GRAZING crops have improved significantly the bottom line of the Whiting family's mixed-farming operation and given them "two bites at the cherry".
Farming at Esperance, the Whitings introduced grain and graze crops to their program about seven years ago and have been reaping the benefits in both cropping and livestock production since.
A diesel mechanic by trade, third-generation farmer Brett Whiting, 27, returned to his family's Shepwok Downs farm at Gibson near Esperance from South Australia in 2016.
Today, Mr Whiting, his parents Michael and Anne and brother Jordan, oversee a 5000 hectare cropping program, 2000ha of which is grazed, in a 475 millimetre rainfall zone.
They also run 600 head of Angus cattle at Condingup and 1600 head of Merino sheep on leased land at Wongutha Christian Aboriginal Parent-Directed School (CAPS).
Mr Whiting said his father first trialled grain and graze crops across 150ha with the idea of "making sheep more viable on good cropping country".
Graza 80 Forage Oats were used in the trial and delivered "unbelievable" results, which pushed productivity and profitability.
"The cropping side is very attractive," Mr Whiting said.
"I think that you need to justify the land you are taking up for animals.
"If you know you are going to make $1000 a hectare from cropping on that land instead of running sheep, then you are going to crop it.
"That's where grazing crops come in - the way they come out of the ground and the feed they provide is absolutely insane."
Last year, the Whitings grazed 300 ewes with lambs across 30ha of oats for 126 consecutive days with no intention of harvest.
Despite this, they managed to produce 15 tonnes of seed to be stored for this year.
Mr Whiting said they also planted Planet barley and GrangeR barley near the sheep block.
He said crops had responded well under the pressure of livestock.
"You graze the crops down within an inch of its life, take the sheep off, come through with some nitrogen and it just responds incredibly.
"The biomass it creates is massive for finishing lambs or even for lactating ewes - you want green feed for them to lamb down onto."
Mr Whiting added that while some farmers may be intimidated by the yield penalty, it was something he had never experienced before, particularly with barley crops.
In fact, crops the Whitings grazed, out yielded those they didn't.
"With Illabo wheat, we remove the biomass, which helps with disease because of how hard it tillers - it is just huge," Mr Whiting said.
"Last year, we figured out we were getting about $300-350/ha just in grazing matter and we were also getting a harvest on top of that.
"So you get two bites of the cherry and it doesn't affect your yield."
This year, the Whitings planted Graza 85 Forage oats and experienced 30 days between seeding and grazing.
Mr Whiting said it was incredible how soon livestock could graze after a crop had been seeded.
He said Graza 85 had great early vigour and with the help of water, it had completely changed the farm's stocking rates.
Last year Planet barley was seeded on April 30 with the first graze on June 24 and harvested in late November.
"We received $345/ha of grazing value from the crop and then came back and harvested a very good barley crop," Mr Whiting said.
"We have used Planet barley at the sheep block again this year.
"Oats are put in early, so once the Planet barley is seeded, the oats are usually ready for a bit of a break.
"We swap them over, come in with 80 litres of Flexi-N for a nitrogen boost and within two weeks it is going nuts.
"Pastures just don't make sense to us because they aren't viable."
The Whitings don't hold back on nitrogen, which has proven to be their "biggest goal kicker".
Mr Whiting said it had been a balancing act and as simple as keeping nitrogen levels up and not over grazing.
"Then you can graze for a long time," he said.
"We did put some canola down at Wongutha this year, which we wouldn't usually do because it gets wet down there.
"The intention was to try and graze it because we have never grazed canola before.
"But the timing of lambing and the window I had to graze the canola overlapped and I didn't want to be moving ewes with lambs from paddock-to-paddock with mismothering.
"We might look at changing the timing of lambing to work this into our program."
Farming in a high rainfall zone, waterlogging has been one of the biggest challenges the Whitings have faced.
They have also battled issues with germination, seeding on non-wetting surface soil with very little or no clay-rich subsoil.
Soil amelioration, including deep ripping, and spading has helped to fix those non-wetting sands and sandy gravel soil types, turning non-productive land productive again.
