Harringtons in state of flax

Those are the reasons Cordering farmer Ray Harrington, the man behind the Seed Destructor, has started experimenting with flax (otherwise known as linseed) in the cropping program.

While Mr Harrington handed over the day-to-day running of the farm to his nephew Tim Harrington and his wife Vicky almost a decade ago, he has kept himself in the farming game by trialling new ideas.

His journey into flax started five years ago when he travelled to America to deliver some harvest weed seed control presentations and was grizzling because his program consisted of only canola and cereals.

On that trip, one of the local presenters spoke about how his farmers had 14 different crops in their programs and mentioned that he had also spent two years in Adelaide.

Mr Harrington told the presenter that his environment was similar to that of Adelaide and asked which of those 14 crops he could also grow.

The response was automatic - flax.

"I came home from that trip and decided to have a crack, so I got my hands on some flax seed and started the first trial four years ago, in 2018," Mr Harrington said.

"I had two main rules - one was that I had to be able to grow it with no new machinery, as I wasn't going to spend $1 million on something for a trial - and I have been able to sow, spray and harvest it with all of our current equipment.

"The second was that I had to be able to use a full suite of chemicals on it in order to be able to get grasses and broadleaves out, which I have also been able to do, with propyzamide, treflan, select and broadleaf sprays all being used."

While those two elements have been a success, growing the crop has not been all positive, which it never is when trying something new.

Flax is not a competitive crop as it doesn't blanket weeds out, however it is a spring crop that can be sown late which provides the opportunity to get two good knockdowns in, so that balances it out a bit.

Mr Harrington is also still in the process of working out whether or not he can crop top it with glyphosate - both whether he is allowed to, which the industry will decide and whether it finishes early enough that crop topping is effective.

While the machinery and chemical side of growing flax has been straightforward, figuring out the best way to include it in the rotation, which was why he started trialling it in the first place, has not.

"I originally said that I wanted it to be a rotation alongside canola, which it will struggle to do as we're pushing canola yield into the two tonne per hectare or more range," Mr Harrington said.

"But what we're looking at now is other rotation options, especially now that we have lupins back in the program too."

Mr Harrington first started with flax in 2018, before handing the project over to Southern Dirt in 2019 which used Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) funding to complete small plot trials.

There were initially six or seven growers involved in trialling two varieties, Bilton and Croxton, with the former holding up better, as well as time of sowing.

In that small plot trial, Mr Harrington ended up with the lowest yield, even though he had the best plant count, as it turned out flax didn't like being sown on canola stubble, which ended his initial rotation plan.

The project was again funded by GRDC last year, this time with farmer scale plots that are 100 metres long and 13m wide.

"Last year we averaged 1.5 tonnes a hectares, while one of the Williams growers got 1.6t/ha," Mr Harrington said.

"This is now the fourth year we've grown flax, the first three were dry and now we've finally had a wet one, so I'm estimating it will yield at least 1.7t/ha and it sells for $1500 a tonne."

With eight hectares planted to flax this year, Mr Harrington finally feels like he is getting the hang of what works when it comes to rotations.

"The new look rotation here has been lupins, canola, red wheat and barley, but what I've got now in this paddock is lupins, canola, red wheat and flax," he said.

"Now I'm looking at flax as an option to compete with barley on wheat stubble, so it's a whole new line of thinking that we're going down."

This year Southern Dirt is also looking into how barley grown on last year's flax stubble turns out, which will provide a whole new useful set of data.

While flax has started to prove its worth as a rotation option, it is the crop's nutritional component that has Mr Harrington most excited.

"Research from CSIRO shows that flax oil is as healthy as fish oil, it's considered a superfood, but unlike fish oil, flax oil is actually sustainable," he said.

"The opportunity is there in the health food and pharmaceutical market - it's a whole new ball game as you're no longer trying to grow a bulk commodity, you're trying to grow something niche and there is money in that.

"That's been my driver since I found out about it in 2019 as if we can grow a food crop, instead of just bulk grain, that's a real value add to the program."

Flax may have its many positives, but working with small plots can be a massive nuisance, especially with Tim being so busy with the rest of the farm.

However Mr Harrington believes that if he can get it organised and get it working, it will be worth it and he has the time to muck about with it.

"This year's crop was sown right at the end of May and I'm currently counting up to 10 seeds in a pod and up to 40 pods on a plant," he said.

"So from just one seed that went into the ground we're getting up to 400 seeds and we're seeding at 45 kilograms to the hectare."

The flax crop will be swathed in about a month and likely lay there until the Harringtons have finished harvesting the rest of the program.

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