Farmers

Are you going to increase the area next year Lizzie? It's pretty lucrative. Just employ some backpackers or similar to help with the hard work of laying out straw and weeding etc?

See ya's.

 

We are having a perfect season here at the moment. [Liverpool Plains, northern NSW]. Regular timely rain that just seems to know when to stop. Although it's been much cooler than normal, with more and bigger frosts but that's just slowed the crop up by a week or too and not a major issue.

We have 330 hectares of wheat planted. I sprayed it on Tuesday and yesterday and it's looking fantastic. Put on a herbicide for broadleaf weeds and a preventative rust spray. Should go 5 tonnes per hectare even if it didn't rain again as there is a metre of water underneath it now so that's heaps.




We are putting in 90 hectares of cotton in October and 550 hectares of sorghum in November. All going into paddocks with plenty of water under them. The cotton is genetically modified. I spray it with roundup a few times for weed control, and bugs don't like it. All very easy to grow these days, not like in the past when it was sprayed continuously.

We are supposed to be in a nasty El Nino at the moment? Dunno when that will start however during an El nino it just means the chances of good rain are less, but it can still be wet.

I gotta say that in these parts, with the falling Aussie dollar and great commodity prices that things are as good here as they've ever been. Grain, cotton, cattle, sheep, are all doing really well.

See ya's.


Oh, and another 21 mills last night! Didn't need it though.

 

We're looking at doubling again t around 2 ton next year .. which should be no problems with the two of us to handle (plus junior to help at peak times). We grow three varieties of garlic - which harvest around 2 weeks apart - and gives me plenty of time between.

I'm not a big fan on backpackers - only because I really like my own space and not keen on looking after extras ... but I know people who do with great success.

Your crop is looking good - we too have had rain at just the right time. Did put the irrigation on the garlic around a month ago as was looking a little stressed ... irrigated it one day - rained the next week (45mm) and then another good dump of rain last night/today ... so perfect fortnightly top ups.

Feel like I'm back in NZ

 

According to BOM - the Indian Ocean is keeping the El Nino in check by drawing in moisture from the west and across ... apparently if the Indian warms up - or cools down - can't remember which one - then the dry will hit

 

I love this thread.

 

How did you get started and knew what type of crop to plant? Do you plant same stuff ever year or rotate?

 

Before you notice garlic will be your main business

 

hahahaha - another damn hobby that turned into a business! Already brings me in a darn pretty good income for the amount of hours involved

 

My great grandfather bought part of the farm I'm now on in 1938. It was only a few hundred hectares back then and it ran sheep. It's been steadily added to over the years as others went broke, got divorced or had siblings who moved to the city. My farm would be worth 8 million now and we have almost 1000 hectares. Its about average size for where I live. We are debt free and have off farm investments. I would regard what I do as idyllic. I do work flat out for short periods of the year, but at other times it's more relaxing. It would be almost impossible to start off from scratch these days. I can't really see how it could be done?

We can grow lots of different things here. Sorghum is the main crop in summer, but I have also grown corn, soybeans, and sunflowers, and have recently started growing cotton. In winter, wheat is the main crop, but I've also grown barley, faba beans, chick peas and oats. We rotate crops. Everyone does. You do this for many different reasons. I know what does best and makes the most profit and suits the soil or weeds we have.

I had a few different farm threads on somersoft. You may have read them?
http://somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53367
This one was just one. If you google "somersoft TCs farm thread" you might find others? Back then I was farming 1400 hectares but 400 were leased. That farm was sold and I lost that leased land, so now back to just what I own. More time now to go on holidays.

I have 3 daughters and have had the snip, and so far none are showing any interest in being a farmer.

See ya's.

 

Sure is great reading!

@T.C. going through your SS thread and youtube vids. a mate works for case in the area, a bit much for me but i get the gist! you can pretty much drive those rigs while your on the dunny now! We're from Syd originally but in WA at the start of the wheatbelt, it's bloody insane. driving across the nullarbor was machinery after machinery getting out the the farms. Insane stuff that a very large % of the population has very little concept apart from the herb garden they're trying to grow in the back yard.
Do you know how the tamworth council dams went receiving treated effluent from westdale treatment plant? I worked on it in 2010. Great scheme but i wasn't around long enough to hear the results. i would assume its all good. For everyone, the waste water treatment plant was upgraded to treat the water to a particular level and then stored in a dam 15,000Gl (800m x 550m from memory) it is then used for irrigation to surrounding properties that council owned and leased (i think??)
pic of the treatment plant, the storage dam was roughly 4x the size of the empty dam in far back of photo



@Lizzie i found a photo of my bumper crop... first go at growing garlic when we weren't gypsying, pulled in a whopping 0.001t! hanging off my fancy drying bay, the trailer!

 

My other threads on SS were always popular. I didn't continue with the farm threads as the same thing each year was just happening over and over. Its hard for me to understand why you lot are so fascinated with what goes on out here. To me it's just normal. I suppose generations ago city people had relos still out in the bush that they could go and visit, but as there are less and less farmers and more and more living in cities this doesn't occur much anymore?

