Improving their cropping establishment behind their 2 airseeders with harrows.
"Our farming operation ‘Wilga’ encompasses 8600ha of red loam country, 45km west Nyngan, just north of Hermidale in NSW’s marginal cropping belt. The family partnership uses minimum and no till farming practices on a mix of sandy loams and gravelly ridge country aiming to retain as much ground cover as possible. The last decade has proved a real challenge with below average rainfall reducing the quantity of biomass; requiring the occasional knife point ripping to assist with moisture infiltration when stubble cover falls below critical levels or pulse crops leave the country with very little cover.
In 1995 our association with Harrington Ag-master began when we could see over cultivation was damaging our fragile red soils. We began by using a Shearer Trash worker with knife points and fixed closer plate system and plastic star harrows. In the early years we had trouble with an air pocket at the bottom of the sowing row due to the hard nature of the soil. Over the years as soil structure has improved and with the addition of the adjustable height closer plate our crop establishment has been outstanding.
The addition of a Conservapak precision seeder has continued our goal to accurately place seed and in conjunction with the press wheel, produce quick early establishment of a range of crops. However, often when sowing in April, warm conditions were leading to baking of the seed row leading to an impenetratable crust or drying out of the row. We decided to purchase a set of Ag-master plastic rotary harrows to brush some soil into the sowing row and with the adjustment on the harrows we now have a system that leaves the soil level and enables good early crop establishment. By leveling the soil we have solved a problem of Post Sow Pre Emerge chemical concentrating in the seed row or being washed in with a heavy post seeding rain.
The trash worker was replaced with an 820 Flexi coil which enabled us to conventionally work country to remove woody weed or remnant Lucerne plants while doubling as a high breakout knife point seeder. We were looking to add a leveling system to this machine that would move some soil into the sowing row when direct drilling and also level the ground if we were using 30cm sweeps. With the development of the Ag-master coil harrow this seemed the perfect fit. Being a little heavier than the plastic star harrows; the steel coil system has been a useful addition to the operation. It allows good stubble flow and can be adjusted to shift varying amounts of soil.
The 2010 sowing season saw the addition of rear mounted press wheels on the 820 bar and Ag-master supplied extensions to allow us to mount the coil harrows behind the press wheels, providing exceptional seed placement with the knife points and closer plate, firming of the seed row via press wheels, and a level even spread of trash with the coil harrows.
The continuing evolution of our farming program with a mix of wheat, barley, oats, canola, field and chick peas and lupins has seen the general soil health in a good condition to capitalize on an exceptional start to the 2010 crop season."