“It did happen, that's true, but it's also a pain in the neck with logistics, right? At harvest time, it's hard sending trucks different ways and shifting shifters at your own site or having some trucks going to the site and some going home. The secret sauce is getting your economy right and using these maps to inform what you're doing next time around.”
In our second episode, we chat with Kaniva farmer Jonathan Dyer, who shares how he uses the data from his protein machine to create nitrogen maps to guide nitrogen inputs.
The conversation covers technical set up, software, support, data handling, protein machine models as well as some of the challenges he has experience and where he looks for advice.
About Jonathan Dyer
Jonathan is a grain grower from Kaniva in the West Wimmera. The Dyers grow a mixture of bread and durum wheat, canola, lentils, faba beans and chickpeas in a continuous cropping rotation. Having a background in IT, Jonathan completed a Nuffield Scholarship in 2015 on ‘big data’ in agriculture.
You can find Jonathan on:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-dyer-10aa5135/
BCG website: https://www.bcg.org.au/our-team/jonathan-dyer/
Helpful links:
Broden Holland on X: https://x.com/brodenholland
Tim Rethus on X: https://x.com/TRethus
Crop Scan: https://cropscanag.com/
John Deere HarvestLab: https://www.deere.com.au/en/technology-products/precision-ag-technology/data-management/harvest-lab-3000/
SMS: https://www.agleader.com/farm-management/sms-software/
Addressing El Nino Misconceptions at Trials Review Day: https://www.bcg.org.au/addressing-el-nino-misconceptions-at-bcg-trials-review-day/
Nitrogen Banking: https://www.bcg.org.au/research-article/investigating-nitrogen-management-using-urea-pulses-and-temporary-intercropping-2022/
SPAA: https://www.spaa.com.au/
Nuffield Scholarships: https://www.nuffieldscholar.org/
To learn more about BCG visit www.bcg.org.au
In the spirit of reconciliation, BCG acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea, and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past, present and emerging.
Disclaimer:
The Birchip Cropping Group Inc. (“BCG”) makes no warranties regarding merchantability, fitness for purpose or otherwise with respect to this podcast. Any person relying on this report does so entirely at their own risk. BCG and all persons associated with it exclude all liability (including liability for negligence) in relation to any opinion, advice or information contained in this podcast and any consequences arising from the use of such opinion, advice or information to the full extent of the law, including but not limited to consequences arising as a result of action or inaction taken by that person or any third parties in reliance on the report. Where liability cannot be lawfully exti
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:03):
It did happen. That's true. But it's also a pain
in the neck with logistics right at harvest time. It's
hard sending trucks different ways and shifting shifters at your
own site, or having some trucks going to the site
and some going home. The secret sauce is getting your
agronomy right and using these maps to inform what you're
doing next time around.
S2 (00:21):
Hello and welcome back to Shared Solutions by BCG. I'm
Janine Batters and today I'm really excited to be speaking with
Jonathan Dyer. He is, what I would say an expert
in protein mapping. Welcome, Jonathan.
S1 (00:34):
Hi, Janine. Thanks for having me on.
S2 (00:36):
Thank you for being on, Jonathan. Now tell me first
just a little bit about your farm for our listeners.
S1 (00:41):
Yeah. So we're farming at Kaniva in the West Wimmera spread out
across a few blocks, continuous cropping, bread wheat, durum , canola
and pulses, mostly lentils and beans, but vetch in for the
clean up paddocks each year.
S2 (00:55):
And so when did you start thinking about getting a
protein machine?
S1 (00:59):
We got our protein machine in 2016. Been thinking about
it for a couple of years. Before that, 2014 and
15 were pretty ordinary years in this patch, so we
couldn't justify it. But then everyone remembers 2016. And so
that was a great year to get started with it.
S2 (01:13):
So you got a protein machine. When did you start
using it to make protein maps for nitrogen decisions?
S1 (01:21):
That's sort of what we're doing with it now. But
that's not exactly how it started out for us. So
we ever since before I was home on the farm,
dad had been pretty. We've got a lot of on
farm storage, so I've been interested in storing grain on
farm and marketing it domestically instead of going through the
bulk handlers, obviously, with that being interested in. Hence the
interest in protein, because we found some good markets for
(01:43):
domestic high protein wheat. So we've been trying to grow
high protein wheat for a pretty long time, but obviously
not going to the silo three, four, ten times a day.
You don't get that instant feedback on on your grain quality.
And so we had a desk protein machine that we
bought for that. But you know, it's harvest. No one's
got time to stop and test for protein every single load.
And then we don't have three bunker stackers set up
(02:05):
just to go to the right one on the day.
So we sort of needed some quicker feedback than that.
Hence the interest in the harvester protein meters.
S2 (02:12):
Okay. And then what made you start thinking we could
do more with this.
S1 (02:16):
Yeah. Well so it happened in 2015 right? I did
the Nuffield on data collection on farm and in 2016
we had the good season. So we got the protein
meter and beauty were away right. So we did some
really interesting segregation things and that was what I spruked about.
So you can segregate off farm. But I guess we
worked out over time that the secret sauce is to actually, um,
use your protein maps to identify where we're over or
(02:38):
under applying nitrogen and then, yeah, adjust your applications in the,
in the following years to compensate.
S2 (02:46):
How many headers do you have. Yeah.
S1 (02:47):
We've got so we run two machines and we've got
a protein meter on one of them. And that's all
we've ever had. So it works pretty well because especially
in cereals which is one we're mostly using the protein meter.
If you're going past across the paddock it still gets
you a pretty good map of what's going on.
S2 (03:02):
Okay. So you don't find that you need them on
both machines.
S1 (03:05):
It would be good. So we possibly going to go
that way this year? Uh, we haven't yet. It's more
of an issue in canola because I get that a
bit slower. And so you can have bigger chunks missing
I guess. And we also got a contract during the
harvest with canola last year. And so it was only
1 in 3 passes on average. If everything was going
on the same and everything was working well. So yeah,
obviously the more data is the better. But for the
(03:25):
wheat maps, if you're going pass for pass on your two machines,
one in two is fine. Okay.
S2 (03:29):
So there's a few things to consider there isn't there.
And obviously there's a cost as well.
S1 (03:33):
Hence we've only had the one up until this point.
But it's, you know it's still, the header is the smallest thing. Right.
So it's only 12m. So even if you go and
pass for pass, it's still maybe 24 or at the very
worst sort of 36, 48m. And some people have boom
sprays that wide, so it still gives you enough to
use the following year for your nitrogen maps.
S2 (03:50):
Okay, so that's good to know. So what type of
protein machine do you have?
S1 (03:54):
Yeah, we've got the crop scan. It's one of the
old ones. It was at 3000 h. So that's what
they had back in 2016 when we we put them on.
So um so the Australian company based in Sydney and
they do a whole bunch of sensors including this one.
So yeah, it's good to be able to have an
Aussie product.
S2 (04:09):
Good to have an Aussie product. How do you find
the service.
S1 (04:12):
Ah yeah. They've been really good. So they do now
have dealers across the country, the listeners that have to
check with them depending on who that is in their patch. Yeah.
So they tend to be red or yellow dealers, mostly
because the green ones behind me have developed their own.
And so they're not against you putting one of theirs on,
but they're not. They sell a competing product, I suppose.
S2 (04:31):
Why did you go with the crop scan over the
John Deere?
S1 (04:34):
Well, the John Deere one didn't exist back then. So
that's only been out in the last couple of years.
So back when we did it, they were the only
ones around.
S2 (04:41):
So you've obviously got the two screens. You don't have
the new one with the Isobus. How do you find that.
S1 (04:46):
Yeah it's good. So it's just a just a bit
more cab clutter I suppose. So it's just a little touch
screen that sits up in the corner of the cab
and just ticks away all day. So that's, it's kind
of good in a way, because that's all it does.
