Some pics from home

[malleefarmer]

[malleefarmer]

[farmaholic]

Is there "no place like home" mallee? Good to hear you made it back safe.

[malleefarmer]

Canola may do 25 to 30 in absense of frost then wheat kind weather 30 to 45 barley on poor soil hmm 30 plus. Some pasture sheep and a general shot and last pic barley again. Crops should be about to poke head and whiskers out in the next week normally but been a tad cooler and a week later sowing than normal so maturity may be two weeks later even 3 we can't count on much decent rain past sept so we just need 20mm for month and cool temps with no frost and we could exceed expectation. grass farmer the pastures are most medic and some grass and weeds and self sown barley or wheat.
Apparently a massive frost in nsw done tremendous damage to chickpeas canola and lentils but cereals unscathed.

[malleefarmer]

Is there "no place like home" mallee? Good to hear you made it back safe.

No place like Canada and USA either mate had a wonderful time.be back in two years for another wedding apparently

[makar]

What did you think of dawson creek, did you get up the alaska highway?

[malleefarmer]

Dawsons creek was good stayed on a ranch about 5 miles out of town and did a fair bit of looking about. Yeah if I had a few more days would have ventured further north

[skip]

Thanks Mallee.
I enjoy learning about your operation.
Did you post up anything on your vacation thoughts? I might have missed it, was at a couple of family weddings and was offline for a few weeks.
Best wishes

[WiltonRanch]

Good pics Mallee. Just wondering about your rotation with the grazing component. Is it for soil health, risk management, etc? Used to be more livestock on farms here years ago to make use of unfarmable land, eat junk crop, and create cash flow when grain movement or prices were the shits. Mixed farming has kinda died out gradually as that generation dies out. Neat to see you can make it work.

[malleefarmer]

Wilton ranch not to complicated here keep it simple and hopefully generate profit.

Some of the best country is continuously cropped wheat wheat canola wheat wheat legume either peas lupins or maybe even lentils but yield of lentils is problematic. Or rotation can be the same put a barley after the wheat.

Other country grow outstanding medic so its crop pasture crop pastue and the pasture is tidied up with grass herbicide to ensure not a lot of grass in following crop. Often oats or hay may be a crop here. Medic pasture puts a lot of low cost nitrogen in soil. This soil type is bordering on quite stony needs showery weather to keep crop going rather than big fall not a lot of moisture holding capacity.

Other soil type is serious stone this is either cropped once maybe every 4 or 5 years or sown for feed and is grazed for stock.

So basically 3 soil types but the advent of hydraulic tyne machines crops are getting pushed into stony country. Sheep and wool and prime lamb currently at record levels and no sign of it retreating due to everyone just pushing more and more crop to pay for ever increasing machinery.

A low yielding crop either cereal or legume oilseed coupled with low prices will be trumped with livestock.

Have a few neighbours almost total livestock and conversely other all crop I'm basically 60% crop 40% livestock or thereabouts I think its a good balance. And some years if its a very late start to seeding I just drop paddocks off and run stock on them. Kind of a risk management thing. Mixed farming is reasonably common as is total crop in our 14 inch rainfall.

I always try to but low hour second hand gear say 2 to 3 years old. So for 18 will be around 8000 crop and 4500 acres to livestock. Livestock graze all stubbles.

Plus I like working in fresh air with stock, fencing, hustle and bustle of shearing time rather be on a tractor seat my whole life.

Have a opportunity to rent 2000 acres of crop land currently grappling with decision. May go for it and add some extra hay ground in my existing operation maybe 1000 acres as hay is reasonably lucrative.

I should add its a lot to do with our stony soils I guess you saw some stone heaps in pics if it wasn't stony and perfect cropping land maybe scenario would be diffenerent but its "healthy gutsy" grazing country here always seems to grow feed regardless of year.

end of Monday morning novel

[malleefarmer]

ps unlike cattle guys in Canada and states feeding of animals is maybe only for one or two months of the year maybe twice a week oats or barley trailed out on the ground and hay usually before opening of season. Wereas you guys feed all winter a daily job.

Sometimes stock are confined in a feedlot in harshest or droughts or when some fattening of lambs has to happen lupins are fed then.

I'm lucky next generation doesn't dislike livestock sure he prefers tractors and machinery but is not adverse to stock work. That's kinda rare most kids hate sheep and just wanna drive big ticket machinery