IT was a big and ironic ‘welcome to farming’ when Mitch Mouritz came home from school in 2004 to start his career on the family farm.
As a youngster living in the 1990s, Mitch could have been forgiven for thinking farming was, arguably, a giggle, on the back of successive years of good results.
That all changed after the Y2K bug scare welcomed in the 21st century.
Unreliable climate and volatile market forces saw poor seasons and declining terms of trade.
“It took until 2013 for us to have a really good year,” Mitch said.
“It was the best I had seen where practically everywhere was really strong.”
Farming north of Hyden in a 300 millimetre annual rainfall zone, Mitch maintains a positive pitch against challenges, primarily associated with unreliable moisture events.
“We’ve got no control over rain but we can control how we can take advantage of any moisture,” he said.
Soil health is the first priority to enhance moisture-holding capacity.
It’s not a quick fix and Mitch is well aware of time being a healer.
“We’re on land that has been running sheep for 50 or 60 years and it has got compacted,” he said.
“This year we want to start deep ripping trials to accelerate other strategies we’ve got in place, such as ameliorating soil with lime and gypsum treatments and spreading compost from feedlots.
“Our one-pass crop establishment with the DBS also should help to build up soil structure.
“It’s all a process,” he said.
“But hopefully in drier years we can take advantage of any moisture that will be held in a more structured soil profile.
“With the DBS we have more confidence in dry seeding if we know we’ve got subsoil moisture from the summer rains.
“To an extent, if you’ve got good subsoil moisture, it also can reduce the wet/dry risk and get germinations away with less incidence of staggered germinations.
“But sometimes it’s hard to gauge and you do get years when you end up with a drying scenario and late germinations.
“You’ve got to play it as you see it.”
Another strategy has been sowing clovers over the past five or six years targeting about 200ha a year to maximise nitrogen for following crops.
It also provides strategic grazing for the farm’s 5000 breeding ewes, comprising 3500 Merinos and 1500 F1 White Suffolks and extends crop rotations in a 7000ha cropping program that reflects diversification, with the main farm at north and south east Hyden and two lease blocks at Lake King.
“It gives us different rainfall zones and soil types so we’re not placing all our eggs in one basket,” Mitch said.
“Last year, for example, the north was good and the south east blocks, which are just 40 kilometres away, didn’t perform as well.”
In keeping with a diversified approach to maintain cash flow, Mitch’s father Kent runs a contract earthmoving equipment business, which has prompted Mitch to consider building a large dam on a 16ha block to grow irrigated lucerne.
“I’ve got access to bulldozers and we should be able to maximise a better return,” he said.
“It’s our best block in terms of soil and we use it for the rams but the lucerne looks a good bet.”
The idea for lucerne started with a recent trip to Tasmania through the young grain growers program.
“I was impressed by how farmers used every square inch of their small blocks,” Mitch said.
“I’m talking with Total Eden (associated with Primaries CRT, Hyden) about how it could be designed and how much water we would need to store and I’ll do a course on growing lucerne and talk with some experienced Eastern States lucerne growers.
“We’re probably looking at building a dam which would hold between 5000 and 10,000 cubic metres to hold between five and 10 megalitres.
“We have started drilling two sites to collect cores to assess suitability.
“We’ve already done soil tests and we’re got no boron, no salt and the soil is fairly neutral at 6pH.
“If we cut for hay we could probably get five or six cuts during the season or we could use the paddock for green feed throughout the year.
“It would introduce a bit more flexibility.”
With an eye on his father’s earthmoving equipment, Mitch also is ready for deep ripping trials.
He will compare ripping depths from 800mm (32 inches) to a metre (39in).
“We’ve got access to a bulldozer and heavy road rollers so we should be able to get down to those depths,” he said.
“It will be interesting to see what happens.”
Maintaining a diverse and flexible approach has already produced ‘subtle’ changes, which are indicative to Mitch of the farm’s potential.
But like his peers, he would sit better with an extra 200mm of growing season rain.
