INTRODUCING new commodities into their operation has allowed the Watson family to manage good and bad years.
John and Allison Watson, with sons Nick and Jeremy, and farm worker Kurt Wight, grow wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils, vetch and hay on their 4500-hectare property in Berriwillock, where they also run sheep and cattle.
John Watson said they have always had a diversified operation.
“About seven or eight years ago we bought some cattle to feed them our leftover hay, and in the last four or so years, they’ve just become more and more important,” John said.
“We’ve had a few tough years, and the livestock have really helped increase our profits when things are tough.”
Also running about 800 Merino ewes, John said they will look to destock the cattle to re-focus on fewer commodities.
“The cattle have helped us increase cash flow, they’ve done their job and served their purpose, but we’ve got the infrastructure now, so I’m sure one day they’ll be back,” he said.
Nick came home to work on the family farm 13 years ago, and Jeremy came home five years ago, and both now work full-time on the farm, with Kurt who has worked with the family for five years after completing a traineeship on their farm.
They agreed that the biggest advancement in their time has been the implementation of direct drilling in 2005, but said they are still flexible in their method of cultivation.
“Conventionally, you would cultivate your paddocks three to four times a year, but with direct drilling, you just do one pass with the seeder,” Nick said.
“You need to spray more when you use direct drilling, so a lot of the work is taken up after sowing rather than before sowing.
“You rely on chemicals more, which can be an issue, Victoria is about five years behind Western Australia, and they’re having issues with chemical resistance now, and we’re just beginning to have issues here.”
John said the biggest change he had seen on the farm, other than direct drilling, was the roll-out of auto-steer technology.
“That’s just really changed the whole mood of farming,” John said.
“Not only does it help with straightness, but you can spray in the dark and do inter-row sowing.
“Technology itself has been one of the biggest changes, and we probably don’t keep up with it as much as a lot of other people, but we’re definitely on board with the auto-steer.”
They said this year, they had had the best start to the season that they had ever seen.
“Normally you get April showers, but not as much as we did, June was dry, but that didn’t matter because it was so wet beforehand,” Nick said.
Off the back of what had been their best season the year before, they have high hopes of what is to come.
“We don’t hit our average rainfall often, but not only did we hit it, we totally overtook it,” Nick said.
“Our average yearly rainfall is 325 millimetres, and we received 454mm in 2016, which is more than double what we received the year before.”
They said they hadn’t had as much trouble with mice as they initially expected.
“It’s been bad, but not as bad as some other places, we had budgeted to spend $30,000 baiting, but have probably only used $12-$15,000 so far,” Nick said.
The family place a lot of importance on helping out their farming community when needed.
“We’re fairly community-minded, because if you don’t put into the community, there’s not going to be one to have,” John said.
“We believe that what goes around comes around, for example, we had a hay stack fire here at the start of 2015, and all of our neighbours came around and helped us, so you make sure you help them when you can, that’s just our nature.”
