- Location
- southern riverina Australia
Genuine Australian dingoes
Farmer Roy's Random Thoughts - I never said it was easy.
- Thread starter Farmer Roy
- Start date
- Location
- southern riverina Australia
Got a Lake Eyre flight this morning with only 20 minutes before lift off. So that was a bonus...
Steel
Member
- Location
- Finley, Riverina, Australia
I decided not to do the Peake telegraph station as I heard the track was sh!t. ?
- Location
- southern riverina Australia
They didnt lie........So lucky I'm not still sitting there.....and for our northern friends..theres hundreds of kms between limited phone service....
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Steel
Member
- Location
- Finley, Riverina, Australia
Not much Telstra service on the Oodinatta Track.
- Location
- East Yorkshire
Interesting stuff, thanks.using a moisture probe
not as technical as it sounds
just a bit of 12mm steel rod, say 1.5 m long with a T handle welded on one end and a bolt welded to the other, then ground down to a point for penetration & leaving it about 15 or 16 mm in diameter.
to use, you push it into the ground. How far you can push it without much force, is how much moisture you have. After a while you get a "feel" for it through your hands, you can feel the difference in moisture levels, zones / layers of compaction, etc etc
Everyone always has one in the back of their ute
on our soil types, its the simplest most reliable way of gauging how much water is in your "account".
From memory, these soils will hold about 300 mm of PAW ( plant available water ) per metre of depth
that's why zero till & stubble / straw retention is so vital to us
just a random shot of some sunnies from a few years ago that was next to the moisture probe pic. Just because sunnies always look happy
Those sunflowers do look well.
@cows sh#t me to tears ,only thing missing is some tumbleweed.
- Location
- southern riverina Australia
That's because tumblr weed wouldn't survive out here...Anna creek station that borders lake Eyre, is 24 000sq kms or 6 million acres in size. They have 11000 head on at moment (most properties in the flinders ranges were fully destocked) there stocking rate is 1 cow / 600ac. And as a cow, if you dont like salt bush your rooted....@cows sh#t me to tears ,only thing missing is some tumbleweed.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Words to live by
- Location
- Limousin/Charentes toad land
using a moisture probe
not as technical as it sounds
just a bit of 12mm steel rod, say 1.5 m long with a T handle welded on one end and a bolt welded to the other, then ground down to a point for penetration & leaving it about 15 or 16 mm in diameter.
to use, you push it into the ground. How far you can push it without much force, is how much moisture you have. After a while you get a "feel" for it through your hands, you can feel the difference in moisture levels, zones / layers of compaction, etc etc
Everyone always has one in the back of their ute
on our soil types, its the simplest most reliable way of gauging how much water is in your "account".
From memory, these soils will hold about 300 mm of PAW ( plant available water ) per metre of depth
that's why zero till & stubble / straw retention is so vital to us
just a random shot of some sunnies from a few years ago that was next to the moisture probe pic. Just because sunnies always look happy
My first crop Roy. How long before harvest? Got to get my arse in to gear and get some pans on the header...
Crowd surfing,sheep style.
Kids!
Kids!
Steel
Member
- Location
- Finley, Riverina, Australia
They must have better country than I thought. A station I know better, north of Anna Creek have 1,000,000 acres and run 1000 cows, so one cow per 1,000 acres.
6 weeks ago I talked to the Anna Creek stock manager and they had 14,000 cows but were selling due to the drought. They must have sold 3,000 in the last 6 weeks. All stations up there weaned calves early and sold them and are now selling cows.
I thought that area was bad last year, but this year it it substantially worse. I can not see what the cattle are eating other than rocks.
Steel
Member
- Location
- Finley, Riverina, Australia
What really pee'd me off with South Australia National Parks was the effort they go to to try and stop people driving off tracks. Heaps of signs, rocks and fences, when if they ran a grader down the track occasionally it would be smoother than the desert and people would stay on the track. I don’t think SA NP own a road grader.
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
We are mildly dry compared to Aus at the moment but it is starting to raise flags to the water companies now here. This is our latest local situation (remember here we are 3 miles from Water Hall flow gauging station.
At a friends tonight.....now this is random
Scary!
Scary!
