ONE father, five sons, the family farm and a whole lot of love for agriculture, that's what makes up the McCartney's operation at Chapman Valley.
The farm is owned and run by Colin McCartney, with the assistance of his five sons who all work within the agricultural industry.
Erinn, the oldest, works as an area manager for Pioneer Seeds, Murray does the same for BASF, Haydn sells real estate for Elders, Ken is a grain marketer with Ten Tigers and Regan, the baby of the family, is farming in Mullewa and studying ag.
Murray said it's their dad who farms the place and gets help from all of the brothers when he needs it.
"We're all involved in ag in different ways and dad gets his pound of flesh out of us at the busy times of year," Murray said.
"I took a week off during seeding to help out with that and took a few long weekends off to help with spreading and spraying.
"Between the five of us he manages to get a good bit of help when he needs it."
This year, the McCartneys started seeding in the last week of April, with the classic Anzac Day beginning.
Rather than running 24/7, they got by with one operation running a long shift and had the full program in the ground within a month.
The program ranges between 1000 and 2000 hectares, with only a small amount going to lupins, a third to canola and the rest to wheat.
"We put in a paddock of lupins for the first time in about 10 years as it fit with our rotations and we were trying to fix a bit of nitrogen," Murray said.
"The canola was almost all dry seeded before the big blow came but thankfully that didn't affect us too much, it definitely thinned out some canola areas, but that's recovered quite well.
"We did reseed a small area of wheat that was badly affected, but that wouldn't have been more than 50ha, so we definitely got luckier than some."
When it comes to varieties, the McCartneys try to keep at the forefront of what the good cultivars are and adapt new varieties quite quickly.
They keep an eye on the National Variety Trials to see what's performing well in the area and get along to the local growers groups to have a chat with other farmers about what's working for them.
"Erinn, my oldest brother, is a rep for Pioneer Seeds and BASF, who I work for, also does a bit of canola seeds, so we battle it out a bit there," Murray said.
"Erinn beat me to the punch this year, only due to what was already planned, so we've mostly gone with canola 43Y29 this year.
"For wheat we grow mostly Ninja, the noodle variety, because we seem to get that noodle window pretty consistently here, plus we've got some Scepter in which is a bit of an opportunistic one if we do get the hard window."
The farm received about 50 millimetres of summer rain in February and up until the end of July had copped 175mm for the growing season, since the break at the end of May.
Things have taken a turn for the better this month, with 17mm falling during the first week of August and another 45mm over the weekend of August 8-9.
Murray said they didn't get much summer rain but did get a pretty decent opening break after the big blow, at the end of May.
"We didn't get huge amounts, but what we did get was nice and timely and the season has been set up quite well," he said.
"The crops are taking up a lot and if we can get a favourable spring now, there's definitely a lot of potential.
"There's a lot of smiles around the place at the moment and at this stage, with how we're set up, we could be in for an above average year, but you hate to jinx it."
The farm will continue for years to come, with Colin not planning to go anywhere anytime soon and the boys all keen to keep helping out.
"Dad still says he's got quite a while to go and it's great to see him do what he enjoys for as long as he wants to," Murray said.
"When he is ready to put the feet up, it'll be great if all five of us boys could stay involved and farm it together in one way or another."
While 2019 wasn't a terrible season for the McCartneys, 2020 is shaping up to be a better year and the potential is high for them to have an above-average year.
"If we stay on track of where we are currently, and have a favourable finish, we'll be absolutely stoked," Murray said.
