When Wannamal farmer, Max Smith invited me to do a story on broadacre farming I welcomed the opportunity.
As I climbed up the side of the road train to check out the seed, I was confronted by a mass of black seeds that looked like poppy seeds, sheepishly I had to ask what it was, and was surprised to discover they were in fact the canola seeds.
Fortunately my host Max Smith, a third generation farmer in the area was happy to bring me up to speed. After spending time with Max and his two son’s, Clayton and Nick, I left a whole lot wiser and with a greater appreciation of the life of a broadacre farmer.
It’s harvest time for many in the Northern Valleys and there is a great sense of urgency to minimise weather risk.
The process of swathing the crops being a perfect example. Max shares, “With larger acreage, we can spread the risk by splitting harvest into a two step process”.
Whilst you can direct harvest canola, it seems the many broadacre farmers prefer to swath first, (a process of cutting the canola plant and laying it on the ground in rows). By doing this they reduce the risk of seed shatter losses with bad weather such as wind and rain.
Teamwork is also key to their operation, not just within the family. For the second year the Smiths have a joint farming arrangement with local Wannamal colleague, Justin Edwards. By sharing they can maximise their available hours, working around the clock, and more importantly they can pool their equipment and afford the best. Max says, “having new and bigger machinery, we can harvest about twice as much as we would with our older machines”.
Harvesting is a two person job, using a dedicated canola attachment, the swathed rows are picked up, thrashed and the seed is separated from the chaff and augured into the bin in the harvester. The driver of the Chaser (a mobile grain bin) must snuggle up close to the harvester to catch the seed, while both in motion.
“We typically share the jobs, which is great as it breaks up your day.” says Nick who was on the harvester for the day. Max was on the chaser, while Justin slept off the night shift and Clayton was delivering grain to CBH.
You may have noticed more grain trucks than usual on the Great Northern Highway, the local Mogumber siding is offline, apparently not having the volumes to justify, and so the Smith’s like many farmers are driving their 50 tonne of grain in a road train to the Metro Grain Centre in Forrestfield, about three times a day.
Nick share’s it can be pretty stressful, especially on a Saturday morning with all the oversized trucks. They will do this trip about 100 times and all going well will be done by Christmas. Unfortunately the recent weather is not helping that goal.
At the time of going to print, Max was understandbly disapointed as all operations had ground to a halt, waiting for the weather to clear and the crops to dry out so they can resume harvesting. On a positive note they have finished canola, with around 1100 tonnes harvest between them, and with prices about 17% up on last year, it is a good year for canola.
