How has the rainfall been over the last few months?
We had a really good start to the year, then July was dry, but at one stage we had seven inches in seven weeks.
So we’ve got a good sub-soil soaking and the crops have plenty of moisture beneath them. Providing we have a good September we’ll be pretty good, so there’s a lot of potential.
The rainfall is pretty much on track with last year at this stage.
I had a look a little while ago and we were 10mm behind last year. But you don’t have to go much further north and it falls off pretty quick.
How is the quality of crops looking, and are prices still favourable?
The crops are looking really good, possibly the best we’ve ever had, and the prices are looking good.
With what’s going on in the world at the moment, I think the prices will hold. Unless they can get a large tonnage of wheat out of Ukraine, I don’t see wheat prices coming down, because everyone needs some.
Canola prices are at an all-time high, so it’s all looking pretty good.
Are input costs still a challenge?
We’re paying huge prices for inputs like fertiliser and fuel, and it’s really hard to get spare parts, and tractor and truck tyres.
We’re thinking a long way ahead. When buying machinery we’re thinking a year ahead at least, because you need to have something ordered for a year before you get it.
Whatever we might need within the next 12 months, we’re putting it on the buy list now.
Did you have success with dry sowing this season?
We sowed a bit over half our crop dry and then it rained, so we finished off seeding with a bit of wet ground, but the crops all came up really well.
We’re using some pretty new air-seeding technology, so the crop establishment was magnificent. They’re really making a difference.
The IT technology is still improving as well, and you need to be pretty technology-savvy to use the machinery we buy now.
We’ve got a couple of new varieties of canola this year and they are just magnificent. They are herbicide-tolerant TT varieties that are doing really well.
It sounds like there’s a lot of exciting new technology in the industry?
The technologies we’re using now to keep our crop residue on top of the ground (are) keeping the soil 9C cooler. That’s compensating for any global environmental changes.
Our soils are now… protected by a blanket of mulch, which is a step forward.
Since we’ve done that our yields have gone up by more than a tonne to the hectare, and when you dig down in there it’s crawling around with earthworms and the soil is very active.
It really is a game-changing technology.
How can farmers best stay prepared for some of the supply challenges we see?
We’re keeping enough fuel on the farm now to do a whole seeding, or a whole harvest, so if there’s a hiccup in the supply of fuel – which could easily happen – we’ll still be able to keep going for a while.
What will be key to Australian industries remaining viable through these global challenges?
Here we are in a country with huge coal, gas and uranium reserves, and we’re short of electricity. We’re not getting the economic benefit of these reserves, it’s all going to major companies.
Electricity prices are going to double in the next eight years, and when that happens a lot of industries are going to shut down because the costs are going to be off the planet.
I’m worried how we’ll have any industry that consumes power, because we just won’t be competitive. China is building more coal-fired power stations, and Germany are reopening the ones they closed, because they know they cannot survive off renewables.