And so if something breaks on it, you don't have
to stop harvesting and check it because it's not integrated. So
you can just sort of keep going. And if you've
got reasonable phone coverage, you can hotspot it on your phone.
(05:06):
And so we even had tech support log in while
you're still harvesting. If you have a software issue with it,
they can do some stuff remotely on it. So that's
been good too.
S2 (05:14):
So taking a step back, I think I've dived in
because I'm excited. How does a protein machine actually work? Yeah.
S1 (05:21):
So so the ones on the header, most people would
be familiar with, the ones, you know, the NIR machines
at the silos. So it's the exact same technology as
that right. So it's essentially one of them built into
a header. So there's a sample head on the clean
grain elevator. So it's always good fun to take to
a header when you're installing it with an angle grinder.
And you cut a small hole in the clean grain elevator.
And you mount the sample head on the side. And
(05:42):
then there's a big optical fiber cable that runs up
into the cab or wherever you mount the wherever you
mount the computer. Yeah, it's essentially one of those grain
testing machines on the at the silo, but it's mounted
on your machine and in the cab. You can then
take a feed into it from your GPS receiver on
your roof. And so then it samples every the better your
crop yields the more samples you get. But um, every
(06:03):
every 15 to 30s you get a new sample and
you get your GPS maps as you drive across your paddock.
S2 (06:09):
So you mentioned cutting in with the angle grinder. Jonathan,
that sounds a bit scary. Did you have to do
that or did someone else come and do it for you?
S1 (06:16):
No, they helped us. They came and helped us install it.
So I think I think I did it under supervision.
Me or my brother or someone did it under supervision.
S2 (06:24):
Tell me then you're talking about how it comes into
the monitor and how it works, and how you can
connect up your phone via hotspot. Do you does that
mean that you then don't have to get the USB
and plug it into your monitor, and then load it
up to your computer to make those maps? Does it
automatically connect up? Yeah, correct.
S1 (06:41):
So it does do that now. So it's only been
the last couple of years. They've sort of brought that in.
So up until pretty recently I had been doing the
USB thing. But yeah now they have their own profile
in the cloud and it's another log in and all
of that. But you can log in and it backs
it up to whenever you then like if you've got
Wi-Fi back at the yard or whatever, or if you're
hotspot with your phone during harvest, you can do backups
that way. So yeah, it is good to take the
(07:04):
not have to deal with the USBs. Yeah. Having said
that though, if you are in an area with poor connectivity,
you still have that as an option.
S2 (07:11):
Can you explain to our listeners how are you using
a protein machine to create protein maps to make your
decisions on nitrogen?
S1 (07:18):
So once it's set up and installed, you just start
it up and it just runs in the background all
day and it just sits there. And every time the
chamber fills up, it takes a reading, drops it out,
and then waits for the chamber to fill up again. Yeah, yeah.
With thousands of samples across a paddock. So it's a
really good resolution. And the other thing is that varies
quite a lot. Right. But if you have lots of
different samples, you can filter out the bad ones. And
(07:39):
so you still get good maps.
S2 (07:41):
So what happens next.
S1 (07:43):
Yeah. So after harvest the maps well they're now sent
up to the cloud which is good. So I go
down through and download them all and bring them into
our farm management software and have a look over them,
print them out. We use them with our yield maps
when we do our harvest review with our agronomist. And yeah,
try and learn from them.
S2 (07:59):
Okay, so your agronomist does your maps or you do
your maps or do you use a software?
S1 (08:04):
Well, I make all the maps up because I can
do it. There's companies around to help people out doing
it because not everyone's is interested in this stuff as
I am, but so I do it and present them
to the other guys in our business and to the agronomist.
And we sort of go through it in our review
to try and, yeah, learn from it.
S2 (08:21):
Okay. So you actually make the spreadsheets up yourself?
S1 (08:25):
I do, yes. So I realize that not everyone's is
not as keen on that side of things. So there's
no spreadsheets at this point. It's just downloading the mapping,
making the maps basically, and printing them out and displaying them.
S2 (08:36):
And so do you know of any software. So if, if,
for example, like me, I was going to go, well
I really like to do that, Jonathan, but I'm not
really keen on making the spreadsheets myself. What would you recommend? Yeah.
S1 (08:48):
So there's a couple of different options. So there's SMS
software which runs locally on your computer. So you can
buy that and install that and you can do it
all yourself kind of manually kind of a not old
school way. But it's all locally on your computer. Right.
So you have the control of the whole process. Well,
there's 2 or 3 different operators that work in the
cloud now, so you can do it all online. Precision
(09:11):
Cropping Technologies is one of them. I'm sure there's others
as well that you can do it all online. And
they hook up to your, you know, my John Deere
or the equivalent hooks up to their all the cloud
services and probably easier to do it that way, but
a few different options.
S2 (09:26):
So Jonathan I was looking at one called N-Gauge and
I was having a look at that and that looked
pretty nice. Yeah.
S1 (09:32):
So N-Gauge is crop scans own kind of solution that they've
developed make it simpler I guess and cut a few
of these transferring back and forth steps out.
S2 (09:40):
So in terms of you making the spreadsheets, do you
have a prescription formula that you use?
S1 (09:48):
Not directly. So there's a guy up in New South
Wales who's Broden Holland. I think Tim mentioned him the other
day who's taking his protein maps, running a formula over
them and then using them for his nitrogen maps for
the next following season, so we haven't gone to that
extent yet. And our sort of our rotation doesn't allow
us to. So he's he has a long term pasture
and then he pulls that base out of pasture. And
(10:09):
then you'll have a fairly heavy canola, wheat, barley rotation
for 5 or 6 years. And then when the weeds
take him over, he just puts it out to pasture again.
So he's got those maps back to back to back
because we're in the Wimmera. Right. So we're up to
like 30% pulses this year. And so we're growing a
pulse nearly every second year after our wheat crop. So
we don't have the necessarily have the continuity to be
(10:31):
able to do that. So what we've done with it
is it's helped to inform making our paddock zones. And
so we're now soil testing in our different zones and
then fertilizing them appropriately. Protein maps are really helpful initially
in identifying where our different zones are.
S2 (10:48):
Okay, so I did hear you speak at Trials Review Day,
and I do follow you on Twitter or X, and
you have been talking a bit about this, and I've
seen Broden Holland's been talking about this as well. So
I've seen some of the the maps that you've been
putting up. And a big question of mine was so
looking at your yield maps, looking at your protein maps,
(11:08):
how do you know whether it's nutrition or whether there's
some other limiting factor.
S1 (11:13):
So they're a good spot to start, right. So they
show you where there's something going on. I actually went
through with the crop scan guys, and when they were
developing N-Gau ge, they said, well, we're trying to get our
head around this. What do we need to do? And
that was that was the quadrant they made, right? Was
low and high yield and then low and high protein.
If you've got a situation where you've got low yield
(11:34):
and low protein, well that could be N. But if
it's low yield low protein or it could be high
yield low protein, it still could be N. But if
it's high yield high protein that's great. That's where we
want to end up. But not too high right. Because
you can blow it off the other end too. Right.
And waste your money. Yeah. But if it's high protein
low yield well, there's your clue. Right. Well it's not nitrogen.
(11:55):
It is. It's something else. Which is what in the
example I used at Birchip. Well, what was frost that
exacerbated by too much nitrogen because of history of frost.
S2 (12:04):
So what did you do.
S1 (12:05):
That was probably the best thing about those maps is
once you see the glaring differences, it just becomes obvious
that you need to change because you're putting too much money
on the table by not so in combination with that
and your yield map and and then you get the old
man who sits down like, I might do a first
draft of maps, and then I show the old man.
He said, what do you think? This soil type goes around
that tree and around that dam? And so we over
(12:26):
time develop these zones and then we're, we're zone farming now,
getting one soil test per zone. And as our paddocks
get bigger over time, those zones are sometimes the size
of the original paddocks were right, but they're not in
neat squares so they follow the ground contours, soil types, whatever.
