Laharna Farms, Dowerin WA

Our first legend of the month is Andrew 'the trail blazer' Todd from Dowerin Western Australia. Andrew and Jacinta run a 100% cropping enterprise on 4200 hectares in the central wheat belt. He was one of the first farmer research partners to get a Seed Terminator fitted up and running in 2016, it was his effort and persistence early on that enabled us to head off many issues before other machines were fitted up. Here is a Q&A we had with Andrew in May 2018

2016 was our Maiden Year, why did you choose to add a Seed Terminator?

The move to Seed Terminator was the next logical step in a HWSC journey that began with windrow burning for a number of years followed by 9 years of chaff cart. The main reasons being full residue retention and retention of the nutrients in it and reduction in time, energy and risk involved with burning. To me putting mills on the back of the harvester seemed to be the ultimate option in HWSC. It would save us time by not having to do firebreaks and burn dumps, and it would improve our harvest efficiency in that we could get back to harvesting as we pleased rather than managing the logistics of dumping the cart in right spot and doing bigger headland turns so as not to jack knife. They might sound like small gains but if you’ve ever towed a cart will understand the limitations. So we agreed to take on one of the first 11 Seed Terminators.

Why is mechanical weed control technology important for the future of farming?

A reliance on herbicide only as a weed control method has led to herbicide resistance, the very reason for the birth of HWSC measures. Mechanical weed control will aid in increasing the longevity of efficacy of the herbicides which are yet to be affected by the development of resistance.

Herbicides are a critical part of weed control in cropping system and their cost is also a significant part of the total cost of grain production. Generally the older herbicides are cheaper as they are no-longer under patent, new herbicides are few and far between and are often expensive and so we need to protect and prolong the efficacy of those older and cheaper herbicides as a measure to help maintain profitability. Mechanical control is crucial to preserving and protecting the efficacy of herbicides.

How does it feel not burning and what did you do instead of burning this year?

Burning an entire program of either windrows or chaff dumps was quite a time consuming job when you consider the time involved in the whole process from installing firebreaks around chaff dumps to lighting and monitoring fires and weather conditions. One of the things I enjoyed this year was not having to constantly monitor the wind forecast looking for good opportunities for burning dumps and then having to adjust the other farm activities to fit around this. This year we spent more time on doing some more liming, equipment prep for seeding. It certainly felt like we had more time. I think this is a difficult thing to put a value on but I believe that when I have seen it estimated at $2/ha it is  undervalued…..obviously depending on what you choose to do with that time

What do you think not burning does for your soils and future productivity?

I think maintaining soil cover is important. Spreading the residue evenly across the width of the harvester is still a challenge though. We may see some N tie up from the build up of cereal stubbles in particular but I think the return of K into the system along with some moisture retention improvements should go a long way, if not beyond offsetting this.

NEXT UP SCHUTZ GRAINS, GRASS PATCH WA