DESPITE Graeme Norman and his family's long association with farming at Londrigan in the State's North East, a willingness to seek advice continues to be key to the Angus cattle breeder's success.
"I always say you learn until the day you die," Mr Norman said.
One of the key things he has learnt through involvement in the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF), producers groups, in Landcare, with consultants and with his family is the importance of soil health.
"Soil health is the most important part of farming; it's the only thing that will create productivity," Mr Norman said.
To this end he carries out annual soil tests, has a trusted consultant who advises him on how to use those results and is ready to buy the required inputs - particularly lime on the acidic soils and phosphorous because the cattle "chew through" the element with the amount of hay and silage produces and grazing that occurs on the property.
"Only by getting the balance right do we get the maximum output," he said.
"We also need to sow the right species."
Mr Norman's pastures are mainly perennial ryegrass and clover, with some paddocks sown to lucerne, including for fodder production.
He tried phalaris but found the conditions were too dry on his 345-hectare farm.
The Normans make about 1000 round bales of silage and hay a year and, if required by the season, buy fodder in.
Mr Norman also implements rotational grazing to some extent, depending on water availability, and renovates a few paddocks each year.
His family's long association with the area - on September 3 1862 Mr Norman's great-grandfather bought a block near the current farm - has shown the importance of replenishing the land, including by planting 25,000 trees.
His ancestors ran sheep and crops but Mr Norman breeds European Union (EU)-accredited Angus cattle.
Meeting the EU's requirements around traceability and hormone growth promotant (HGP)-free status (which limits him to buying EU-accredited cattle from studs and accredited yards) had been worthwhile in the past few years, Mr Norman said.
"In August we sold EU-accredited steer weaners to JBS and did well out of them.
"The tops, in particular, would have done well at the August weaner sales but overall the average was higher selling them to JBS than it would have been going through the yards."
He said JBS took cattle up to 500 kilograms liveweight and all of those sent off the farm in recent years have weighed "well over 400kg".
"We feed out silage and hay to put weight on them, especially the steer weaners and it's worthwhile because JBS pay for the weight."
His decision to change the herd of 220 breeders from all autumn calving to a roughly half-half autumn and spring calving was a way to hedge his bets.
"We were all autumn calving but we used to have a lot of problems with grass tetany and would lose cows, so we tried some spring calving. We've found with the spring calvers though we get grass seeds in the calves' eyes; there's a lot of barley grass seeds around this year.
"And we do tend to get better prices for spring calvers as weaners, although we have to feed them over summer, so there are trade-offs.
"My wife (Pam) jokes that it should be called constant calving rather than split calving," Mr Norman said.
The calves are yard weaned at about 10 months, which leaves open the option of selling them at the Wangaratta weaner sales in February and August.
The family sold 16 of their second heifers at the Wangaratta annual spring weaner cattle in late August for the sale's top price of $750, which Mr Norman said was the best price he had received at a store sale for heifer weaners.
Thomas Foods International secured the EU-accredited heifers, average weight 389 kilograms, for an equivalent of 193 cents/kg liveweight to keep them in the EU system.
Mr Norman has carefully selected Old Kentucky, Banquet and Welcome Swallow bulls.
"Even if they're from the same stud, I go with different bloodlines," he said.
He said he looked for bulls with moderate birthweight estimated breeding values (EBVs) that bred consistently good lines and steers that did well in feedlots.
He put the bulls out for 10 weeks or longer, which he admitted did mean there were a few "stragglers" come calving.
Depending on the breeding of these late-calving cows, Mr Norman considers culling them; he also looks at cows' feet and age.
"We used to keep cows on but the older ones were more susceptible to grass tetany, so now there are not many that are more than 10 years old because you've got to draw a line somewhere."
Such is Mr Norman's passion for farming that he is a member of the agricultural and agribusiness advisory committee to the Rural City of Wangaratta council.
Urban sprawl from Wangaratta is the biggest challenge facing the municipality's farmers, which manifests itself in high rates and pressure to subdivide farms - something that in turn makes it more difficult for producers to be profitable and attract young people to farming.
Graeme Norman is one of our "10 of the best" farmers to feature in this week's Stock & Land. Pick up a copy to see farmers from other commodity groups who are achieving great things.
