The Country 10/10/25: Chris Russell talks to Hamish McKay

Our Australian correspondent discusses great prices for wool and processor cows. Plus, a new alternative to Roundup, Australian Richard Robson winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Aboriginal rainstick technology. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, it is boom down Billio across the Tasman wall.
Prices a big rise over the last week and to
look at this hour Australia corresponded Chris Russell, things are
going mad over there.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Chris, Oh, homies haven't seen anything like it for a
long time. But you know, from when I spoke to
you last week, we've gone up one hundred and twelve
cents this week. We're now sitting at fifteen sixty five cents.
That's about forty percent high at the same time last year.
So everyone's still being very cautious, saying maybe it's too
early to say the sectors turned a corner. But as

(00:33):
I said last time, when the English went to the
Korean War and had all their uniforms made, we had
the wall boom. While the Chinese must be preparing for
something because they're buying uniforms, so that's obviously stimulating this. Plus,
of course we're out of historic loads for our flock size,
certainly over the last thirty or forty years, so that's

(00:53):
not helping. We'll see where we go. It's the time
they made a few.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Bob Hamish absolutely, and speaking of making a few Bob
process of cows now getting up close to that four
dollars of kilogram.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yes, this, well, this is a record, you know, for
three hundred and ninety cents a kilo. That's the first
time Australian process accounts have ever gone there. And of
course US cattle prices are even higher because they haven't
got any over there. Do you know, Hamish that the
herd in the US is currently at the same level
it was in nineteen fifty one that's where I was born.

(01:27):
And in Canada it's sitting at this level it was
in nineteen eighty nine. So they're not coming back from
there anytime soon. So I think the price is going
to stay right up there for cattle for a while.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, both sides of the Tasman should be able to
take advantage of that. Hey, look round up, something new
at last on the horizon there.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oh halle Elia, what a great story this has been.
You know, we're so excited. I think we've been. Everybody's
been looking for a new alternative for round up because
the roundup's had a bit of a publicity I think
unjustified from the data is concerned. But nonetheless it's there,
and yet it's so key to our stub stubble, sewing

(02:10):
crops and reducing soil conservation issues and so on. But
Baya have just announced the release of a new weed
killer in Australia called ka Folan. Now it's the first
chemical of that sort of kills anything that's green type
chemical in thirty odd years. Not only is it something
we can use instead of round up, it's also more

(02:33):
more sensibly something that will help fight resistance to round up.
Because once you've got two chemicals, one it gets resistant,
the one you can knock it out with the other
and you can keep oscillating about. And resistance is such
becoming such a big problem with round up. It's led
to a lot of these round up ready crops. Of course,
so of course the lumplication has to go through as process.

(02:53):
Now will be lodged with the regulator in twenty twenty six,
already been lodged in the US and in Europe as well.
I think they're hoping for having this product of oil
from twenty twenty eight. And all I can say is
holy Grail, Hallelujah, Alleluliah.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Indeed, right Australian wins Nobel Prize for chemistry.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, so this is an interesting story. We're having one
on one of these for a long time, but the
University of Melbourne professor a boat down in Melbourne has
been His name is Michael Richard Robson. Sorry, Professor Richard
Robson has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for
creating a very interesting molecular construction without going in all

(03:33):
the fine detail, which I don't even understand. Of course,
has got these big spaces in it which can make
allowed gaffes and other chemicals can flow through it. So
they've got you can imagine like a honeycomb, but an
expanded one. Now, the advantage of this is that you
can all of a sudden use it for harvesting water
vapor over deserts, which would normally just carry on to

(03:56):
somewhere else in the country. You can use a post
to questering carbon out of the air because it's got
so much space inside of it. Think of as a
round ball full of nothing with just a structure holding
it apart. And that's been the key, and then all
those spaces can be taken up with this chemical. They're
saying it's a breakthrough. Top of technology be working on
it since nineteen eighty nine and now been recognized with

(04:18):
a Nobel Chemistry Prize, which is a very significant honor. Homish.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Absolutely the mind boggles fantastic right, the new aboriginal rain
stick technology that inspires new seed germination invention.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Well, as you know, I've always got a bit of
an eye for this sort of thing, having with my
television innovation program some years ago, and this really caught
my eye because it's based on I always like biomimicry,
but in this case it's aboriginal mimicry. And they've got
a new startup coming in kens which is combining the

(04:56):
sort of traditional indigenous knowledge of rain making where they
used to use rain stakes rainsticks to attract thunderstorms in
and create electric fields over the top of whatever they
were growing. So these guys have got whold of this idea,
and they've got a secret technology which no one knows
what happens inside the black box, but you basically put

(05:17):
these seeds inside a box and you have a thunderstorm
creator inside the box, which I imagine is based on
lightning equivalents and so on, and that electric electrostatic fields
changing the molecules of the seeds in some way. So
that they actually germinate more completely and more quickly. You

(05:38):
don't have to handle seeds any differently after that. But
it certainly seems to be giving them bigger root growth,
more rapid vegetative growth, and so generally their early data
looks quite promising. Long way from being on the market yet,
but certainly spending some money on getting it up there,
and I think one hundred million dollars a year that

(05:59):
they've tried to say in the Canala industry particular with
this new technology with rapidly germinating seed.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Amish fantastic talk about amazing things coming out of the
Great Southern Land, Australia. Correspondent Chris Russell, Thank you very much,
No worries