No-till operations in the Mallee have freed croppers from the calendar, according to farmer and agronomist Matt Elliott, who farms at Pier Milan and Nandaly.
Mr Elliott has 5000 hectares under wheat, barley, lentils, lupins and field peas.
He said he went over to no-till in 2004, after the 2002 drought.
“Hardly anyone grew any crops and everyone thought there had to be a better way,” Mr Elliott said.
“The advantages are retaining moisture and being able to retain the stubbles, to stop the paddocks blowing away.
“We can now sow crops, any time we like, we don’t have to wait for rain, so most blokes round here sow by the calendar, not by opening rains.”
He said he was sowing Mace and Kord wheat, Compass, Scope and a bit of Spartacus barley, Hurricane and Bolt lentils and Mandalup lupins.
“People have got themselves into a rotation now, they can predict what to sow where and what they sow when,” he said.
After two very dry years, the season had been “terrific”.
“We were starting from a very low base – up until July, we had some really good looking crops, but if we didn’t get our spring, we were in the same boat as we had been in the last couple of years.
The spring really brought things home, so it was fantastic.”
Autosteer was used in cropping operations, with variable rate mapping for fertilisers and field maps., while fertiliser application varied from year to year.
“Last year, we used phosphorous sulphate with urea, targeting around five to six units of phosphorous and six units of sulphur, with 20 units of nitrogen up front,” he said.
“Next year will be different, we are on a replacement system, whatever you take out, you replace next year.”
Mr Elliott said it was fortunate Trifluron still worked in the Nandaly-Pier Milan area, but growers had to rotate it, as “it will stop working, one day.”
He echoed concerns expressed by other Mallee croppers herbicide resistance was a growing problem.
“I see it around the place, with more legumes being grown, a lot of those group A herbicides are being used, and we have to be smart with that,” he said.
Croppers were bringing hay into the rotation, which was also a useful weed control tool.
“There are a couple of large processors, come on line, not far from here, which makes it very attractive.”
He predicted both oaten hay and lentils would boom, in the Nandaly area, in the next two years.
This year’s cereal crops would largely go into storage, while lentils had been forward contracted.
“Seeing what is happening with the cereal market, the prices are not very appealing at the moment,” he said.
The harvest was likely to come in at an average of 2.8 tonnes a hectare, for wheat, but there would be some larger yields from some paddocks.
The farm could store 3000 tonnes, while other grain would go into storage at the Nandaly co-operative, run by 20 regional farmers.
“It’s not in the system, it’s not in GrainCorp or AWB, it’s accessible every day of year, you can always get grain out.
“That’s been a huge help to the farmers in this area and one of our greatest assets, and I would say we are going to fill that this year, which is somewhere around the 80,000 tonne mark.”
The barley went F1, with no bin burn issues, while the wheat would be Australian Premium White (APW) with some Australian Standard White (ASW).
“If we can average the APW, that would be nice, with a few loads of H2, on a few paddocks.”
There was no set rotation on the property.
“We try to have 40 per cent legumes each year, we had 43pc this year, which worked well, as it creates a bit of predictability for the next year, if you have around 40pc of your farm, which is going to grow a really good crop, regardless.”