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
first crop ?
looks good
are they monos. polys or birdseed ?
do you think you will have any problems with birds as the seeds mature ?, they can really wreck havoc here with large parrots, especially if planted near trees like that
we have two distinct planting windows for sunnies
Spring - then harvested late summer
Summer - harvested late autumn
the physiological maturity & dry down varies considerably between the two. Harvesting in late autumn can be difficult / a lot slower to get them to dry down
im not familiar with your climate, so it is hard to say how long you've got.
looks like the bracts have dropped off & im assuming the seed heads are full ?
we wouldn't be harvesting until the heads have dried right out / turned brown & the leaves have all desiccated & fallen off
we wouldn't harvest / store sunflower above 9% seed moisture, as it has a tendency to self combust if moisture is too high
on the other hand, if the heads are too dry & brittle, they tend to break up a lot as they go through the combine & result in high levels of admixture in your sample, as its hard to separate . . .
as the seeds are relatively large & so light, it is easy to blow them out the back of the combine trying to clean the sample up
rough rule of thumb, their bushel weight is about half that of wheat
with the heads hanging down like that, you do have to be careful of wet weather once the heads do dry out, as rain can collect on the back of them & cause the heads to rot or go spongy if wet for too long. We aim for varieties with heads that don't hang down so low at maturity. What row spacing / plant population do you have. We normally plant on 75 - 100cm rows, with about 40, 000 plants / ha or 4 / m on 1m rows. ( 16,000 / acre ), so usually have much thicker / stronger stalks
when harvesting, be aware of static electricity, dust, & fire risk. Sunflowers are probably the highest fire risk crop to harvest. Static electricity & the very flammable dust causes spot fires / smouldering clumps almost anywhere, not just around the engine bay. I know of a few people who have melted holes through plastic fuel tanks on JD combines due to this, & Ive seen little spot fires on the SIDE of vertical external bodywork, from static electricity, so cleanliness & carrying a fire extinguisher / water cart is essential
good luck & I hope it goes well for you
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- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
- Location
- southern riverina Australia
Big big day yesterday. @Steel dunno if you've been out to dalhousie springs and up to mt Dare? But by God.....From the turn off to Hamilton station in (and plenty prior) was absolutely atrocious. Think it took something like 4 hrs ?? Whole day was about 7 hrs for 230kms. Last 10kms into Mt Dare took at least half an hour.
Best thing about getting to Mt Dare was the stunning young bar maid.........
Saw this
Young bloke that was working the bar late had just recovered it from popels crn. The guy from Birdsville was sick. So mt dare had to get it. He drove 18hrs straight across the Simpson in a dual cab 79 series landcruiser towing a car trailer, then took 2 days to get it back.
the jeep had done a rear diff. Then tried to get himself across using the front diff, only to have it s**t itself too....Its certainly not for the faint hearted out in the middle of sweet f**k all....
Speaking of which. Made it to here
Its the geographical centre of Australia.....apparently... Also picked up a flesh wound at Mt Dare.....
slightly unamused But hey, at least it's not broken....
Saw this
Speaking of which. Made it to here
But hey, at least it's not broken....
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
Dalhousie Springs are awesome ay
yeah, have seen a few broken vehicles at Mt Dare . . .
yeah, have seen a few broken vehicles at Mt Dare . . .
- Location
- southern riverina Australia
It's been an experience that's for sure. Plenty of people saying the road down to mt dare was rough....I think Binns track had hundreds and hundreds of meters of meter thick bull dust. If only they knew what they were in for if they were heading south to Oodnadatta. Even crossing the Simpson is apparently horrible at the moment. Rutted up to the shiter by people towing camper trailers . I heard from a few blokes theres talk of limiting the amount or closing it off early to stop the damage. The likes of the big red bash had over 100 vehicles ....We came out through Finke to kulgera road house. The road had been graded basically from the border on in the last week. Apparently it was horrid 2 weeks ago, but at the moment if you were brave you could sit on 110. Worst parts are the floodways.....you never know how bad the dip is till your in there..... I made my young bloke drive the 130kms to kulgera from the turn off into the Lambert centre.... good for him too get plenty of kms up on sandy stuff. Going to look at the big red lump tomorrow..
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