Cropping in one of Victoria’s wettest grain and pulse growing regions has been bringing its own challenges to Brent Herrmann, who runs the family farm with his father.
The area, south of Dunkeld, receives around 750 illimetres of average annual rainfall, but last season that topped one hundred millimetres for five consecutive months.
One of the biggest issues the Herrmann’s face, in growing wheat, canola and oats, was nitrogen loss. Mr Herrmann it appeared the nitrous oxide (N20) loss was due to deep banding, followed by waterlogging.
“Last year was probably an extreme example of a wet winter and spring and so we are heading towards trying to get a lot of nitrogen out, as early as possible,” Mr Hermann said.
Last year was probably an extreme example of a wet winter and spring and so we are heading towards trying to get a lot of nitrogen out, as early as possible.
- Brent Herrmann, western Victorian cropper.
“But we are probably wanting to steer clear of deep banding. As soon as the crop is up, we will trying to get over at least twice, before it gets wet.”
He said the properties received 909mm of rain, last year. Research on the property showed saturated soils had resulted in ideal conditions for the microbial activity, which led to the nitrous oxide emissions.
Last year, crops were fertilised three times, with 10 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare, applied as monoammonium phosphate (MAP) fertiliser at sowing, again before winter rains, when another 30 to 40kg was applied, and finally a third application of 40kg, when the wheat was jointing.
“We have probably brought our sowing dates forward, actually – we have had a lot of trouble, in the past, with canopy management at the 31-32 growth stage. That can be too late for us, as we are already waterlogged.”
Now, the trick was to put the nitrogen on, when the soil was just shy of being waterlogged.
“That’s the game we are playing, all the time,” Mr Herrmann said.
“Because we can get wet quite early, it does pose a problem of when to apply nitrogen. Do we go or not, how much rain are we going to get into the next event ?
“We generally don’t need the rain, because it’s wet to the top and the nitrogen will be gone the next day, soaked into the soil just from the dew.”
Sowing last season started in March, with a fair proportion of the crop in the ground by April. “We had a slack time for a few weeks, when the rain started to dry up a bit – but it made seeding a much more relaxed exercise, spreading it out until mid-May.”
The Hermanns own, lease or share farm about 2630 hectares, moving away from sheep to a two-thirds cropping mix, at the turn of the century.
Waterlogging saw the installation of raised beds, into a canola, or light stubble.
“Or we burn the stubble and form them through that,” Mr Hermann said. “We would be minimum till, we are more or less direct drilling, but we will use tillage if the need arises.”
The air seeder, sprayer and spreader were currently set up on a 12 metre controlled traffic system, but the header wasn’t.
“We haven’t taken that last step yet, there is always reconditioning of the wheel tracks, which is our main issue. A lot of the soils are self mulching, but it’s something we will probably realise the benefits of, once we get there.”
Last season, the Hermanns grew Trojan, Manning and Revenue wheats, with long season winter canola, and ATR Wahoo.
The long growing season also brought issues with multiple germination of weeds, right into September – “depending on when we get the rainfall.”
“It makes it a bit difficult, every year, so dessication is an important part of our program, really.
Heribicides applied on the wheat crop included Sakura, Avadex, and Logran, while Rustler was used over Clearfield Canola. Avadex, Simazine and Treflex was applied to the Triazine Tolerant canola
“Main problems are ryegrass, radish, phalaris minor, wild oats and we have also got blue stripe, on a wet season, late in the season.”
But Mr Herrmann said long season feed wheat and canola was proving popular.
“Our limited experience has shown, in those tight finishes, those long season canolas were doing as well, if not better, than other varieties. They have a tendency to go big, but that poses it’s own issues, with a lot of biomass.”
Last season the wheat yielded four and a half to eight tonnes, per paddock, depending on how wet it was, with the long season varieties producing better crops. Canola went a tonne to three and a half tonnes, a hectare.
White wheat and canola was delivered to Graincorp silos, as there were sites nearby, while the red wheat was stored on farm.
