SE14 agent works well in trial for Crichton Vale's Pete Cowan

That's the plan in the coming season for eastern Wheatbelt grower Pete Cowan, after he trialled the SE14 moisture attraction and retention agent from SACOA last year.

Together with his parents, Bill and Diane, Pete and his wife Felicity grow canola, wheat, barley and oats across 10,000ha and run sheep on more than 5000ha on their Crichton Vale property between Mount Walker and Lake Varley.

While the property has a range of soils, Mr Cowan said he was not evaluating SE14 to address a soil issue, but rather to help with germinating canola and oat crops before the start of May.

"By doing that, we then have the chance of producing about a tonne a hectare, otherwise if you look over the past in our climate and with tough finishes, yields can be down to 0.4t/ha,'' Mr Cowan said.

"So anything to get it out of the ground and up and going is worth the investment.

"If you can get canola up to a reasonable size, it's a good chance of hanging in there.

"You do have the risk of dry conditions after establishment, but you have to look at an overall risk profile and have some things at higher risk and some at lower risk.

"You have no idea what you might come up against and the high-risk strategy can be the best.

"With oats too, if you have a hard finish, they throw in the towel, but if you can get them a fair way along, you can be three-quarters of the way there.''

Mr Cowan investigated the SE14 in canola by performing skip row trials with his 25 metre (84 foot) Seed Hawk bar.

The seeding application included the deep banding of an Agflow/Muriate of Potash fertiliser blend at 70 kilograms a hectare, followed by 2.5 litres/per hectare of SE14, together with 40L/ha of Flexi-N and 20L/ha of water, applied with 2.5kg/ha of Bonito seed.

The Flexi-N is normally deep banded at 70L/ha and while they ensured dilution of its application in the seed zone, Mr Cowan said they would not apply Flexi-N any higher than 40L/ha with canola seed.

Prior to seeding, dolomite was applied at 3t/ha and Sulphate of Ammonia at 150kg/ha.

Mr Cowan said there was an incredible difference with the strike and evenness of germination of canola with the SE14 and this was later also clear on satellite biomass imagery, which highlighted the SE14-sown rows.

"It was more advanced at all points - coming out of the ground and getting going," he said.

"The other canola was not as thick or advanced.

"It was a more positive result than we were expecting because we had reasonable rain and so were surprised the other canola didn't get going.

"We had 10-15 millimetres to germinate it and then the rains continued, so the SE14 was impressive.

"Another big win was that it was pretty even across all soil types and paddocks, whereas we can get patchy germinations.

"We can have large areas where it hasn't got going because it hasn't struck or it's started and then died.

"Getting the weed competition early is good too and the better timing for grass sprays is a real positive.

"When the crop is up and even it's a lot easier to make management decisions, rather than having some plants coming out of the ground and others throwing a flower up.''

While Mr Cowan estimated frosts reduced grain yields by about 10 per cent last season, he said the crop harvested in patches was "phenomenal''.

"In my 16-18 years, we have grown some nice crops, but there are always challenges,'' he said.

"This is the first 2t/ha canola crop I have ever been lucky enough to harvest."

The Cowans plan to use the SE14 moisture attraction and retention agent across their full canola program in the coming season at 2-3L/ha, as well as to continue with some trials in the oats.

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