Farming in Australia, Youtube channel.

[T Bourne]

After a break from making YouTube video's (due to a very busy year) I've made a couple. Just chatting about what's been going on and what direction I'm taking the farm, as well as showing some cover crops that I'm planting. Take a look if you like. Thanks.

 

[T Bourne]

Well, we've had nearly 60mm of rain on the crops I drilled and they are looking a treat. We're digging spuds flat out at the moment and I can't help but feel bad about the damage that is being done to the paddock's. It's kinda a one way street where we accept a degree of degradation as inevitable. Here's the legacy of decades of cultivation. If it's not obvious there is a difference of soil height either side of the fence of about a meter and a half due to soil working down the hill.

It certainly encourages me to do the best I can to regenerate my farm. Cheers.

 

[JX1100U]

Nice videos, mate.

Where exactly are you based in the North West? I'm at Mayberry near Mole Creek, running a beef herd of about 100 breeders. How did you fair with the army worms? We weren't to bad but Liena, where are usual cattle buyers live, got hit hard made 50 bales of hay instead of 300. Talking to Laing contracting the other day at Shiptons and he went out baling grass straw as he said there was very little hay about his area.

Did you see the Soil First Tasmania event that's on this week at Premium Fresh Tasmania, its about cover crops and post harvest soil recovery. Saw it on Facebook and thought it sounded like something you would be interested in.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I trimmed some branches so I could reclaim a drill width of paddock,View attachment 541746 I got all the spud ground ploughed and lime spread on the home paddock.View attachment 541748 I drilled the lease paddock down to grass and mine to winter wheat,View attachment 541750 I had some issues with the electric fan on my drill not supplying enough air to carry the wheat seeds. I've drilled grass, Lucerne and oats ok but the wheat was just too heavy so I now need to find/build a hydraulic fan for it. I was able to borrow my mate's Lemkin drill to get my wheat in so no great problem. Now it's onto all the other little winter jobs that must be done before it gets hectic again. Like steam cleaning the red mud off the loo so it can go back to the hire shop.View attachment 541760 Here's a beautiful sunrise-ish out our living room window, just splendid. View attachment 541762

I have a hyd fan kit on mine, has an amazing amount of airflow.
The downside is with a spool running, you can't use any other hydraulics - wondering if a man of your talents might find a pto fan on the back of the p/h gearbox was a better bet?
In saying that the hyd fan is a great step up from electric fans, can put any seed on at any rate that I have tried.
No worries with peas at 250kg/ha or 160kg of straight triticale

 

[T Bourne]

Nice videos, mate.

Where exactly are you based in the North West? I'm at Mayberry near Mole Creek, running a beef herd of about 100 breeders. How did you fair with the army worms? We weren't to bad but Liena, where are usual cattle buyers live, got hit hard made 50 bales of hay instead of 300. Talking to Laing contracting the other day at Shiptons and he went out baling grass straw as he said there was very little hay about his area.

Did you see the Soil First Tasmania event that's on this week at Premium Fresh Tasmania, its about cover crops and post harvest soil recovery. Saw it on Facebook and thought it sounded like something you would be interested in.

Hi, we're at Rocky Cape, 30 min west of Burnie. I know of Marcus, he does a bit of work in this area. The armyworms didn't effect us too much, they knocked some of my wheat about, I ended up spraying it which I hate to do, and they took out some patches of grass. I try to be a little under stocked so we can absorb events like that. I sprayed nearly 300ha in the area for other farmers though, some were hit really badly. We made silage for a farmer at Mawbana, nice and green, plenty of feed one week, a fortnight later he was feeding the silage back out to his dairy cows as the caterpillars had eaten everything, the farm went from green to white in a matter of days. Pretty shocking, it's the worst I've seen it. And then they came back for a second go. I hate to think how many litres of insecticide were sprayed about this year. RIP beneficials.
I hadn't seen the soils first event advertised, I'll look it up. Thanks.
Are you trying to farm regeneratively? I'm only just starting out on this journey so have a huge amount to learn.
It's nice to connect with forum members that are kinda local to me, cheers.

 

[T Bourne]

I have a hyd fan kit on mine, has an amazing amount of airflow.
The downside is with a spool running, you can't use any other hydraulics - wondering if a man of your talents might find a pto fan on the back of the p/h gearbox was a better bet?
In saying that the hyd fan is a great step up from electric fans, can put any seed on at any rate that I have tried.
No worries with peas at 250kg/ha or 160kg of straight triticale

Yes, the ps500's come standard with hydraulic fan. If you have a look at the front of my drill you'll see that I've actually made a hydraulic fan for my drill using a hydraulic motor and a fan from a dust extractor, it's no problem sowing heavy seeds now. On my tractor I'm able to select what percentage of oil flow goes where so am still able to use other hydraulic services.
I've certainly done things the hard way. Looking back, I should have gone for the ps500 with the bigger tank and hydraulic fan, probably should have just bought a ready made drill.

