I run a 600ha farm on the Jimbour Plains between Dalby and Jandowae on the Darling Downs in Queensland. We have black cracking clay soils and our average annual rainfall is around 600-650mm per year. Really, for the last 30 years the average has been closer to the 600mm mark, however over the longer term of 120 years it is 650mm.
I primarily grow sorghum and chickpeas and may rotate in and out of mungbeans, wheat, barley and some corn. On our irrigated country cotton is our main crop. We primarily have summer rainfall, so sorghum does make up most of our rotation, followed by chickpeas, which can add up to 100kg of nitrogen for the next summer crop coming through. While wheat does well in our soils, with low winter rainfall, chickpeas perform better on stored as a winter crop, however our focus is on summer crops.
We’ve recently finished harvesting early sorghum that came off at around 8.5t/ha and the final 220ha will be off soon, depending on rainfall. We will also start putting down nitrogen fertiliser for our next summer crop as well as planting chickpeas for the upcoming winter cropping season.
I recently presented at WeedSmart Week in Dalby where I spoke about the importance of on farm biosecurity and weeds. We’ve had some issues in the past where problem weeds have been brought on farm by header contractors, hay and through planting seed, including Group A resistant Wild Oats. We are now very conscious of these vectors of entry and now retain our own seed where possible, while sorghum is a hybrid and we don’t keep our own seed, it is not necessarily an issue.
Our biggest issue is inputs, in particular fertiliser costs. Last year we dealt with nitrogen costs three times higher than what we normally deal with. Our other concern and something that has been very disappointing to growers across our region has been the loss of our major nitrogen input of Anhydrous Ammonia with the close of the nearest plant in Brisbane. The N requirement for growing crops isn’t going away any time soon, so it is something that we concentrate on to produce high yielding and high quality crops. However, farmers are the best innovators out there and I’m sure that it could be easily overcome with our great Aussie ingenuity.