminated with other seeds, such as peas or even weed seeds.  I didn't mention in earlier posts that before we plant any seed we get the local seed grader to come around and clean all our seed to ensure its quality and purity for planting.  I find my life is a bit like that too... just like the seeds that I'm putting in the ground I need to make sure what I'm putting into my life is high quality and pure. If the seeds I sow into my life come from bad influences say on the internet or tv, bad music, even less than desirable friends, I will only reap greed, jealousy, anger, violence etc. But when I sow good positive things into my life I reap love, joy, peace, patience, kindness etc.  So just like the crops I'm planting in my paddock, in life I will only reap what I sow.

seeding

Well seeding is still underway with plenty of wheat being planted at the moment. I grow 2 varieties of wheat.. Mace, which is a general run of the mill bread wheat, and Hyperno, which is a durum wheat used for making pasta. 

Now it's a generally well known fact, almost an unwritten rule, that farmers are never satisfied. They always have something to complain about and it usually relates to the weather. If it's not too dry then it's too wet. If it's not too windy, then it's not windy enough. If it's not too hot, then it's too cold etc. You get what I mean. It does apply to all facets of farming, but mainly weather because we are so reliant on it to produce a crop. Well it's my turn to complain now because after good early rains, we haven't had any to speak of in the last few weeks and so the soil has really dried out and gone quite hard making it really difficult to get the disks on the air seeder to penetrate into ground to plant the seeds.  In fact in quite a few places I've seen seed sitting on top of the ground in the furrows. The worst paddocks are ones that we've had sheep grazing on, they tend to pack the soil down when it's damp leaving it hard as rock. 

  Speaking of rocks, I've been dealing with quite a bit of solid limestone in paddocks lately, but I think I'll save that story for another day.

Seeding Continues

A few images from the tractor seat (yes I know the windows need cleaning)

Yes it's full steam aheah with seeding out on the farm, and everything is running smoothly. The New-Holland TM155 tractor is pulling the Hardi 4228B boom spray which goes ahead of the seeder to spray out any weeds and also prevent more weeds from germinating. The chemicals we're using are paraquat, trifluralin and diuron (pron. die-you-on). With the rains we had earlier this year quite a few weeds had already germinated and had already been sprayed out with knock-down sprays.   I'm operating the seeding unit.. a John Deere 8200 tractor pulling a Simplicity 9000 TBT air cart and a John Deere 2200 cultivator which I've fitted out with K-Hart disk modules. I also need to keep up the supply of seed and fertilizer to the air seeder. To do that I have a seed and super unit (or grouper) on the back of the Atkinson, and the Kenworth has been getting it's fair share of work too, ferrying fertilizer around from farm to farm.   A quick calculation and I've worked out that I've covered about 740ha (1800ish acres) out of  just under 2000ha (4940acres) the I plan to plant all up.

Yes that's right, I've finally got the air seeder together - all assembled, and we're up and running. Actually we've been up and running for the past week now and have clocked up just under 1000acres in that time. I put a few hectares of fiesta beans in first up, then onto the canola. I'm up to 188ha of canola planted so far. I've also done about 200ha of pasture sowing that the sheep will enjoy later on in the year.  As is the case with any new equipment there is always teething problems for a start and once I got the loading and calibration figured out on the new Simplicity 9000 tow between box, the adjustment of the new K-Hart disk modules and coulters was the main problem. the disks had to run in the ground at just the perfect depth. This was a little hard to achieve, possibly because the dry ground was so hard, but possibly also that the spring tension on the press wheels was way out of wack. It's lucky canola seeds dont need to be very deep. Well with quite a few adjustments made, and a reasonable drop of rain I think we are all good. Oh except for one minor little incident where I found that a John Deere 8200 front wheel assist tractor would not pull a Simplicity 9000 tow between air cart and a John Deere 2200 cultivator with 40 K-Hart disk modules through knee deep sandy muddy clay where water has been laying. Yep I got her bogged down to the back diff. Pictures will be added later but let me just say she took some getting out. A lot of digging and help from another tractor to pull her out.

The Air Seeder is nearly assembled

I know that I said it would only take a day or so to finish off assembling the new disk modules on the John Deere 2200 cultivator bar... but... well it has taken a little longer. Closer to a week actually. And it's nearly done now. We also took delivery of a 9000litre Simplicity air cart, and that had to be all wired and plumbed into the bar too, with an air kit to go on to carry the seed and fertilizer out to each and every double disk opener. This is all but done now, just waiting on a few parts to come in that didn't quite get here with the initial delivery. Once we're all set up, and the airseeder computer's all programmed ready to go, out seeding program for the year will get started straight away, with Canola being the first crops I plan to plant.

There have been a few things going on in the background too over the past few weeks. One of them being a lot of weed spraying. My brother has spent quite a bit of time on the boom spray trying to keep on top of all the "summer" weeds that have sprung up because of the big rains we had a while back. The other thing that I haven't mentioned yet this year is that the ewes have been lambing for the past probably 5 or 6 weeks. Usually I spend alot of time grain feeding the ewe mobs at this time of year, but because of the abundance of natural feed out in the paddocks I haven't had to do any feeding this year. In fact I haven't even been out in the paddocks to check the mobs of lambing ewes. Well lambing is a natural thing ya know... I hope they know what they're doing themselves. And I have noticed that there are lambs out in the paddocks with the ewe, so cant be all bad.

It's all slowly coming together

This is a bit of an update on the last post where I mentioned that I'd had trouble delivering the last of our barley to Viterra, and how my "blended load" strategy hadn't worked. I also made mention of lakes in paddocks and water over the roads and the there was new farm eqipment on the way.  You'll be happy to know that I have been able to deliver the last of the barley, but not to Viterra. They decided to reject the whole lot of my remaining grain on the grounds that it had animal feaces in it and they have a nil tollerance policy in this area.  Thankfully I was able to take it directly to a feedlot at Meningie instead where 5000 angas beef cattle were very appreciative, and didn't seem to mind the odd hint of cow poop in there one bit.    As far as water over the roads around here goes, I told of how 5inches of rain one night left lakes in paddocks and a number of roads under water.  This would have been about 6 weeks ago.  Well the roads are all open and dry again now, but I do still have 1 paddock with a slowly shrinking lake in it, with all sorts of bird life there enjoying the water.       It is always exciting when new farm equipment arrives, and last week that happened.  My new air seeder box, a Simplicity 9000, was delivered, as was 6 pallets of air seeder parts.  These parts when assembled make up K-Hart disk modules and will replace the existing tyne arrangement on the bar.  I have started the process of changing them over and at this stage all the tynes have been removed and 2/3rds of the modules are assembled and on the bar.  In the next day or so I should have this finished so I can start seeding in the very near future