WITH the season on a knife's edge and input costs at an all-time high, not wasting product is critical and the Battens' variable rate program has never been more important.
Farming at Yuna, the Batten family - Jason (pictured below) and his wife Nicole, along with his brother Kim, sister-in-law Jasmine and nephew Denva - try to utilise every drop of rainfall, usually averaging 250 to 300 millimetres.
Some seasons are tough but there are tools and resources they utilise to help the decision making process.
Batten Farms received 50mm of summer rainfall which provided some confidence and further rain in early April allowed them to get a good weed knockdown and seed early.
It was an unusual turn of events as their season generally doesn't start until late May when the cold fronts start pushing further north.
However, over the past two years they have been lucky to get substantial summer rain which has allowed them to seed and get crops out of the ground in late April and early May.
"We generally don't like to seed into June as it's
too late for us to put a crop in," Mr Batten said.
"It's flat out in May if we have moisture as we can still see 30 degree days which make the soils dry out really quickly."
While the beginning of the year had seen good rainfall, things took a turn once the growing season began with June and July both very dry and the crops begging for a drink as a result.
It took until the second last week of
July before double figures were finally recorded, with 21mm coming down and saving the crops from the brink of no return.
While the crops are now looking healthy, seeding as early as they do presents its own set of challenges as the area is prone to frost, which is something most people don't realise about the far north agricultural zone.
At the end of July temperatures dropped to zero degrees for a few days, however the benefit for the Battens is it warms up quite quickly during the day, so generally they're not getting frozen for long periods of time.
"The frosts that we did have at the end of July haven't done too much damage, partly due to the rain we had just beforehand," Mr Batten said.
"But we also have to worry about the heat at the end of the season - it's quite common for us to be pushing 28-30o come late August and early September which is why we try to plant as early as we can as we know we have a heat shock risk at the end of the season."
Extreme weather conditions at both ends of the spectrum should be enough of a challenge - and the soils the Battens have to deal with make the job even more difficult.
Soil type can vary across most paddocks with different water holding capacity, pH and nutritional requirements, so applications are varied across soil types to match target yield.
These soils and areas are analysed using soil tests, yield maps, biomass imagery and Google Earth to map out the zones true to soil type.
In 2015, the Battens purchased a Morris seeding bar and box with variable rate technology.
They then zoned all paddocks with the help of precision agriculture specialist Bindi Isbister, who has worked in the field for more than 20 years.
Mr Batten said the key reasons for being so strategic with variable rates was to not waste any inputs, with seeding and fertiliser rates being the main target.
"A seeding rate on our loams is generally about 40-50 kilograms per hectare for wheat, whereas on the sands, we will seed 70-80kg/ha because we try to get numbers there for cover," he said.
"At the other end of the spectrum, on the shallow soil types we can be down to 20-30kg/ha and that's to try to keep biomass as low as we can because we know we're going to have dry periods throughout the year so we don't want to grow really bulky crops."
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When it comes to yield, the Battens target two tonnes per hectare for wheat, but that changes based on their confidence at sowing time.
On the shallower soils, they're really only aiming for 1-1.5t/ha and while the sands can achieve 2t/ha easily enough, there's a lot of inputs which go into achieving that in terms of nitrogen top-ups.
Overall, their average yield for wheat is about 1.7t/ha, meaning gross margin wise they can't afford to waste any inputs as the risk is too high.
"With the high fertiliser costs this year, I knew nitrogen would be expensive and so we seeded with higher nitrogen rates than we usually would because I didn't want to come back and there was a bit of confidence to do that given the summer rain," Mr Batten said.
"On the loams this year we applied nine units of phosphorus and 30 units of nitrogen, while on the shallower soils it was half that and then we top up accordingly throughout the season."
With so much focus on doing what is best for the different soil types, amelioration also comes into the picture.
There has been a focus on deep ripping the sandy soils so the roots can explore more, but the loams are left alone as trials in the area haven't shown any benefit.
Mr Batten said with the loams being their premium soil type, they try not to disturb them too much.
"However, we are doing a little bit of offset disc work with the loams to try and incorporate lime sand to depth," he said.
"Because we've been pulling good crops out of those loamy soil types, they're becoming more acidic and we're trying to deal with that."
When it comes to soils, the last element is leaving alone what isn't suitable for cropping.
The Battens have 13,000-8000ha of which they own and the rest is leased.
Of that, they crop between 6000-8000ha each year, fallow 2000-3000ha and run livestock on what's left.
The Battens run about 2000 head of Dorpers, 1000 of which are stud animals as part of their business - the Douwana Dorper sheep stud.
On top of that, they also run Merinos as part of an embryo program.
"We hope to get 200-300 embryos out of that program, but it can really vary in terms of its success rate and the stick rate is generally about 60-65pc," Mr Batten said.
"At the moment it's still quite cost effective as the price of the embryo work has not gone up, but obviously the livestock prices have risen quite substantially."
