A DECADE ago Tim Hardingham sat down and did some strategic planning to diversify his family's Corrigin farming operation and in February last year these plans came to fruition, with the purchase of a 500 hectare blue gum farm at Frankland River.
Based in a 750 millimetre rainfall area, once all the blue gums on the property have been removed, Mr Hardingham said the farm would be used for cropping or to run his sheep.
"We will always farm at Corrigin, but seeing as it isn't a high rainfall area it's nice to know we have that backup down south," Mr Hardingham said.
"We're in the process of pulling out all of the blue gums and we've completed 70ha of stump removal already and started another 15ha this year.
"We put in 70ha of barley, but ended up having to sacrifice that crop for our sheep, because there wasn't enough feed down there."
After recently adding 160 sheep to his flock of 1400 breeding Merino ewes, Mr Hardingham plans to eventually increase this number to 2000, but said that could take some time due to the current price of ewes.
"By having a dual operation and spreading our risk, we get weed control and we also have that back-up of having our sheep and lambs if we get a few bad years," he said.
Mr Hardingham is a third-generation farmer and took over the family's 3500ha Corrigin farm 10 years ago.
He now runs the property with his wife Shannon and seasonal help from his father Kevin and his uncle Bryce.
Fortunately, this year's harvest doesn't look too bad for the mixed-cropping farm, which is predominantly barley.
"I don't know whether our farm got a bit more rain than other places in the Corrigin area, but our crops seem to have gone alright," Mr Hardingham said.
After a 10-year break from canola he reintroduced 500ha of the Benito variety this year which is expected to average one tonne per hectare.
"We put the canola in mainly just for weed control, as the ryegrass was getting out of control, even with our sheep and early spray topping of our paddocks," Mr Hardingham said.
"We might do GM one day, but because we're new to canola we're trying to keep it simple for now.
"It's the first time my uncle has ever harvested canola and he's been driving the header for us for years, so it's been good to mix it up."
Mr Hardingham also added 200ha of Gunyidi and Jurien lupins to the farm's crops which he expects to yield more than one tonne a hectare and he also planted 100ha of export hay.
"We bought our own hay baler last year, so we thought we'd give it a crack," Mr Hardingham said.
"It's worth about 350 dollars a tonne at the moment, so considering the oats that were there probably would have yielded 1.5t and we've got a 3.2t crop at well above what the price of the oats would have been, it's worked out really well."
Despite having to cut the hay a bit early due to dry conditions, Mr Hardingham said the quality was still very good and the farm had 550 bales for export.
In talking to other farmers in the area, he guessed he would be looking at about 2.5t/ha for his 1000ha of barley.
"I'm not sure if that will be accurate for us, but early indications on our barley is that we're looking at about 80 per cent screenings, so I'm definitely not expecting any malt barley," Mr Hardingham said.
"We've harvested some oats that are doing about 1.6t/ ha which is about half of what the hay went, so we're pretty happy with that.
"The oats also dried out a lot quicker than what we thought, but the quality is pretty good."
Although the farm's wheat might have lost a bit of yield due to the dry finish, Mr Hardingham said it had also filled out nicely.
"We aren't big wheat growers, so with only 300ha in we bought the Australian Premium White Noodle (APWN) Devil wheat variety because we thought we might as well get the highest premium we can," Mr Hardingham said.
"This is our first year with that variety and I think it's worth about $340/t at the moment."
Because the family's farms are spread out so far, Mr Hardingham opted to have two John Deere STS headers, rather than a header and a chaser bin.
"We did try it for a couple of years but we ended up selling the chaser bin and buying another header instead,'' he said.
"It works better for us to have one header going on one farm and another one on another farm as we have two trucks, so we can get it all away easy enough," Mr Hardingham said.
Mr Hardingham's uncle is on the header this season, while his father also joins them for seeding and harvest every year.
"Dad is still interested in it, so he'll come and help out during the year and occasionally we'll get some other people in if we need some extra help," Mr Hardingham said.
"It's great working with family and it's a wonderful place for our kids to grow up.
"To know that my sons or daughter might want to take over the farm one day, that's a huge thing for my dad and pop Ledge, who has passed.
"To have that legacy and be able to keep it in the family - it's a really special thing."