There is probably a lot of misunderstanding about rural things I suppose. One minute we are supposedly, according to the media, all about to commit suicide because it hasn't rained for 10 years or something stupid. Next it's flooding and we will all be ruined too? The land I'm on is incredibly safe for grain growing. Amazing deep soil and reliable rainfall. I get a bit more rain per year than Melbourne or Christchurch NZ. or London. I get much more rain than Canberra, Hobart, Adelaide. The 600 to 800 mill per year rainfall areas are the food bowls anywhere you look in the world, not too wet and not too dry. Anyone looking for a horror story about Aussie farming needs to head inland another 500 ks.

But the cotton is all new? Perhaps I will go through a season with it and show it on here? It's an interesting crop to grow and the returns are massive in a big year and will flog every other crop I grow, but there are more risks too?

I don't know anything about it.


See ya's.

 

Nice TC . Sorry to see you had the snip though ha ha ha .

Pleased to see you are doing well and it's so refreshing to hear such positive comments from someone in the farming business .

One thing I'm curious about is why you think it should be so tough for someone to get into farm ownership ?

I see opportunity all the time around me and interest rates are modest, market prices for most farm areas I'm familiar with certainly favour the buyer .

Also the opportunity of leasing land ? I have heard of some cropping guys doing very well indeed through leasing and contracting etc .

What do you say ?

 

As TC said - his property is worth around $8mil. Not many have that kind of dosh floating around.

Even smaller, but closer to home ... our neighbours' vineyard - 150acres of vines on 250 acres in total - is worth around $6mil.

Our "lifestyle" block, on 27 acres, is worth around $1.4 ... can't run to many cattle on something that size ... but great for high cashflow intensive farming like we do

 

I know 8 mil is a reasonable sum Lizzie but I'm just not so sure why some shrewd individual couldn't start from scratch and make a success of themselves in the grain business ?

There's lots of ways to skin the cat . Wouldn't you agree ?

 

TC I really enjoyed your farming threads on SS. Think I stayed up one weekend and read from beginning to end - was a little bit like a favourite tv show

 

Pop my Father In Law,the sheep farmer had 5 daughters, and none of them wanted to be farmers.

 

Yeah, you are probably correct. There would be some who could do it. I do worry about the low interest rates now. We owed half a million in the late eighties and were paying 22% and nearly lost everything. People who went though that period, it's effected how some of them think, and I'm one of them.

Not much land to lease in these parts. I'm overcapitalised machinery wise. I could take on another 1000 hectares easily and probably just have to employ one bloke. But the land to lease is just not about where I live. But I too have heard of blokes making millions further out in more marginal places. They probably had some luck go their way too, maybe?

See ya's.

 

I agree there is definitely more than one way to "skin a cat" - although I'm not really into cat skinning. Purely from a numbers point of view, I wouldn't think it viable to try and break into an established product - such as grain and wine - without substantial backing. The input costs are high - land, machinery, additives for grain - land, machinery, infrastructure, labour for grapes - for a relatively low per kilo return.

The idea would be to start in a fledgling industry such as hemp if you're wanting to crop - or free range game birds/chickens/eggs - or exotic vege/herb/mushroom farming - or sought after spices such as fresh tumeric - horseraddish and jerusalum artichokes are in high demand... even straight from the farmer lamb or beef is in highly sought ... unprocessed honey is making a comeback ... but I certainly wouldn't try to break in with anything that "everyone else" is already doing such as broadacre grain or wool or supermarket meat.

But - one would also have to be careful they established their market before going all out with something unusual ... only have to look at Emu's and Alpacas and Angora's etc where the only ones making money are those that sell breeding stock.

Honestly, I reckon I could make a pretty good living out of 5 acres.

 

A couple of things I've read with interest lately is the reduced cost of growing meat in a lab which some people have been attempting to do for a while . It's a while since I read but I think it cost 250 k to grow a sample a few years ago but now an be done for only $30 or something ...

There seems to be a growing market for vegetarianism . You can get meat free sausages , nut meat , not burgers , facon instead of bacon !
It ain't right though !

What about vertical farming ? I didn't know much about it until more recently but there's a heap of stuff on the net . It's absurd though , in My view , the amount of energy required etc .

I know in my industry ( Dairy ) of several family's who just lease or Sharefarm with no real intention to actually buy farm land . 800 dairy cows along with young stock , machinery factory , shares etc . This could easily be worth 3-4mil and be a lower risk way to go in some ways . In this industry I think one of the things to avoid is buying something too small . It just seems so limiting and more difficult to sell later on . Unless you are able to pick a great deal and make a motza one way or another .

I don't know too much about broad acre cropping but I would think with the right approach a guy could do ok .

 

Just reading today's FR . Page 6 on Gerry Harvey and his acquisition of Coomboona Holdings . A 34 mil investment .

I agree with the comment that the lack of entrepreneurial culture in Australia is holding the nation back . With out it Australia would be in an even bigger hole so he says . Interesting what Gina is doing too .