S2 (12:42):
So talking about soil test, Jonathan, do you soil test
all those areas that you were talking about every year?
S1 (12:48):
So we do some soil testing every year. And we've
been kind of increasing gradually as we go. We now
are at the point where we soil test before all
our cereal and canola crops. I say all the zones,
but with a bit of an asterisk, you know, like
if you've got a five hectare piece of rubbish in
the corner of some paddock, you're not going to soil
test for five hectares. So there's always a judgment call
(13:09):
as to how big your zones need to be before
you sort of worry about them. So but if that's
sort of more than 20 or 30 hectares in one
zone will generally do it because it started when the
fertilizer prices were 1300 bucks a tonne or whatever. Right.
The return on investment became well, the soil test was
now worth less, was now worth 300 kilos of urea.
And so we only had to adjust our application by
(13:29):
300 kilos and it was worth doing it. So that
year we did pretty well everything. And we found that
that useful and that we've sort of kept doing it.
And then from that, then the nitrogen planning falls out
of that. So we've got canola in those fields. Well
we decided then. Well, these are the zones we're going
to test this year and um, do all the planning.
So we're testing more, not less, over time because it's working.
(13:52):
It's better than guessing.
S2 (13:53):
It's getting more information to help you make decisions. Do
you have a variable rate seeder?
S1 (13:57):
Yes we do. We use it a little bit. Not
a whole lot. Put out most of our nutrition in
like 90 plus percent of our nitrogen now goes out
in crop. So because we're worried about seed. So we
had it. We didn't used to have a dual chute seeder,
but we went away from it because it was throwing
too much dirt. We were getting too much chemical damage
in our crops. So we've gone back the KISS principle at
(14:18):
seeding keep it simple. And so we're only single chuting.
So and as we've had a good run of seasons,
we're trying to keep our phosphorus rates high. And so
we're putting mostly 60 kilos of MAP or equivalent out.
We're worried about seed burn right. So we're not not
putting any nitrogen out up front. We've mucked around with
phosphorus trials and doing some variable rate high low trials.
But we're in the Wimmera really high PBI phosphorus buffering soils.
(14:43):
So you get these weird results when you do phosphorus
trials because your soil tests come back and say you've
got heaps of it, but high PBI, so it's not available.
So you still get responses when the algorithm say you shouldn't.
So mucked around with that a bit a few years ago.
Gave up in frustration. Just said it's a bit of
the N bank approach right. But it's a P Bank. So
we're just trying to keep our rates up. So we're
now putting most of our N out in crop, for
(15:05):
better or worse.
S2 (15:06):
What do you use to help you make your nitrogen decisions?
Do you use Yield Prophet ? Do you use N banking?
S1 (15:12):
Yeah. So we we work with our agronomists and he
does have a spreadsheet. We're starting with the soil tests
in sort of March early April just before seeding. And
then we usually get well I did get the results back
a couple of weeks ago during seeding. And so that's
our base for the year. And he's got this his
own spreadsheet he's developed. And it's a decision support model essentially.
(15:32):
But it's an Excel spreadsheet that you can think of
it in the same way you think of Yield Prophet or
APSIM there's a couple other ones out there, and we're
feeding information into the spreadsheet as we go. Right? So
rainfall as it happens through the year and any top dress applications
we make. And so then we have water limited yield
potential that we're trying to hit. And we do some
scenario planning with that. So we've got a decile three
(15:53):
five and seven. But for the rest of the year
and I haven't done this one yet. In the next
I'm gonna have to update because we've had two and
a half months of our growing season gone past already.
This year we've only had 20 mils of rain for
the for it. So already it's going to be affecting
our yield potentials at the end of the year because
it's going to average from here on out, will now
be like a decile seven for the year. Right. So
(16:13):
it's going to have to look at that as we go.
So it's a it's similar to Yield Prophet but targeting our
water limited yield potential at the end and trying to
put enough nitrogen on to get there.
S2 (16:23):
How do the protein maps fit into your agronomist spreadsheet.
S1 (16:27):
Well obviously they backwards looking. So they show us how
we went. So yeah, it's feedback to say did we
overshoot the mark or undershoot the mark? Are we in
the right track because of our on farm storage thing.
So half of our wheat area is durum. So that's
a protein wheat market. And the way that works is
sort of weird because everyone quotes durum one price which
is 30% protein. So H1 bread wheat equivalent. We've got
(16:51):
DR1 which is 13% DR2 which is above 11.5, and
Dr3 which is above ten. And if you get below
ten with durum, there's no other classification for it. It
becomes feed. So but the reason we grow durum is
because there's the last few years there's been quite a
good price premium over it to bread wheat. So if you
drop out of that bottom level it's like the old
cliff price pricing guys back was back in the day
(17:13):
but it worse. So if you don't hit the R3
you can drop 100 $150 a tonne just like that.
It's a good incentive to get it right. It's mostly
stored on farm. There's a couple of private storages that
will take it, but it's a lot of it's grown
under contract to supply the pasta mill in Adelaide and
a small amount of it exported out through SA as well. Yeah.
(17:33):
So despite being Victorian. We're as close to Adelaide, Port Adelaide
as we are to Portland. So we can send grain
that way if we need to.
S2 (17:40):
Okay. That's really cool. So going back to you're talking
about variable rate and using those protein maps. How do
you make the decision on where you put the extra nitrogen.
Are you saying that the areas that are high protein,
low yield, you've been putting too much on and so
would you take it off those areas and put it
(18:02):
on the other part that were yielding high, but the
protein was low?
S1 (18:07):
We're trying to target whatever our water limited. So that's
why the soil tests at the start of the year
is important because they give us a baseline. And so
we have what we started the year with. We know
what we've applied in crop. And so then we know
where we should be ending up in the absence of
frost or disease or anything else. So so these things
happen and they affect it. But so we know if
because we test the poor performing part of the paddock
(18:29):
and we test the higher performing part, and so we
can see straight away at the start of the year,
well is that going to be is, is the high
performing part chronically short on nitrogen because we've been taking
more yield out of it each year? Well, if we
are boost those bits up. Whereas if the heavy black
flat got frosted the year before canola crop in, it
got frosted the year before, so there's heaps of N leftover. Well,
then we can back off on that one. So it's
(18:50):
not about cutting necessarily. It's about optimising, putting it where
it's going to be most useful.
S2 (18:56):
And using those protein maps to make your zones for
your soil. Testing.
S1 (19:00):
Yeah, we're not trying to cut fertiliser use, right. We're
trying to have high yields. So if this is working
over time, we're going to be using slightly more fertilizer
because we're going to be growing more crop, but we're
making better use of it getting a premium price. But
it's yield too. So it all comes back to yield's
king right. We always talk about that bread wheat optimum
yield response. Depending on which paper you read. Optimum yield
(19:21):
response is somewhere between 11 and 12% protein right. Well
that's APW anyway. So drive past your nearest GrainCorp or
GrainFlow's stack and look at the ASW bunker and think
to yourself that whole stack represents yield that was left
on the table. Wow. Exactly. The last couple of years
there's been a minimal price premium for protein, right. Except
(19:41):
for us with the durum thing. But with the bread wheat,
which is what I guess most of your listeners will
be familiar with, we've still got we're still trying to
maximize yield. So we aim for 11.5% bread wheat and
12 in the durum as we've spoken about before. But that's
what we target right . Now Whether we get there or
not usually depends on what happens in October after we 're finished spreading.
So we're going to get a heat wave. Is it wet? Whatever.
(20:04):
But that's what we're aiming for. But that's the thing is. Yeah.
You lose a little bit falling from APW down to ASW,
but you lose a lot by not using the potential
that you've had.
S2 (20:14):
For people that are thinking about doing this, or maybe,
perhaps they've already got a protein machine, what would you
say the first steps are to starting to make these
protein maps so.
S1 (20:25):
You can make basic ones I'm pretty sure through N-Gauge.
So that would be so that's the crop scan solution.