 

[JX1100U]

Nice bit of country round Rocky Cape. I hear what your saying about spraying the insecticides. Heard of people spraying 5 or 6 times to try and save some ground but the army worms still had them in the end. It has to reach the point of doing more harm than good in the long term. Know a few people that just got out the roller to try thin the numbers, don't know that it did much but I know it made them feel a hell of a lot better.
I suppose we are trying to farm regeneratively on our place. Try to use as little chemical as possible but use a bit when needed, tend to use Seasol and RPR fertiliser as well, just seems to work well on our ground. Always thought about what we used on the farm because of all our sensitive karst. Really started with ragwort may years ago. Dad used to spend lot of time and money spraying it when we used to milk, used to where all the PPE gear but if he got a sniff used to knock him around a bit. So when they released the ragwort beetle in the state we were one of, if not, the first site, same when they later released the moths. We had a neighbour that continued to spray the ragwort year after year and still had ragwort but we had none, when we brought his place years later we just left it alone and it was gone in a few years. Just showed us we didn't have to do what everyone else was doing just because it was the done thing, can't really afford to be to stuck in your ways these days.

I'm interested in how your tillage radish goes in the lucerne. We planted some tillage radish last year, came up really well and then got wiped out over night by the deer that live in the "World Heritage" that surrounds our place, going to try some again in the future.

 

[T Bourne]

Nice bit of country round Rocky Cape. I hear what your saying about spraying the insecticides. Heard of people spraying 5 or 6 times to try and save some ground but the army worms still had them in the end. It has to reach the point of doing more harm than good in the long term. Know a few people that just got out the roller to try thin the numbers, don't know that it did much but I know it made them feel a hell of a lot better.
I suppose we are trying to farm regeneratively on our place. Try to use as little chemical as possible but use a bit when needed, tend to use Seasol and RPR fertiliser as well, just seems to work well on our ground. Always thought about what we used on the farm because of all our sensitive karst. Really started with ragwort may years ago. Dad used to spend lot of time and money spraying it when we used to milk, used to where all the PPE gear but if he got a sniff used to knock him around a bit. So when they released the ragwort beetle in the state we were one of, if not, the first site, same when they later released the moths. We had a neighbour that continued to spray the ragwort year after year and still had ragwort but we had none, when we brought his place years later we just left it alone and it was gone in a few years. Just showed us we didn't have to do what everyone else was doing just because it was the done thing, can't really afford to be to stuck in your ways these days.

I'm interested in how your tillage radish goes in the lucerne. We planted some tillage radish last year, came up really well and then got wiped out over night by the deer that live in the "World Heritage" that surrounds our place, going to try some again in the future.

Very interesting, it's a bit like a farmer here. Always trying to spray broad leaf 'weeds' out of his paddocks and never winning. Gets rid of them for a year or two but they come back cause the management practices that make a niche available to them don't change. I feel that if your having trouble with dandelions, plantain and dock you should introduce some deep rooted herbs that will be beneficial, like chicory, plantain, ect. Fill that niche with something that will benefit your business. Intend to grow grasses and broad leafs other than one species of perennial ryegrass.
Again, he always gets hit hard by redheaded cockchafers, funny though the paddocks with some natural cocksfoot fare a lot better. I'm trying to rub off on him, I'm reseeding a few paddock's for him and encouraged him to try a little trial. Instead of planting a straight ryegrass mix I gave him a list of ryegrass, cocksfoot, fescue, phalaris, two clovers and a medic. He was on board and handed the list to his agronomist. I turned up to drill and we had two perennial ryegrasses, one clover, and cocksfoot for just one paddock.

 

[T Bourne]

Nice bit of country round Rocky Cape. I hear what your saying about spraying the insecticides. Heard of people spraying 5 or 6 times to try and save some ground but the army worms still had them in the end. It has to reach the point of doing more harm than good in the long term. Know a few people that just got out the roller to try thin the numbers, don't know that it did much but I know it made them feel a hell of a lot better.
I suppose we are trying to farm regeneratively on our place. Try to use as little chemical as possible but use a bit when needed, tend to use Seasol and RPR fertiliser as well, just seems to work well on our ground. Always thought about what we used on the farm because of all our sensitive karst. Really started with ragwort may years ago. Dad used to spend lot of time and money spraying it when we used to milk, used to where all the PPE gear but if he got a sniff used to knock him around a bit. So when they released the ragwort beetle in the state we were one of, if not, the first site, same when they later released the moths. We had a neighbour that continued to spray the ragwort year after year and still had ragwort but we had none, when we brought his place years later we just left it alone and it was gone in a few years. Just showed us we didn't have to do what everyone else was doing just because it was the done thing, can't really afford to be to stuck in your ways these days.

