This season is going along pretty well but we re not overly wet and you might
not think that looking at the crop it s more about timing of rainfall and I m only just
touching decile 5 now which is something I haven t seen for 3 years out here so decile
5 is only average and this is what can happen with an average season if you get it right!
Our soil amelioration program is in our fallow phase which is 15 to 20%
of our program and it's a long fallow, so it's quite a comprehensive amelioration phase. We lime,
gypsum, deep plough with a plozza plough, modified one-way plough to get lime down
and then we come through and deep rip.
We ve got acid at the surface and in the subs, but lime just does not move so for many years we were
liming but were not seeing the effect in the sub so we plough it down, we do this hopefully just
once every 5 to10 years, and we plough it down deep as we can and then come through and rip.
A cover crop is spread to prevent wind erosion so that we can put cover on the
crops and especially if following a fallow phase with canola we need protection for the canola.
Cover crop spread out the back of the spreader and that s cheap and it s after the
plozza ploughing has been done onto the plozza ploughed soil and then we start ripping, deep
ripping commences then and that ll incorporate the seed into the spoil, get the cover, get the strike
and we re away. At the end of the season, the cover crop is sprayed out, that s determined
on rye grass or wild radish seed set so before that happens we ll spray that cover crop out.
Canola fits into our rotation after the fallow, it's probably the only place it
really fits in after a fallow because of the moisture or the moisture that canola needs.
Yeah, we're looking at following legumes with a canola, they do pretty well just trying to find
the best legume, but that's when that fits in after the fallow.
Canola s sown as early as possible to beat the heat. Heat is always a factor out here like
going to into mid-August, late August and early September we can get heat. So we go as early as
possible to beat that, mid to late March early April, early as possible to beat the heat. Some
nice big cabbages down here filled with goodies to help fill those pods and you know if we can
have a nice average finish from here on in, these will flower a lot more flowers to come.
Early vigour is really important for yield if I can grow cabbages,
I know I have half a chance of growing a decent canola crop,
so very important we get our canola crop established early and up and running. I think
the cover crop really gives us that extra N that canola needs for high yield and vigour.
Generally, the canola that I grow out here in the eastern wheatbelt has been an open pollinated
tt canola. After doing quite a few years of in-paddock research and trials
and measuring the differences with the RoundUp readys and the
other hybrids out there we're growing a lot more hybrid canola it is very tough in those tough
conditions and we ve found that they do stand-up and stack up to be a successful canola crop.
Sowing depth of canola s really important and if I m chasing moisture at the start of the year I
don't really care if it s a little bit deeper while the soil s warm and wet. If it's not that we
wait for it to dry right out after the fallow, we have a quite a bit of moisture there, but
we can t go in half wet half dry, so we're now sowing with a canola boot and putting the seed
very, very close to the surface. We re on a 10-inch row spacing and we try to target
around that 20 plants per square metre but you know we're happy and safe that at 15 plants we
can still grow a very good crop. At those sowing rates and plants densities I think we can achieve
a very good yield in the eastern wheatbelt of 2-tonne if we have the rainfall.
The golden rule for growing canola in the eastern wheatbelt is moisture I think that s really
important you follow a fallow, like store your moisture, control your summer weeds, and just keep
hold of that moisture but I am seeing good results after legumes and I m thinking that s probably the
second phase there is to get it in after a legume. It s good that GRDC are out looking
at what we re doing on farm and looking at the research done to date. I think we re only touching
the surface there s so much more we can do in this zone and we need this research to happen but it
s very satisfying to see such a beautiful crop when the rain falls at the right time.