I'd be starting there with them. That's the easiest way
to do it. For the data nerds like me. There are.
They're very good. You can download your CSV files and
you manipulate them in whatever your your management software is.
If you want to go to that level. They're very
helpful with people who want to do that. But if
(20:45):
you want to keep it simple, start with the N-Gauge thing.
There's only two on the market really, so if you want
to jump on board and keep it simple within the
John Deere system. You could do that too. And that's
within their kind of online ecosystem. So that's another easy
way to go.
S2 (20:58):
So what are some of the challenges you've had with
a protein machine?
S1 (21:02):
Canola. So in theory, it can do oil, protein and
moisture in canola and moisture and protein in all the cereals.
So we've had some issues with the canola maps. But
on the other issue is it's not so much the
technologies because we're all on farm storage, right. It's calibration
getting accurate calibration samples to start with, because we don't
go to the silo five times a day to get
(21:23):
it checked. So you feel a bit bad running samples
in there if you're not taking grain in there and
taking their time and all that sort of stuff. So
now they do supply you with some base level samples
to get you started. But if you're having a weird
season like we had Last Harvest with lots of weird
stuff going on, like with weather damage or whatever, it's
like any protein machine or any other thing, you've got
to calibrate it to your conditions.
S2 (21:42):
So what do you do? What would you suggest to
get around that? Talk to the
S1 (21:45):
People that supply it. They will supply you with fixed samples of
known values if you ask for them. So you can
do that. Or when you go and run your first
sample of the morning into the silo, don't tip it
on the truck. Keep it, keep the docket. And then
no one's got to harvest, right? No one's got time.
We're busy. You got to go, go, go. Well, the
next morning, when we're waiting for the dew to burn
off or you get a rain delay or whatever, run
(22:06):
your sample bucket back through and calibrate it to that. And, um,
I mean, I've been talking about our on farm storage,
but even if you're going into the system, it still
helps to know what you've got before you leave the paddock.
And you can still use anything if you're not using
it for blending or marketing purposes. As such, you still
want this data to help you make better decisions following
year like we talked about before.
S2 (22:25):
So you're making these maps yourself. How much time do
you allocate to all this planning?
S1 (22:31):
Jonathan, it took a lot of time to get all
our zones set up for all our paddocks, but now
I have them and they're there. It's very quick so
it's hard to put a number on it 2 or
3 days probably to get the whole farm set up
and in the system. But now it's in the system
and now I have it all set up. It'll take
me ten minutes to make up a variable rate urea map,
sort of.
S2 (22:50):
Similar to when you have to GPS a new paddock
or something.
S1 (22:53):
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, and that's a great example because
the better you set it up at the start, the
easier it is as you go along. So there is
a certain cost to getting it all going. But in
terms of the maps from year to year, it's just
I do it as part of our regular planning February, March.
When you're doing your planning for the new year, it's
just a part of that. So 2 or 3 days
a year, like it's it seems like a lot at
the time because there's always more things you could be doing.
(23:15):
But when you see the results at the end of
the year, um, you're glad you did it.
S2 (23:18):
And bang for your buck, too. Really, when you're thinking
about you're going to be getting your durum wheat in
the criteria that you need it. So you're going to
be getting paid more, but also you're getting hopefully you're
getting more yield as well. And you're making sure that
urea is working for you because you're paying so much
for it.
S1 (23:35):
That's it. Well, that was back in the day when
urea was 400 bucks a tonne. Who cares? Right? But yeah,
these higher fertiliser prices have been the real incentive for
us to kind of go all in on this and say, actually,
it is working for us. Yeah. It's not that we're
spending less, it's that we're putting it where it's needed.
S2 (23:49):
It's smarter decisions. Yeah. So you said you started this 2015, 2016.
Did you have a group of other farmers or where
you obviously you were working with crop scan, were you
working with any other farmers or any other experts? Where
did you get all your information from?
S1 (24:06):
I was involved with a little bit through the SPAA.
I guess I was a bit involved with them at
the time, and also people I met through the Nuffield network. But nah,
mostly it was just myself again, because I've got a
background in IT. Right. So I was familiar with the
tools as such. So what I just needed help with
was the agronomic stuff about, you know, what's the best
way to implement it. So yeah, mostly just develop the maps,
(24:27):
say myself, but it wasn't myself. Yeah. With input from
the agronomist and, you know, like the old man like
it all feeds in.
S2 (24:34):
Okay. And I didn't know you had a background in IT.
Tell me about that.
S1 (24:37):
Yeah, yeah. So, um, I studied IT at uni and
was a web developer for a couple of years before
coming back on the farm. So fully accept with all
this stuff that I'm not normal farmer in that sense.
So I am more comfortable with these tools than others
might be.
S2 (24:52):
There's no such thing as a normal farmer, though, is there? Jonathan?
S1 (24:55):
No. That's right. Yeah. We all have our experiences and interests.
We try and bring in and and use.
S2 (25:00):
So you said, Jonathan, you have one of the older models.
I think we have the 3300, but now there's a
4000 BT Isobus. Can you tell me some of the
differences between how they work and where would be the
best value for me to spend my money?
S1 (25:16):
The answer is it depends what sort of header you have.
So you can still get a crop scan. If you
have a green header, but you're getting the 30, was
it the other one 3300? Yeah. You're getting one of those.
If you've got a green header you can get one
of those. And it and it works perfectly fine. It
just yeah. Don't have the screen in the cab. I
don't know about the other green ones the Agco machines
I'm not sure about them where they sit in that scheme.
(25:37):
So the Isobus BT for the red and yellow ones, I
think it works quite well. If that's not an option
for you, you can get the other ones. So or
if you've got green, you've got two choices because you
can have the proprietary Deere one which yeah integrates nicely
with the Ops center. And I think that's what Tim
was talking about running the other day. So we've got
the other way because again, it's just kind of because
that's what I, not got stuck with. But that's what we've got.
(26:00):
So we're happy with it. We'll probably continue with it.
Heard good feedback from both, and they both do a
very similar thing. And I even passed them both up
a couple of months ago, and they're not a heap
of difference in it, really. So it's all about you
go on whichever one's the best solution for you rather
than price, I think because there wasn't heaps in it.
S2 (26:16):
Does it matter how old your header is?
S1 (26:17):
No. There's Crop Scan put a great, uh, might have been
a couple of years ago now, but they had they
put one in a 9600 Deere in on a research
farm in the US, and like, the protein meter, was worth
more than the header. Yeah, it's agnostic from that point
of view.
S2 (26:33):
Okay. Are they something that you think will just become
a standard in a header or is nothing standard in
a header?
S1 (26:39):
Well, I would have thought so, but no, because the
most headers are the corn harvesters, right. They get adapted
for Australia. So it turns out that Australia is one
of the only markets in the world that actually cares
about protein a lot in a lot of the rest
of the world. Wheat is wheat and barley is barley,
and corn is corn and sorghum is sorghum. And it
doesn't matter. So it's only in these markets like ours
where you have these protein segregations that it's sort of
(27:01):
more relevant to.
S2 (27:03):
Okay, where to from here.
S1 (27:04):
Yeah, I'd like to keep getting more granular with it.
I suppose, like in a way it's crazy that we
have you know, I've got 3 or 4 zones in
a 300 hectare paddock. Can we get any more? Yeah.
So it's just trying to find these data points that
we can use to help us get more nuanced as
we go.
S2 (27:19):
Okay. What is some of the best advice just in
general life advice, farm advice. What is some of the
best advice you've been given? Jonathan I learn.
S1 (27:28):
A lot through the Nuffield process and doing that was fantastic.
But the thing that always stuck with me after that
was surround yourself with people who are smarter than you,
which was sort of what Nuffield was. But it's why
I enjoy being involved with BCG and and even X,
you know, Twitter like that's I'm quite active on there
because there's always people out there dealing with similar issues
or have got different approaches or do things that you
(27:48):
haven't thought of.
