Field day provides hopeful insights

While it may have been easier for the group to give the annual event a miss due to the dry conditions, the walk saw more than 60 growers and industry members out to inspect some of the district’s crops and new innovations at work.

At Belinda and Ashley Eastough’s farm at Yuna, Sacoa’s new SE14 soil wetter and Syngenta’s radish herbicide Talinor were being trialled.

Released in 2014, SE14 is designed to act as a moisture retention agent at seeding by increasing soil water capacity around the seed.

Trials by the company with SE14 have shown a 10-60 per cent increase in plant numbers, improvements in herbicide activation in dry seasons and rhizobium nodulation in legumes.

Talinor is a new Group H herbicide which, according to Syngenta territory manager Owen Langley, will provide excellent control against doublegee, wild radish, capeweed and volunteer pulses and canola.

At the eConnected weather station, Department of Agriculture and Food WA (DAFWA) development officer Megan Abrahams provided an insight into the station’s data.

The station, located on Jason and Kim Batten’s farm, is part of the DAFWA eConnected project which is aimed at helping farmers make informed input decisions throughout the season.

“The soil probe is showing that in the 0-10 centimetres soil level after February and March rainfall that there’s not much water there but the next levels between 25-45cm depth after the rainfall events they shift and that water is staying at that level, showing there is water at depth,” she said.

Jason Batten said the station had also been able to provide insights on when spraying to deliver better control on button grass.

He said the site allowed him to better track Delta T conditions.

“The optimal Delta T range is between 2-8 and we found whenever we were spraying from 0-2 we got quite poor results on the grasses but pushing up to 10 we got a lot better control,” he said.

“We wouldn’t have noticed if we weren’t looking at spraying conditions and while it gives us a smaller window for spraying but you get better control.”

Gusty conditions in the northern zone last week prompted DAFWA development officer Bindi Isbister to warn growers that sometimes the best thing to do with windblown paddocks was to leave them.

Ms Isbister said the best strategy was to leave blown paddocks until rain was forecast.

“You can’t do anything until it rains and the best thing to do with those paddocks that are starting to blow away is to leave them,” she said.

“Until it rains you can’t assess or cultivate them and as we don’t really know what is coming, you’ve just got to leave it.

She warned against reseeding canola due to a low yield potential.

“It might be tempting as canola has been quite patchy one thing you could do is get the fire kit out and wet a few areas because reseeding canola now in in the next two weeks is risky as the yield potential is really low.

“It is best to wait and see.”

She said swapping to another crop, such as cereals, could also be problematic in canola paddocks due to herbicide plantback periods.

“If you have used atrazine and propyzamide, they can cause problems with cereals,” she said.

“Atrazine has a six month plant back and propyzamide has 12 month if you’re planning on reseeding you’ll have to look at canola again or lupins.

Another option is to leave weeds to provide cover and spray later or spread clay on particularly badly blown patches.

“If you can access some clay and spread it out on those patches because the long-term management of those blowouts can be quite significant,” she said.

“It is expensive but you do get the added bonus of looking at the non wetting soils.”

A final stop at the Batten’s long-season Forrest wheat crop offered a glimmer of hope for many of the season ahead.

Released in 2011, the variety is classified as a soft wheat and bred for higher rainfall zones with a longer maturing than Yitpi.

The crop was sown into lupin stubble on April 18 following 50mm of rain in March, with around 200mm of summer rainfall.