I'm interested in how your tillage radish goes in the lucerne. We planted some tillage radish last year, came up really well and then got wiped out over night by the deer that live in the "World Heritage" that surrounds our place, going to try some again in the future.

We don't have deer, but we've got wallabies by the thousands, very destructive, particularly on the lucerne.

 

[T Bourne]

Here I'm talking about using calcium chloride as a pest deterant, if any of you have any thoughts please share them, thanks.

 

[T Bourne]

Hi guys, here's a bit of an update on the farm. I've been very busy digging potatoes for the last few months but that came to an abrupt end Thurs before last with 80mm of rain so far. It's well and truly wet underfoot now, our winter has started. This is our nearest weather station.
I know you've not had any reprieve yet @Farmer Roy , my apologies, I don't mean to skite.
http://m.weatherzone.com.au/tas/north-west-coast/wynyard/monthtodate
Daily Observation Summaries for June 2018.

Time Min (anomaly) Max (anomaly) Rain to 9am
1 Fri 0.2°C (-4.0) 14.4°C (+0.9) mm
2 Sat 1.7°C (-2.5) 15.7°C (+2.2) mm
3 Sun 1.1°C (-3.1) 13.9°C (+0.4) mm
4 Mon 0.6°C (-3.6) 15.4°C (+1.9) mm
5 Tue 0.6°C (-3.6) 13.4°C (-0.1) mm
6 Wed 4.6°C (+0.4) 15.9°C (+2.4) mm
7 Thu 10.1°C (+5.9) 16.9°C (+3.4) 0.4 mm
8 Fri 10.8°C (+6.6) 14.7°C (+1.2) 7.8 mm
9 Sat 2.4°C (-1.8) 15.0°C (+1.5) 7.6 mm
10 Sun 0.6°C (-3.6) 13.7°C (+0.2) 0.2 mm
11 Mon 4.2°C (0.0) 15.0°C (+1.5) 1.4 mm
12 Tue 11.8°C (+7.6) 13.3°C (-0.2) 5.0 mm
13 Wed 7.1°C (+2.9) 13.8°C (+0.3) 16.6 mm
14 Thu 3.8°C (-0.4) 13.5°C (0.0) 7.2 mm
15 Fri 6.7°C (+2.5) 11.6°C (-1.9) 25.0 mm
16 Sat 3.3°C (-0.9) 13°C (-1) 9.6 mm

• Back to Wynyard details

 

[JX1100U]

Crops are looking good, we just started feeding our oats off to our replacement heifer mob. We've had about 50mm of rain since Thursday, needed it was a bit dry compared to usual and we got snow on the tiers. What variety of vetch did you plant? and how much was it per kilo? What rate did you plant it at with the mix? if you don't mind me asking. We are going to put a bit more variety in our winter feed, went with just oats with the SPS Italian stallion ryegrass mix this year but did find some tillage radish in one paddock, the seed must have been in the ground for near on two years but looks very good. Looking at going with oats, vetch and tillage radish, not sure if we will keep the ryegrass in the mix, might just throw in some cheap Tama. Benatas vetch sounds good and is supposed to survive the cold very well, which is a big requirement up here.

Wallaby fencing will make a huge difference, I mentioned before we are surrounded by world heritage but we used to own it, so when we sold it we had in the contract they had to put up a wallaby fence. The mesh with the footing mesh is an absolute must, wasn't available when ours was done. From what we have seen you really need to start 12 month before you put up the fence by trying to knock the numbers back, otherwise the wallaby will just keep beating on the fence doing damage or dig under it in such numbers that the fence might as well not be there. Its something we didn't do well enough to start with and had quite a few holes dug under it but even then the increase in grass was huge compared to what we had been getting of some paddocks. Went to a field day about five years ago that said you lost about something like 60% of grass within 800m of a bush line, which for us meant that we lost 60% of the grass over all the farm. So we went mad with spotlighting, had about 1500 in six weeks and just about to crack 5000 over the last five years, trying to control their numbers is a never ending job.

On another note, just to prove that Tassie is a small place, I think I found exactly where you are based, entirely by accident. I'm a structural engineer when not on the farm (pays for my tractor), had a job doing bridge inspection all over the west coast, from Queenstown to Woolnorth and basically everywhere in between. Ended up down a road doing an inspection on the bridge over Wilsons creek that is just before what I think is your shed.