S2 (27:49):
Is there anything else you'd like to add? Is there
anything else that we haven't discussed today that you think
our listeners might be interested in knowing?
S3 (27:55):
I think that it is.
S1 (27:56):
Gotten easier now than it was when I first started
out with it. So it's if you want it to
be all on your phone or on the tablet, you
can now do that. So there's not I mean, we
touched on it before about there's not so much manual
data handling now, but it is becoming easier and more accessible.
And I think not a mistake I made. It was
a journey that we was on, like when I did
the Nuffield circuit, got the protein made and I said, wow,
(28:17):
look at this amazing result we had with segregation. And
we were able to blend away hundreds of tonnes of
what would have been ASW wheat. If we had not
had a protein meter, we just would have sent it
in the bin and it would have been ASW we're able to
have one header going in the frosted high protein stuff,
another one going up on the hill where the yield
was good, and we're able to blend it away as
sort of APW, H2 or something like that. It was
(28:38):
an amazing result, paid for the protein meter in here,
and it did happen. That's true. But it's also a
pain in the neck with logistics right at harvest time.
It's hard sending trucks different ways and shifting shifters at
your own site, or having some trucks going to the
site and some going home. The secret sauce is getting
your agronomy right and using these maps to inform what
you're doing next time around.
It did happen. That's true. But it's also a pain
in the neck with logistics right at harvest time. It's
hard sending trucks different ways and shifting shifters at your
own site, or having some trucks going to the site
and some going home. The secret sauce is getting your
agronomy right and using these maps to inform what you're
doing next time around.
S2 (00:21):
Hello and welcome back to Shared Solutions by BCG. I'm
Janine Batters and today I'm really excited to be speaking with
Jonathan Dyer. He is, what I would say an expert
in protein mapping. Welcome, Jonathan.
S1 (00:34):
Hi, Janine. Thanks for having me on.
S2 (00:36):
Thank you for being on, Jonathan. Now tell me first
just a little bit about your farm for our listeners.
S1 (00:41):
Yeah. So we're farming at Kaniva in the West Wimmera spread out
across a few blocks, continuous cropping, bread wheat, durum , canola
and pulses, mostly lentils and beans, but vetch in for the
clean up paddocks each year.
S2 (00:55):
And so when did you start thinking about getting a
protein machine?
S1 (00:59):
We got our protein machine in 2016. Been thinking about
it for a couple of years. Before that, 2014 and
15 were pretty ordinary years in this patch, so we
couldn't justify it. But then everyone remembers 2016. And so
that was a great year to get started with it.
S2 (01:13):
So you got a protein machine. When did you start
using it to make protein maps for nitrogen decisions?
S1 (01:21):
That's sort of what we're doing with it now. But
that's not exactly how it started out for us. So
we ever since before I was home on the farm,
dad had been pretty. We've got a lot of on
farm storage, so I've been interested in storing grain on
farm and marketing it domestically instead of going through the
bulk handlers, obviously, with that being interested in. Hence the
interest in protein, because we found some good markets for
(01:43):
domestic high protein wheat. So we've been trying to grow
high protein wheat for a pretty long time, but obviously
not going to the silo three, four, ten times a day.
You don't get that instant feedback on on your grain quality.
And so we had a desk protein machine that we
bought for that. But you know, it's harvest. No one's
got time to stop and test for protein every single load.
And then we don't have three bunker stackers set up
(02:05):
just to go to the right one on the day.
So we sort of needed some quicker feedback than that.
Hence the interest in the harvester protein meters.
S2 (02:12):
Okay. And then what made you start thinking we could
do more with this.
S1 (02:16):
Yeah. Well so it happened in 2015 right? I did
the Nuffield on data collection on farm and in 2016
we had the good season. So we got the protein
meter and beauty were away right. So we did some
really interesting segregation things and that was what I spruked about.
So you can segregate off farm. But I guess we
worked out over time that the secret sauce is to actually, um,
use your protein maps to identify where we're over or
(02:38):
under applying nitrogen and then, yeah, adjust your applications in the,
in the following years to compensate.
S2 (02:46):
How many headers do you have. Yeah.
S1 (02:47):
We've got so we run two machines and we've got
a protein meter on one of them. And that's all
we've ever had. So it works pretty well because especially
in cereals which is one we're mostly using the protein meter.
If you're going past across the paddock it still gets
you a pretty good map of what's going on.
S2 (03:02):
Okay. So you don't find that you need them on
both machines.
S1 (03:05):
It would be good. So we possibly going to go
that way this year? Uh, we haven't yet. It's more
of an issue in canola because I get that a
bit slower. And so you can have bigger chunks missing
I guess. And we also got a contract during the
harvest with canola last year. And so it was only
1 in 3 passes on average. If everything was going
on the same and everything was working well. So yeah,
obviously the more data is the better. But for the
(03:25):
wheat maps, if you're going pass for pass on your two machines,
one in two is fine. Okay.
S2 (03:29):
So there's a few things to consider there isn't there.
And obviously there's a cost as well.
S1 (03:33):
Hence we've only had the one up until this point.
But it's, you know it's still, the header is the smallest thing. Right.
So it's only 12m. So even if you go and
pass for pass, it's still maybe 24 or at the very
worst sort of 36, 48m. And some people have boom
sprays that wide, so it still gives you enough to
use the following year for your nitrogen maps.
S2 (03:50):
Okay, so that's good to know. So what type of
protein machine do you have?
S1 (03:54):
Yeah, we've got the crop scan. It's one of the
old ones. It was at 3000 h. So that's what
they had back in 2016 when we we put them on.
So um so the Australian company based in Sydney and
they do a whole bunch of sensors including this one.
So yeah, it's good to be able to have an
Aussie product.
S2 (04:09):
Good to have an Aussie product. How do you find
the service.
S1 (04:12):
Ah yeah. They've been really good. So they do now
have dealers across the country, the listeners that have to
check with them depending on who that is in their patch. Yeah.
So they tend to be red or yellow dealers, mostly
because the green ones behind me have developed their own.
And so they're not against you putting one of theirs on,
but they're not. They sell a competing product, I suppose.
S2 (04:31):
Why did you go with the crop scan over the
John Deere?
S1 (04:34):
Well, the John Deere one didn't exist back then. So
that's only been out in the last couple of years.
So back when we did it, they were the only
ones around.
S2 (04:41):
So you've obviously got the two screens. You don't have
the new one with the Isobus. How do you find that.
S1 (04:46):
Yeah it's good. So it's just a just a bit
more cab clutter I suppose. So it's just a little touch
screen that sits up in the corner of the cab
and just ticks away all day. So that's, it's kind
of good in a way, because that's all it does.
And so if something breaks on it, you don't have
to stop harvesting and check it because it's not integrated. So
you can just sort of keep going. And if you've
got reasonable phone coverage, you can hotspot it on your phone.
(05:06):
And so we even had tech support log in while
you're still harvesting. If you have a software issue with it,
they can do some stuff remotely on it. So that's
been good too.
S2 (05:14):
So taking a step back, I think I've dived in
because I'm excited. How does a protein machine actually work? Yeah.
S1 (05:21):
So so the ones on the header, most people would
be familiar with, the ones, you know, the NIR machines
at the silos. So it's the exact same technology as
that right. So it's essentially one of them built into
a header. So there's a sample head on the clean
grain elevator. So it's always good fun to take to
a header when you're installing it with an angle grinder.
And you cut a small hole in the clean grain elevator.
And you mount the sample head on the side. And
(05:42):
then there's a big optical fiber cable that runs up
into the cab or wherever you mount the wherever you
mount the computer. Yeah, it's essentially one of those grain
testing machines on the at the silo, but it's mounted
on your machine and in the cab. You can then
take a feed into it from your GPS receiver on
your roof. And so then it samples every the better your
crop yields the more samples you get. But um, every
(06:03):
every 15 to 30s you get a new sample and
you get your GPS maps as you drive across your paddock.
