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EVENTS CALENDER - COMPILED BY GRAIN & GRAZE

Updated every month and full of Field Day, Meeting, Seminar and Conference dates.

Download the Calender

The NSW Government has agreed to establish a steering committee to look at further solutions for the Department of Primary Industries’ Condobolin research station.

Cornish’s Condobolin branch has confirmed an ongoing major sponsorship deal with Central West Farming Systems (CWFS) last week supplying a new tractor valued at over $100,000 to the group.

The tractor which is a joint venture of Cornish’s and Case IH is fitted with an Ez-Guide guidance system by OmniStar (accurate to within 10cm) replaces the unit supplied almost twelve months ago when the deal was first struck.

Cornish’s local manager Darryl Henley sees the partnership with CWFS as a great opportunity to gain exposure for products.

“They operate the tractor at their trial plots and demonstration days, this is our target audience.”

CWFS has trial plots across the region from Nyngan in the north to Merriwagga in the south and including Lake Cargelligo, Tottenham, Ungarie, Gunning Gap and Euabalong.

CWFS is a farmer driven organisation, says site manager Katrina McDougall.

“We hold pre-season meetings at all our regional sites and the local farmers at each site determine the research agenda for their site for the year.”

“Trials this year include pulse comparison trials comparing field peas, chickpeas and lupins, wheat variety, barley variety, canola and mustard comparison, fertilizer comparison trials and more.”

“The tractor is extremely valuable to the group and makes sowing a joy.”

 “The OmniStar steering system will be vital for inter row sowing and for trash clearance.” 

Mr Henley says the response to the sponsorship deal has been very positive.

“We have been getting feedback from non clients and clients alike pleased with the confidence shown by Case IH.”

Cornish’s are currently in discussions to secure a Challenger front end loader valued at $18,000 in support of the deal.

Central West Farming Systems group have thanked Cornish’s and Case IH for the sponsorship.

Source - The Condobolin Argus

CWFS Staff receiving the new tractor from Cornishs.

National Landcare Programme - Supporting Sustainable Agriculture Would you like to know if grazing management can improve soil health, biodiversity and production? The Lachlan Grazing Management project seeks to enhance soil health, production and biodiversity. The core practice applied to each site is high-density, short-duration grazing, with pasture recovery allowed before the next grazing event. Each grazing is targeted at achieving the land manager’s own unique landscape goal. This is an initial field day for a project that the Lachlan CMA and Landcare are conducting throughout the Lachlan Catchment to showcase the benefits of high-density, short-duration grazing, with pasture recovery to improve soil health, production and biodiversity. Download the Flier (342KB PDF)

Designing a simple on-farm phosphorous (P) rate trial in winter cereals Ken Motley and Colin McMaster, NSW DPI Katrina McDougall, CWFS Andrew Rice, WHK Ivey High phosphorous (P) fertiliser prices are placing pressure on farmers to closely review their P fertiliser application rates.  Considerable detailed research has been done by NSW DPI and CWFS on P fertiliser rates in wheat, in particular calibrating soil tests such as the Colwell test to crop responses in Central West NSW.  This research has shown that soil P levels and yield potentials are the key criteria by which P fertiliser rates are best calculated.  Publications such as the NSW DPI Agfact “Phosphorous nutrition of winter crops” (available on the internet www.dpi.nsw.gov.au) are a good start to begin to understand the subject On-farm broad scale trials are a useful way of checking if your P fertiliser rates are adequate in your cropping system.  They can also be used to evaluate alternative P fertilisers.  The advent of Precision Agriculture (PA) utilising GPS technology such as guidance and yield mapping is very useful for conducting these types of broad scale on farm trials. However, PA is not essential and the trial can still be done using weigh bins at harvest.  This publication sets out to describe some of the key principles needed to conduct simple on-farm P trials that are free of bias.  CWFS also has available a sister publication for suggestions on how to evaluate biological P fertilisers in on-farm trials. Click to download the full PDF (62KB), Designing a simple on-farm phosphorous (P) rate trial in winter cereals.

We have organized three Bill Gordon Application Technology and Spray Drift Management Workshops to be held in:

Parkes – Tuesday 24th June

Condobolin - Wednesday 25th June

Weethalle - Thursday 26th June

These will be full day workshops commencing at 9am and will cost $40 for members and $50 for non-members.  Participants will receive a booklet and CD of the presentation. Download the Flier (100KB PDF) 

Places are limited, to book your place please call Joy on 6895 1025 or e-mail katrina.mcdougall(at)dpi.nsw.gov.au.

'Salvaging crops for fodder, grain or grazing - costs and income calculator' was developed by NSW DPI district agronomists to help producers make decisions on salvaging crops during drought. The spreadsheet calculates the cost of baling crops for hay or silage and of taking crops through to harvest.

Users input data for their own situation to assess the cost of each option. By knowing costs and having an idea of the product’s potential value, the best economic outcomes can be worked through more clearly.

It is important that producers check chemical withholding periods before either cutting crops for hay, or grazing the crops.

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/field/field-crops/crop-salvage-calculator

Australian Sandalwood - Aaron Edmonds

The single biggest worry in the world of agricultural production is that our farming systems have evolved with the assumption that oil will always be cheap. Vast amounts of energy are required to produce nitrogenous fertiliser and pesticides. It takes the energy from roughly one litre of oil to produce one kilogram of urea.

One must therefore appreciate that rises in the cost of energy will lead directly to inflationary pressures on the price of nitrogenous fertilisers.

This will impact tremendously on the profitability of nitrogen-hungry crops such as wheat and canola. Our most profitable crops are in danger of becoming our least profitable. The three major areas in which agriculture has unacceptable exposure to rising oil prices are in fertilisers, herbicides/pesticides and diesel.

The challenge and opportunity for agriculture is to manage all three areas.

Australian sandalwood is a unique native tree crop highly adapted to Australian conditions. The tree produces nuts that are high in oil (60 percent) and protein (18 percent) with the kernel oil being largely the healthy monounsaturated oil (55 percent). It requires no nitrogen fertiliser and

has the potential to become an important, valuable oilseed.

Trials for this dryland tree crop are under way at our property east of Calingiri in the WA wheatbelt. We have been selecting, from bought seed, for large seeds and now have varieties whose nuts are as big as a 20-cent piece. Four-year-old trees are yielding well in excess of 1kg of nuts per tree, with this yield set to increase as the trees grow.

For more information go to the Australia Nuts Website