Post Emergent Field Walk 2020
The YFIG post emergent field walk had a great turnout on Friday the 26th June with around 70 growers and professionals attending.
The start of 2020 provided many avenues for discussion, and the afternoon kicked off having a look at a pre-emergent trial for a heavy wild radish population on Shaun Earl's, with agronomist Andrew Cripps from Independent Rural. The trial fueled conversations around the pre-emergents currently available for radish control in wheat, how effective they were on multiple germinations as we have seen this year, long term strategies to reduce high weed burdens, and also the options available to farmers in terms of managing weeds on lease blocks where long term strategies may not be viable.
The next stop was at the Williamson's farm, looking at some of their lupins. Agronomist Bill Campbell from Nutrien Ag and Wayne Parker from the Ag Department explained the challenges in identifying the poor performance of the lupins, with the suspected culprit being rhizoctonia (awaiting lab results to confirm), after cancelling out a number of other possible causes. There was further discussion around rotations on the sandplains, challenges that come with improved soil pH and management of the possible rhizoctonia burden in the future.
The field walk proceeded to Simon Smart's property to look at a paddock that had been mouldboard ploughed 10 years ago. This site provided many talking points including the changes in practice and management of mouldboard ploughing compared to 10 years ago, managing recently mouldboarded paddocks, mouldboard seeder options and the pros and cons of the practice. Jason Ralston from CSBP then spoke about the nutritional outlook for the growing season and emphasized the importance of soil sampling and tissue testing.
The last stop of the field walk was at a vetch trial on Brady Green's property. Elders Agronomist Nic Eyres explained the trial and lead the discussion on alternative legume options such as vetch, the importance of legume rotations, and the impact the low biomass from last years lupins had this year during the wind events. To top off the field walk, a heavy shower came through as the crowd was departing from Brady's farm, which saw all kinds of jokes thrown Brady's way of course.
Back at the Yuna Community Centre, a sundowner commenced thanks to the Yuna Volunteer Fire Brigade. To wrap up the afternoon, the Northern Biosecurity Group had a demonstration of new technology for monitoring and controlling feral pigs including tracking collars to better understand the feral pig behaviour and movements, remote trapping and the use of these new technologies to get on-top of the populations. On the big screen the crowd even got to witness the live feed of feral pigs sussing out the new remote traps installed on properties in the area.
Overall the YFIG post emergent field walk was well attended, with interesting sites visited and informative discussions around topics that were relevant to growers in the area.