S2 (06:09):
So you mentioned cutting in with the angle grinder. Jonathan,
that sounds a bit scary. Did you have to do
that or did someone else come and do it for you?
S1 (06:16):
No, they helped us. They came and helped us install it.
So I think I think I did it under supervision.
Me or my brother or someone did it under supervision.
S2 (06:24):
Tell me then you're talking about how it comes into
the monitor and how it works, and how you can
connect up your phone via hotspot. Do you does that
mean that you then don't have to get the USB
and plug it into your monitor, and then load it
up to your computer to make those maps? Does it
automatically connect up? Yeah, correct.
S1 (06:41):
So it does do that now. So it's only been
the last couple of years. They've sort of brought that in.
So up until pretty recently I had been doing the
USB thing. But yeah now they have their own profile
in the cloud and it's another log in and all
of that. But you can log in and it backs
it up to whenever you then like if you've got
Wi-Fi back at the yard or whatever, or if you're
hotspot with your phone during harvest, you can do backups
that way. So yeah, it is good to take the
(07:04):
not have to deal with the USBs. Yeah. Having said
that though, if you are in an area with poor connectivity,
you still have that as an option.
S2 (07:11):
Can you explain to our listeners how are you using
a protein machine to create protein maps to make your
decisions on nitrogen?
S1 (07:18):
So once it's set up and installed, you just start
it up and it just runs in the background all
day and it just sits there. And every time the
chamber fills up, it takes a reading, drops it out,
and then waits for the chamber to fill up again. Yeah, yeah.
With thousands of samples across a paddock. So it's a
really good resolution. And the other thing is that varies
quite a lot. Right. But if you have lots of
different samples, you can filter out the bad ones. And
(07:39):
so you still get good maps.
S2 (07:41):
So what happens next.
S1 (07:43):
Yeah. So after harvest the maps well they're now sent
up to the cloud which is good. So I go
down through and download them all and bring them into
our farm management software and have a look over them,
print them out. We use them with our yield maps
when we do our harvest review with our agronomist. And yeah,
try and learn from them.
S2 (07:59):
Okay, so your agronomist does your maps or you do
your maps or do you use a software?
S1 (08:04):
Well, I make all the maps up because I can
do it. There's companies around to help people out doing
it because not everyone's is interested in this stuff as
I am, but so I do it and present them
to the other guys in our business and to the agronomist.
And we sort of go through it in our review
to try and, yeah, learn from it.
S2 (08:21):
Okay. So you actually make the spreadsheets up yourself?
S1 (08:25):
I do, yes. So I realize that not everyone's is
not as keen on that side of things. So there's
no spreadsheets at this point. It's just downloading the mapping,
making the maps basically, and printing them out and displaying them.
S2 (08:36):
And so do you know of any software. So if, if,
for example, like me, I was going to go, well
I really like to do that, Jonathan, but I'm not
really keen on making the spreadsheets myself. What would you recommend? Yeah.
S1 (08:48):
So there's a couple of different options. So there's SMS
software which runs locally on your computer. So you can
buy that and install that and you can do it
all yourself kind of manually kind of a not old
school way. But it's all locally on your computer. Right.
So you have the control of the whole process. Well,
there's 2 or 3 different operators that work in the
cloud now, so you can do it all online. Precision
(09:11):
Cropping Technologies is one of them. I'm sure there's others
as well that you can do it all online. And
they hook up to your, you know, my John Deere
or the equivalent hooks up to their all the cloud
services and probably easier to do it that way, but
a few different options.
S2 (09:26):
So Jonathan I was looking at one called N-Gauge and
I was having a look at that and that looked
pretty nice. Yeah.
S1 (09:32):
So N-Gauge is crop scans own kind of solution that they've
developed make it simpler I guess and cut a few
of these transferring back and forth steps out.
S2 (09:40):
So in terms of you making the spreadsheets, do you
have a prescription formula that you use?
S1 (09:48):
Not directly. So there's a guy up in New South
Wales who's Broden Holland. I think Tim mentioned him the other
day who's taking his protein maps, running a formula over
them and then using them for his nitrogen maps for
the next following season, so we haven't gone to that
extent yet. And our sort of our rotation doesn't allow
us to. So he's he has a long term pasture
and then he pulls that base out of pasture. And
(10:09):
then you'll have a fairly heavy canola, wheat, barley rotation
for 5 or 6 years. And then when the weeds
take him over, he just puts it out to pasture again.
So he's got those maps back to back to back
because we're in the Wimmera. Right. So we're up to
like 30% pulses this year. And so we're growing a
pulse nearly every second year after our wheat crop. So
we don't have the necessarily have the continuity to be
(10:31):
able to do that. So what we've done with it
is it's helped to inform making our paddock zones. And
so we're now soil testing in our different zones and
then fertilizing them appropriately. Protein maps are really helpful initially
in identifying where our different zones are.
S2 (10:48):
Okay, so I did hear you speak at Trials Review Day,
and I do follow you on Twitter or X, and
you have been talking a bit about this, and I've
seen Broden Holland's been talking about this as well. So
I've seen some of the the maps that you've been
putting up. And a big question of mine was so
looking at your yield maps, looking at your protein maps,
(11:08):
how do you know whether it's nutrition or whether there's
some other limiting factor.
S1 (11:13):
So they're a good spot to start, right. So they
show you where there's something going on. I actually went
through with the crop scan guys, and when they were
developing N-Gau ge, they said, well, we're trying to get our
head around this. What do we need to do? And
that was that was the quadrant they made, right? Was
low and high yield and then low and high protein.
If you've got a situation where you've got low yield
(11:34):
and low protein, well that could be N. But if
it's low yield low protein or it could be high
yield low protein, it still could be N. But if
it's high yield high protein that's great. That's where we
want to end up. But not too high right. Because
you can blow it off the other end too. Right.
And waste your money. Yeah. But if it's high protein
low yield well, there's your clue. Right. Well it's not nitrogen.
(11:55):
It is. It's something else. Which is what in the
example I used at Birchip. Well, what was frost that
exacerbated by too much nitrogen because of history of frost.
S2 (12:04):
So what did you do.
S1 (12:05):
That was probably the best thing about those maps is
once you see the glaring differences, it just becomes obvious
that you need to change because you're putting too much money
on the table by not so in combination with that
and your yield map and and then you get the old
man who sits down like, I might do a first
draft of maps, and then I show the old man.
He said, what do you think? This soil type goes around
that tree and around that dam? And so we over
(12:26):
time develop these zones and then we're, we're zone farming now,
getting one soil test per zone. And as our paddocks
get bigger over time, those zones are sometimes the size
of the original paddocks were right, but they're not in
neat squares so they follow the ground contours, soil types, whatever.
S2 (12:42):
So talking about soil test, Jonathan, do you soil test
all those areas that you were talking about every year?
S1 (12:48):
So we do some soil testing every year. And we've
been kind of increasing gradually as we go. We now
are at the point where we soil test before all
our cereal and canola crops. I say all the zones,
but with a bit of an asterisk, you know, like
if you've got a five hectare piece of rubbish in
the corner of some paddock, you're not going to soil
test for five hectares. So there's always a judgment call
(13:09):
as to how big your zones need to be before
you sort of worry about them. So but if that's
sort of more than 20 or 30 hectares in one
zone will generally do it because it started when the
fertilizer prices were 1300 bucks a tonne or whatever. Right.
The return on investment became well, the soil test was
now worth less, was now worth 300 kilos of urea.
And so we only had to adjust our application by
(13:29):
300 kilos and it was worth doing it. So that
year we did pretty well everything. And we found that
that useful and that we've sort of kept doing it.
And then from that, then the nitrogen planning falls out
of that. So we've got canola in those fields. Well
we decided then. Well, these are the zones we're going
to test this year and um, do all the planning.
So we're testing more, not less, over time because it's working.
(13:52):
It's better than guessing.
S2 (13:53):
It's getting more information to help you make decisions. Do
you have a variable rate seeder?
