A love of technology brought Rennie grower Adam Davies back to the family farm.
Adam Davies runs Newfield farming, with his father Geoff and mother Jan.
The six properties, just over the Victorian border, cover 1821 hectares, over a 10 kilometre span. This year, Mr Davies said Newfield was hoping to achieve a four tonne to the hectare wheat yield, two t/ha for canola and four to four and a half t/ha for barley.
The 28 year old said he returned to the family farm, after working in the machinery industry, when the neighbour’s place came up for sale. “I was home that harvest time; I always came home and drove the header at harvest time, as most young farming blokes do,” Mr Davies said.
On leaving school, he said he tried university but it wasn’t for him.
“I passed everything, but I couldn’t sit still – I can’t sit still at the best of times.” Going to university also fulfilled a deal with Bendigo based GPSAg, whose owner suggested he study for 12 months before making up his mind on his future. “I only lasted 12 months in ag science.”
Before returning to the farm Mr Davies said he worked for “various different tractor companies and different colors. “We would come out and do a full fit-out on a tractor, I did that with GPSAg and then I worked for Case and a couple of different dealerships in Victoria.
“A lot of it was answering technical phone calls from a lot of perplexed farmers. I was the bloke on the end of the phone talking them through it.”
Back on the farm, he said he loved “mucking around with drones” and using normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) technology.
“Technology is one of the things which keep me on the farm. I think it’s something that needs to be marketed, especially when they talk about the fact there are not enough young blokes in agriculture.
“I have had mates who come from Melbourne and Albury and they sit in the header or a tractor and ‘holy crap this is like a spaceship’.”
Mr Davies said he had to be able to justify his use of technology. “I have had some failures, along the way, but my parents are happy to watch that happen and let it happen, which is a credit to them.
When it was operating, the drone was a time saver for the property. “I send the drone off and it goes up and down in quadrants of fifty metre passes and it will map the greenness of the crop, so I get a pretty good indication of growth,” Mr Davies said.
“You can do it with satellites, with a click of a button and at 50 cents a hectare, but it’s not as timely. I could have the drone running, while I am spraying.”
Autonomous tractors were the next thing “that pulls my attention. “With our labor shortages, they are going to be the next huge thing in broadacre agriculture.”
