Clay Gowers is a grain grower in the Sunraysia region near Mildura.
At the minute this paddocks going into weight but it has been vetch in the past has been lentils, [and] lupins.
Next door across a windbreak of trees is a citrus orchard managed by Tommy Braybrook.
As you see, we grow citrus - many different varieties throughout the season.
While the farms produce vastly different crops, one thing they have in common is weeds.
And both growers are participating in a project which is busting down borders, bringing neighboUrs together to tackle weeds.
Called "Area Wide Weed Management for cropping systems weeds", the project is supported through funding from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry as part of its rural R&D for profit program.
There's additional Grains Research and Development and Cotton Research and Development Cooperation investment.
And there are collaborations with a range of other organisations, from local farm groups to universities.
These projects are really interesting one, because it's bringing together - not just one sector, but multiple sectors.
We've got grains, we've got cotton, we've got horticulture, [and] wine coming together along with the federal government funding.
It's bringing us all together to look at mobile weeds.
And these are the weeds that spread across boundaries, including public land.
Group leader, Dr rick Llewellyn, says the project is looking at a range of problem weeds and is focused on three pilot regions: the Sunraysia, the Darling Downs and the Murrumbidgee irrigation area.
In the Darling Downs, we've got the Toowoomba Regional Council involved and that's looking at roadside weed management and what can be done on those roadsides to suppress the weeds that are important.
Because up there you've got, you've got cropping farms that might try to maintain bare fellows and then you've got weeds growing on the roadside.
So in the Murrumbidgee and the irrigation area there, there's the channel banks because you've got a lot of movement of channel water between an incredibly diverse range of farms; cotton grains, horticulture, viticulture, and you're trying to manage that movement and the weed seed set that might happen on the channel banks.
In Sunraysia, where grain farms are adjacent to horticulture, reducing off target damage while maintaining weed control is key.
Michael Moodie is a research agronomist conducting trials here in conjunction with Mallee Sustainable Farming.
Flex leaf fleabane is a problem summer weed.
It's particularly a problem in horticulture, but it's also becoming an increasing problem in in the dry land sector as we've moved away from cultivation practices into more chemical control practices over the last 20 years.
Michael's been testing a double-knock strategy; spraying with a systemic herbicide glyphosate, following up later with a contact herbicide such as Paraquat.
We took a section of the paddock and we sprayed a range of I think there was over 11 different treatments that we sprayed back in about December last year, looking at that double-knock strategy.
So it was a replicated trial which we actually sprayed with this boom, which was a 14 meter passes going across the paddocks, so covered quite a significant area.
If the plants were small enough, and when I mean "small" probably around about ankle high, we're able to get a complete kill on those plants with the double-knock treatment.
The problem was most of the plants were actually quite a bit bigger than that.
Mature fleabane is difficult to control with herbicide, and the fluffy seed heads are extremely mobile.
So I told me this is probably an example of one of the the better treatments in the trial.
It's a double-knock treatment.
So the two in combination, it's like a 1-2 punch working synergistically with with each other.
So yeah, so here we've been able to pull down pretty big, yeah quite a big fleabane plant there.
Michael Moody has been working with Orchard Manager, Tommy Braybrook, to reduce fleabane benefiting the citrus growers bottom line and that of his grain-producing neighbor.
Over on this row over here, this is our untreated.
So basically if we hadn't touched the weeds this is what they'd be looking like now.
Obviously a bit of a mess for you, not only competing robbing yourself of water and nutrients, but also that biosecurity risk; tall sort of weeds growing up in the canopy, potential for insects.
You can see here feabane gone to seed and that's just millions of problems in the future.
I think the biggest thing is weed resistance.
So the chemicals that the citrus growers use to what we use are slightly different.
So they're using different rates and different chemicals to what we are.
So our biggest concern on this side, which could potentially be resistant weeds coming across the fence.
It works the other way round, too.
Broadacre farmers have to be careful with spraying so as to not adversely impact horticulture.
We don't want to damage any of their crops.
So we always hit this paddock and we always strategize when we target this paddock based on the wind.
I mean, if that means spraying this paddock in over two or three separate days, we will do that.
We're very conscious about damaging any of their produce over there, so we treat this farm a little bit different to the rest of our farms based on just that fence line just there.
I think the example we've had here with Tommy and Clay has been exceptional in that they both talk, they both discuss what's happening in terms of their weed management and just really goes to show what can be done when people work together.
As Acting Executive Officer of Mallee Sustainable Farming, Tanja Morgan has been involved in extension in the Sunraysia district, bringing the various farm groups together.
So far we've run events with different industry groups.
It's been hard to get them together because they spray at different times.
So the stuff we focused on in broadacre has really been about summer spraying and avoiding off target damage when they're spraying next to sensitive crops.
In horticultural situation, we're really focused on using the right chemicals, making sure they get a better result when they're actually spraying.
Tommy Braybrook says the feedback from Michael Moody's trials will change the way his business tackles orchard weeds, which is a really good outcome because detailed GPS weed mapping across Sunraysia reveals a higher density of herbicide resistance around horticulture.
So over the last two years we've randomly collected a range of plant populations and had those populations tested for herbicide resistance at a wider scale.
So not just picking dryland paddocks but picking horticulture, picking dry land, picking roadsides and other spots where flavoring is present within the district.
The data from Sunraysia and the other two pilot regions is being loaded into software which forms maps of herbicide resistance.
Already there's 15 to 40% of fleabane populations that are the resistant to glyphosate already within this region.
Those populations around horticulture area tend to be closer to 40% cent.
The populations coming out of the dryland area tend to be closer to 15%.
With the Area Wide Weight Management Program to finish in 2023, the data so far underlines a need for collaboration between the land users.
Achievements at a couple of different levels; I mean, getting this understanding of the amount of mobility is a big step because it hasn't really been done in such a scale before.
But at the other level, at the sort of extension and farmer engagement side of things, what we've seen is some real highlights where you've got the horticultural vineyard sector coming together with the grain sector on some of these things, but it highlights how much potential there is for more of it.
I think it's just about cross-sharing information and being able to say, "Oh, well, you can actually use these chemicals that are actually going to target them better and you won't get resistance down the track".
They might not care about resistance, but we do.
So I think it's it's like a friendly partnership across the neighbour fence.
Giving weeds the flick is in everyone's best interests.