S1 (13:57):
Yes we do. We use it a little bit. Not
a whole lot. Put out most of our nutrition in
like 90 plus percent of our nitrogen now goes out
in crop. So because we're worried about seed. So we
had it. We didn't used to have a dual chute seeder,
but we went away from it because it was throwing
too much dirt. We were getting too much chemical damage
in our crops. So we've gone back the KISS principle at
(14:18):
seeding keep it simple. And so we're only single chuting.
So and as we've had a good run of seasons,
we're trying to keep our phosphorus rates high. And so
we're putting mostly 60 kilos of MAP or equivalent out.
We're worried about seed burn right. So we're not not
putting any nitrogen out up front. We've mucked around with
phosphorus trials and doing some variable rate high low trials.
But we're in the Wimmera really high PBI phosphorus buffering soils.
(14:43):
So you get these weird results when you do phosphorus
trials because your soil tests come back and say you've
got heaps of it, but high PBI, so it's not available.
So you still get responses when the algorithm say you shouldn't.
So mucked around with that a bit a few years ago.
Gave up in frustration. Just said it's a bit of
the N bank approach right. But it's a P Bank. So
we're just trying to keep our rates up. So we're
now putting most of our N out in crop, for
(15:05):
better or worse.
S2 (15:06):
What do you use to help you make your nitrogen decisions?
Do you use Yield Prophet ? Do you use N banking?
S1 (15:12):
Yeah. So we we work with our agronomists and he
does have a spreadsheet. We're starting with the soil tests
in sort of March early April just before seeding. And
then we usually get well I did get the results back
a couple of weeks ago during seeding. And so that's
our base for the year. And he's got this his
own spreadsheet he's developed. And it's a decision support model essentially.
(15:32):
But it's an Excel spreadsheet that you can think of
it in the same way you think of Yield Prophet or
APSIM there's a couple other ones out there, and we're
feeding information into the spreadsheet as we go. Right? So
rainfall as it happens through the year and any top dress applications
we make. And so then we have water limited yield
potential that we're trying to hit. And we do some
scenario planning with that. So we've got a decile three
(15:53):
five and seven. But for the rest of the year
and I haven't done this one yet. In the next
I'm gonna have to update because we've had two and
a half months of our growing season gone past already.
This year we've only had 20 mils of rain for
the for it. So already it's going to be affecting
our yield potentials at the end of the year because
it's going to average from here on out, will now
be like a decile seven for the year. Right. So
(16:13):
it's going to have to look at that as we go.
So it's a it's similar to Yield Prophet but targeting our
water limited yield potential at the end and trying to
put enough nitrogen on to get there.
S2 (16:23):
How do the protein maps fit into your agronomist spreadsheet.
S1 (16:27):
Well obviously they backwards looking. So they show us how
we went. So yeah, it's feedback to say did we
overshoot the mark or undershoot the mark? Are we in
the right track because of our on farm storage thing.
So half of our wheat area is durum. So that's
a protein wheat market. And the way that works is
sort of weird because everyone quotes durum one price which
is 30% protein. So H1 bread wheat equivalent. We've got
(16:51):
DR1 which is 13% DR2 which is above 11.5, and
Dr3 which is above ten. And if you get below
ten with durum, there's no other classification for it. It
becomes feed. So but the reason we grow durum is
because there's the last few years there's been quite a
good price premium over it to bread wheat. So if you
drop out of that bottom level it's like the old
cliff price pricing guys back was back in the day
(17:13):
but it worse. So if you don't hit the R3
you can drop 100 $150 a tonne just like that.
It's a good incentive to get it right. It's mostly
stored on farm. There's a couple of private storages that
will take it, but it's a lot of it's grown
under contract to supply the pasta mill in Adelaide and
a small amount of it exported out through SA as well. Yeah.
(17:33):
So despite being Victorian. We're as close to Adelaide, Port Adelaide
as we are to Portland. So we can send grain
that way if we need to.
S2 (17:40):
Okay. That's really cool. So going back to you're talking
about variable rate and using those protein maps. How do
you make the decision on where you put the extra nitrogen.
Are you saying that the areas that are high protein,
low yield, you've been putting too much on and so
would you take it off those areas and put it
(18:02):
on the other part that were yielding high, but the
protein was low?
S1 (18:07):
We're trying to target whatever our water limited. So that's
why the soil tests at the start of the year
is important because they give us a baseline. And so
we have what we started the year with. We know
what we've applied in crop. And so then we know
where we should be ending up in the absence of
frost or disease or anything else. So so these things
happen and they affect it. But so we know if
because we test the poor performing part of the paddock
(18:29):
and we test the higher performing part, and so we
can see straight away at the start of the year,
well is that going to be is, is the high
performing part chronically short on nitrogen because we've been taking
more yield out of it each year? Well, if we
are boost those bits up. Whereas if the heavy black
flat got frosted the year before canola crop in, it
got frosted the year before, so there's heaps of N leftover. Well,
then we can back off on that one. So it's
(18:50):
not about cutting necessarily. It's about optimising, putting it where
it's going to be most useful.
S2 (18:56):
And using those protein maps to make your zones for
your soil. Testing.
S1 (19:00):
Yeah, we're not trying to cut fertiliser use, right. We're
trying to have high yields. So if this is working
over time, we're going to be using slightly more fertilizer
because we're going to be growing more crop, but we're
making better use of it getting a premium price. But
it's yield too. So it all comes back to yield's
king right. We always talk about that bread wheat optimum
yield response. Depending on which paper you read. Optimum yield
(19:21):
response is somewhere between 11 and 12% protein right. Well
that's APW anyway. So drive past your nearest GrainCorp or
GrainFlow's stack and look at the ASW bunker and think
to yourself that whole stack represents yield that was left
on the table. Wow. Exactly. The last couple of years
there's been a minimal price premium for protein, right. Except
(19:41):
for us with the durum thing. But with the bread wheat,
which is what I guess most of your listeners will
be familiar with, we've still got we're still trying to
maximize yield. So we aim for 11.5% bread wheat and
12 in the durum as we've spoken about before. But that's
what we target right . Now Whether we get there or
not usually depends on what happens in October after we 're finished spreading.
So we're going to get a heat wave. Is it wet? Whatever.
(20:04):
But that's what we're aiming for. But that's the thing is. Yeah.
You lose a little bit falling from APW down to ASW,
but you lose a lot by not using the potential
that you've had.
S2 (20:14):
For people that are thinking about doing this, or maybe,
perhaps they've already got a protein machine, what would you
say the first steps are to starting to make these
protein maps so.
S1 (20:25):
You can make basic ones I'm pretty sure through N-Gauge.
So that would be so that's the crop scan solution.
I'd be starting there with them. That's the easiest way
to do it. For the data nerds like me. There are.
They're very good. You can download your CSV files and
you manipulate them in whatever your your management software is.
If you want to go to that level. They're very
helpful with people who want to do that. But if
(20:45):
you want to keep it simple, start with the N-Gauge thing.
There's only two on the market really, so if you want
to jump on board and keep it simple within the
John Deere system. You could do that too. And that's
within their kind of online ecosystem. So that's another easy
way to go.
S2 (20:58):
So what are some of the challenges you've had with
a protein machine?
S1 (21:02):
Canola. So in theory, it can do oil, protein and
moisture in canola and moisture and protein in all the cereals.
So we've had some issues with the canola maps. But
on the other issue is it's not so much the
technologies because we're all on farm storage, right. It's calibration
getting accurate calibration samples to start with, because we don't
go to the silo five times a day to get
(21:23):
it checked. So you feel a bit bad running samples
in there if you're not taking grain in there and
taking their time and all that sort of stuff. So
now they do supply you with some base level samples
to get you started. But if you're having a weird
season like we had Last Harvest with lots of weird
stuff going on, like with weather damage or whatever, it's
like any protein machine or any other thing, you've got
to calibrate it to your conditions.