 

[T Bourne]

Crops are looking good, we just started feeding our oats off to our replacement heifer mob. We've had about 50mm of rain since Thursday, needed it was a bit dry compared to usual and we got snow on the tiers. What variety of vetch did you plant? and how much was it per kilo? What rate did you plant it at with the mix? if you don't mind me asking. We are going to put a bit more variety in our winter feed, went with just oats with the SPS Italian stallion ryegrass mix this year but did find some tillage radish in one paddock, the seed must have been in the ground for near on two years but looks very good. Looking at going with oats, vetch and tillage radish, not sure if we will keep the ryegrass in the mix, might just throw in some cheap Tama. Benatas vetch sounds good and is supposed to survive the cold very well, which is a big requirement up here.

Wallaby fencing will make a huge difference, I mentioned before we are surrounded by world heritage but we used to own it, so when we sold it we had in the contract they had to put up a wallaby fence. The mesh with the footing mesh is an absolute must, wasn't available when ours was done. From what we have seen you really need to start 12 month before you put up the fence by trying to knock the numbers back, otherwise the wallaby will just keep beating on the fence doing damage or dig under it in such numbers that the fence might as well not be there. Its something we didn't do well enough to start with and had quite a few holes dug under it but even then the increase in grass was huge compared to what we had been getting of some paddocks. Went to a field day about five years ago that said you lost about something like 60% of grass within 800m of a bush line, which for us meant that we lost 60% of the grass over all the farm. So we went mad with spotlighting, had about 1500 in six weeks and just about to crack 5000 over the last five years, trying to control their numbers is a never ending job.

On another note, just to prove that Tassie is a small place, I think I found exactly where you are based, entirely by accident. I'm a structural engineer when not on the farm (pays for my tractor), had a job doing bridge inspection all over the west coast, from Queenstown to Woolnorth and basically everywhere in between. Ended up down a road doing an inspection on the bridge over Wilsons creek that is just before what I think is your shed.

I can't remember off the top of my head the variety of vetch, I'll have a look next time I'm at the seed. It was $1.94/kg, one of the cheapest things I planted per kg. I planted it at 5kg/ha but unfortunately the volunteer oats smothered it a bit.
It's amazing how much forage you can lose to the vermin, I'll get on to the wallaby fencing this winter.
That would have been my place you saw, it's certainly a small world! To bad I wasn't there, we could have met in person.

 

[T Bourne]

Here are a few videos I've made in the last couple weeks.
I've bought another 27 cattle, bringing my total to 36 which will be enough for now. I'll see how the feed situation goes, I may have to buy or sell some down the track.

 

[T Bourne]

Crops are looking good, we just started feeding our oats off to our replacement heifer mob. We've had about 50mm of rain since Thursday, needed it was a bit dry compared to usual and we got snow on the tiers. What variety of vetch did you plant? and how much was it per kilo? What rate did you plant it at with the mix? if you don't mind me asking. We are going to put a bit more variety in our winter feed, went with just oats with the SPS Italian stallion ryegrass mix this year but did find some tillage radish in one paddock, the seed must have been in the ground for near on two years but looks very good. Looking at going with oats, vetch and tillage radish, not sure if we will keep the ryegrass in the mix, might just throw in some cheap Tama. Benatas vetch sounds good and is supposed to survive the cold very well, which is a big requirement up here.

Wallaby fencing will make a huge difference, I mentioned before we are surrounded by world heritage but we used to own it, so when we sold it we had in the contract they had to put up a wallaby fence. The mesh with the footing mesh is an absolute must, wasn't available when ours was done. From what we have seen you really need to start 12 month before you put up the fence by trying to knock the numbers back, otherwise the wallaby will just keep beating on the fence doing damage or dig under it in such numbers that the fence might as well not be there. Its something we didn't do well enough to start with and had quite a few holes dug under it but even then the increase in grass was huge compared to what we had been getting of some paddocks. Went to a field day about five years ago that said you lost about something like 60% of grass within 800m of a bush line, which for us meant that we lost 60% of the grass over all the farm. So we went mad with spotlighting, had about 1500 in six weeks and just about to crack 5000 over the last five years, trying to control their numbers is a never ending job.

On another note, just to prove that Tassie is a small place, I think I found exactly where you are based, entirely by accident. I'm a structural engineer when not on the farm (pays for my tractor), had a job doing bridge inspection all over the west coast, from Queenstown to Woolnorth and basically everywhere in between. Ended up down a road doing an inspection on the bridge over Wilsons creek that is just before what I think is your shed.

Hi again. I had a look and I used Rasina vetch. I haven't used vetch before so don't know how it stacks up against other cultivars.

 

[JX1100U]

Thanks for that, might see if I can get some of the Benatas and Rasina, try a paddock of each to see how they preform.

 

[TelesnaAg]

Here are a few videos I've made in the last couple weeks.
I've bought another 27 cattle, bringing my total to 36 which will be enough for now. I'll see how the feed situation goes, I may have to buy or sell some down the track.
View attachment 685992

what pasture mix you using?

Cheers, Ant..