When it comes to soil amelioration, wind plays a massive factor and leaves paddocks vulnerable for a long period of time.
"We spade seed, so the window between getting cover on the soil is a lot closer, but you do get hurt sometimes," Mr Whiting said.
"We usually try and do it into barley because barley shoots back well if it does get cut off by the wind.
"You wouldn't do it in canola though, especially around here.
"We have done it into Illabo wheat this year and that looks really good."
Mr Whiting added that seeing the gamble that his father and brother had taken with spading, ripping and delving pay off, was the greatest reward of all.
He said hundreds of machine hours were spent running the spader at 2.2ha an hour, around the clock for 40 days straight.
"You start losing your marbles, but you are so passionate about what you are doing," Mr Whiting said.
"It looks like the beach in front of you and then you look behind and it is perfectly symmetrical with a nice crust on it.
"You can see instant change in an area that looked horrible before because it was basically just silicone.
"You could tip water on it and three days later come back to it and the water would still be there."
To date, the Whitings have spaded almost 2000ha, across three seedings.
They started with the worst areas, turned it into productive farming land and are now choosing areas they think they can benefit from.
Germination was a struggle on their farm's northern block, so the land was deep ripped at 12.5 degrees and delved to 1.2m, bringing up 250-300t of clay to the hectare.
They then returned and deep ripped it again at 12.5 degrees.
"We spaded it straight, so all that sandy gravel went down to 300 and then we mixed all the clay through the top layer," Mr Whiting said.
"Wheat germinated that was seeded two seedings ago and was still sitting in dry sand.
"It brought up that much moisture and the barley crop went nuts - we were very happy with that."
Despite focusing mainly on cropping, sheep and cattle have also played an important role in the Whiting's program.
This year, they recorded a lambing percentage of 104pc, which Mr Whiting described as "really good" given half to three quarters were maidens.
After preg-testing, the dries were sent to Neridup to be put in with White Suffolk rams.
Usually they would be sent off as mutton, however Mr Whiting said he wanted to hold onto them given how difficult they would be to replace.
"We have taken more of a 'leave them to it' approach, where previously we probably overmanaged them and stirred them up a bit," he said.
"We lost lambs because of that.
"So we left them to it and it seemed to work better."
Running livestock on sandplain country - with very minimal calcium in crops - meant the Whiting's flock had been hit with hypocalcemia on a number of occasions.
Two tonnes of lime are spread to the hectare and supplement mixes are used to keep the ewes' stores up.
The decision to do so was made after a number of ewes were lost in the yards.
"Lambing was draining their stores and they were having birthing difficulties," Mr Whiting said.
"Keeping the calcium up is probably the biggest improvement we have seen."
The Whitings source their Merino rams from Andrew and Rosemary Michael's Leahcim stud at Snowtown, South Australia.
The genetics appealed to them, as they were a plainer bodied sheep and better suited to the Esperance climate.
Shearing is in March and Mr Whiting said they were aiming for a six-month shearing program, which tied in with seeding and harvest.
"It has been a juggling act for us - sometimes we go a little shorter, sometimes a little longer," he said.
"Before I returned to the farm we were just trading sheep.
"So we would buy in crossbred lambs, fatten them up, get rid of them, buy in five-and-a-half-year-old ewes, mate them and get rid of them.
"Then I came back and really got involved in the genetics side of things and wanted to see what we could do with our own self-replacing flock."
Meanwhile, Angus are run much the same as sheep on paddocks with "massive" levels of copper and selenium.
Cattle are usually sent to feedlots.
Mr Whiting said while he never planned on returning to the farm, it was a decision he did not regret.
"I didn't think I would return to the farm, but I didn't think I would be a diesel mechanic either," he said.
"The lifestyle farming gives my family and I is incredible, as is the opportunity to make my own decisions.
"You work ridiculously hard and probably way more than you should, but when it is your own it drives you that bit more I think.
"I learned a lot from my parents and my brother.
"I thought I'd spend more time in the workshop fixing things, but the sheep side and cropping drew me in.
"No day is ever the same."