S2 (21:42):
So what do you do? What would you suggest to
get around that? Talk to the
S1 (21:45):
People that supply it. They will supply you with fixed samples of
known values if you ask for them. So you can
do that. Or when you go and run your first
sample of the morning into the silo, don't tip it
on the truck. Keep it, keep the docket. And then
no one's got to harvest, right? No one's got time.
We're busy. You got to go, go, go. Well, the
next morning, when we're waiting for the dew to burn
off or you get a rain delay or whatever, run
(22:06):
your sample bucket back through and calibrate it to that. And, um,
I mean, I've been talking about our on farm storage,
but even if you're going into the system, it still
helps to know what you've got before you leave the paddock.
And you can still use anything if you're not using
it for blending or marketing purposes. As such, you still
want this data to help you make better decisions following
year like we talked about before.
S2 (22:25):
So you're making these maps yourself. How much time do
you allocate to all this planning?
S1 (22:31):
Jonathan, it took a lot of time to get all
our zones set up for all our paddocks, but now
I have them and they're there. It's very quick so
it's hard to put a number on it 2 or
3 days probably to get the whole farm set up
and in the system. But now it's in the system
and now I have it all set up. It'll take
me ten minutes to make up a variable rate urea map,
sort of.
S2 (22:50):
Similar to when you have to GPS a new paddock
or something.
S1 (22:53):
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, and that's a great example because
the better you set it up at the start, the
easier it is as you go along. So there is
a certain cost to getting it all going. But in
terms of the maps from year to year, it's just
I do it as part of our regular planning February, March.
When you're doing your planning for the new year, it's
just a part of that. So 2 or 3 days
a year, like it's it seems like a lot at
the time because there's always more things you could be doing.
(23:15):
But when you see the results at the end of
the year, um, you're glad you did it.
S2 (23:18):
And bang for your buck, too. Really, when you're thinking
about you're going to be getting your durum wheat in
the criteria that you need it. So you're going to
be getting paid more, but also you're getting hopefully you're
getting more yield as well. And you're making sure that
urea is working for you because you're paying so much
for it.
S1 (23:35):
That's it. Well, that was back in the day when
urea was 400 bucks a tonne. Who cares? Right? But yeah,
these higher fertiliser prices have been the real incentive for
us to kind of go all in on this and say, actually,
it is working for us. Yeah. It's not that we're
spending less, it's that we're putting it where it's needed.
S2 (23:49):
It's smarter decisions. Yeah. So you said you started this 2015, 2016.
Did you have a group of other farmers or where
you obviously you were working with crop scan, were you
working with any other farmers or any other experts? Where
did you get all your information from?
S1 (24:06):
I was involved with a little bit through the SPAA.
I guess I was a bit involved with them at
the time, and also people I met through the Nuffield network. But nah,
mostly it was just myself again, because I've got a
background in IT. Right. So I was familiar with the
tools as such. So what I just needed help with
was the agronomic stuff about, you know, what's the best
way to implement it. So yeah, mostly just develop the maps,
(24:27):
say myself, but it wasn't myself. Yeah. With input from
the agronomist and, you know, like the old man like
it all feeds in.
S2 (24:34):
Okay. And I didn't know you had a background in IT.
Tell me about that.
S1 (24:37):
Yeah, yeah. So, um, I studied IT at uni and
was a web developer for a couple of years before
coming back on the farm. So fully accept with all
this stuff that I'm not normal farmer in that sense.
So I am more comfortable with these tools than others
might be.
S2 (24:52):
There's no such thing as a normal farmer, though, is there? Jonathan?
S1 (24:55):
No. That's right. Yeah. We all have our experiences and interests.
We try and bring in and and use.
S2 (25:00):
So you said, Jonathan, you have one of the older models.
I think we have the 3300, but now there's a
4000 BT Isobus. Can you tell me some of the
differences between how they work and where would be the
best value for me to spend my money?
S1 (25:16):
The answer is it depends what sort of header you have.
So you can still get a crop scan. If you
have a green header, but you're getting the 30, was
it the other one 3300? Yeah. You're getting one of those.
If you've got a green header you can get one
of those. And it and it works perfectly fine. It
just yeah. Don't have the screen in the cab. I
don't know about the other green ones the Agco machines
I'm not sure about them where they sit in that scheme.
(25:37):
So the Isobus BT for the red and yellow ones, I
think it works quite well. If that's not an option
for you, you can get the other ones. So or
if you've got green, you've got two choices because you
can have the proprietary Deere one which yeah integrates nicely
with the Ops center. And I think that's what Tim
was talking about running the other day. So we've got
the other way because again, it's just kind of because
that's what I, not got stuck with. But that's what we've got.
(26:00):
So we're happy with it. We'll probably continue with it.
Heard good feedback from both, and they both do a
very similar thing. And I even passed them both up
a couple of months ago, and they're not a heap
of difference in it, really. So it's all about you
go on whichever one's the best solution for you rather
than price, I think because there wasn't heaps in it.
S2 (26:16):
Does it matter how old your header is?
S1 (26:17):
No. There's Crop Scan put a great, uh, might have been
a couple of years ago now, but they had they
put one in a 9600 Deere in on a research
farm in the US, and like, the protein meter, was worth
more than the header. Yeah, it's agnostic from that point
of view.
S2 (26:33):
Okay. Are they something that you think will just become
a standard in a header or is nothing standard in
a header?
S1 (26:39):
Well, I would have thought so, but no, because the
most headers are the corn harvesters, right. They get adapted
for Australia. So it turns out that Australia is one
of the only markets in the world that actually cares
about protein a lot in a lot of the rest
of the world. Wheat is wheat and barley is barley,
and corn is corn and sorghum is sorghum. And it
doesn't matter. So it's only in these markets like ours
where you have these protein segregations that it's sort of
(27:01):
more relevant to.
S2 (27:03):
Okay, where to from here.
S1 (27:04):
Yeah, I'd like to keep getting more granular with it.
I suppose, like in a way it's crazy that we
have you know, I've got 3 or 4 zones in
a 300 hectare paddock. Can we get any more? Yeah.
So it's just trying to find these data points that
we can use to help us get more nuanced as
we go.
S2 (27:19):
Okay. What is some of the best advice just in
general life advice, farm advice. What is some of the
best advice you've been given? Jonathan I learn.
S1 (27:28):
A lot through the Nuffield process and doing that was fantastic.
But the thing that always stuck with me after that
was surround yourself with people who are smarter than you,
which was sort of what Nuffield was. But it's why
I enjoy being involved with BCG and and even X,
you know, Twitter like that's I'm quite active on there
because there's always people out there dealing with similar issues
or have got different approaches or do things that you
(27:48):
haven't thought of.
S2 (27:49):
Is there anything else you'd like to add? Is there
anything else that we haven't discussed today that you think
our listeners might be interested in knowing?
S3 (27:55):
I think that it is.
S1 (27:56):
Gotten easier now than it was when I first started
out with it. So it's if you want it to
be all on your phone or on the tablet, you
can now do that. So there's not I mean, we
touched on it before about there's not so much manual
data handling now, but it is becoming easier and more accessible.
And I think not a mistake I made. It was
a journey that we was on, like when I did
the Nuffield circuit, got the protein made and I said, wow,
(28:17):
look at this amazing result we had with segregation. And
we were able to blend away hundreds of tonnes of
what would have been ASW wheat. If we had not
had a protein meter, we just would have sent it
in the bin and it would have been ASW we're able to
have one header going in the frosted high protein stuff,
another one going up on the hill where the yield
was good, and we're able to blend it away as
sort of APW, H2 or something like that. It was
(28:38):
an amazing result, paid for the protein meter in here,
and it did happen. That's true. But it's also a
pain in the neck with logistics right at harvest time.
It's hard sending trucks different ways and shifting shifters at
your own site, or having some trucks going to the
site and some going home. The secret sauce is getting
your agronomy right and using these maps to inform what
you're doing next time around.
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