Shared Ag Solutions by BCG

For Episode 1 of Decision Fit, Dr. Yolanda Plowman has a chat with farmer and farm advisor Cam Nicholson to discuss what it means to be a good decision maker, how you can train your decision-making skills, and what role biases and rules of thumb play in all of this. Cam also shares insights into the value of new technology and the importance of having business partners that think differently to one another. We hope you enjoy!

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Welcome to Decision Fit! The Birchip Cropping Group is launching a new podcast series exploring the thinking behind on-farm decision making. We will be interviewing farmers, researchers and industry experts to talk about decision making in the face of risk and uncertainty in agriculture.

This series is made possible by RiskWi$e, a CSIRO led and GRDC funded project. Learn more about RiskWi$e here: RiskWi$e | Birchip Cropping Group.

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“A lot of us at harvest, when pressure's on and we're trying to get more harvest hours in a day, more grain in per day, if we're limited by a grain moisture, we go and look at, I'll get a contract harvester in, I'll buy a bigger header next year, I'll go to a second or a third header next year.  What if we could manage moisture in grain do it with less headers? Because we get more hours in a day.  

“So we...

Controlling mature fleabane is tricky. With funding from the Hugh Williamson Foundation and the Australian Government's Future Drought Fund BCG’s Research Agronomist Angus Butterfield completed a research project on controlling mature fleabane. 

The information shared is based on research conducted for the purpose of exploring flea bank control options and should not be considered direct advice.  Please note, some h...

“I'm talking dry sowing because we've got a whole range of new pre-emergent herbicides, mostly from other groups, so group 13 and so on, and group 15, which have completely different properties to what we had 20 years ago. 

“We've actually now got an opportunity where we can use that set of chemistry to deal with our ryegrass issues and add to that our crop competition from getting our crop in early in the season. ...

“I find if you make the time, efficiencies come, if you're rushing around and always in a hurry to get to the next job, you find things break. Things happen, things go wrong, things get missed and that's when you lose time and then you're further behind.” Warakirri Farm Manager Jono Robinson. 

In the fifth episode BCG’s Janine Batters chats with Warakirri Farm Manager Jono Robinson. The conversation covers wh...

“Because the fossil fuel sector has started reducing its emissions, the transport sector started reducing its emissions and agriculture stayed the same. Suddenly, this year, we're not 14 percent like we were last year, we're 17%. It's a percentage game. So what's going to happen over time is if agriculture does nothing, we'll become the only sector of greenhouse gas emissions while all the other sectors go to zero.” Pro...

“That price gap's a hurdle for a lot of farmers. I feel that I've probably got other farmers that would, but the majority of them would not be keen to spend that amount of money compared to what they could be doing with Trojan.  

 “Most farmers will want to see an economical return from that long term. And because we need that from every aspect of farming. 

 “Farming is a money-making vent...

“This year, in terms of the IOD, it's just been sitting there in neutral. We've been just watching it, seeing if there's anything developing. At the moment, there's a slight hint that it's looking like it could go a little bit, negative IOD, which would actually increase our chances of some rainfall, but similar to the Pacific Ocean, in the Indian Ocean, that is purely just based on a temperature difference between the Horn o...

Poorly managed conflict is the biggest internal threat to your business’ bottom line.

There is no change without conflict and there is always conflict where there is change. 

The right conflict; healthy arguments over differing ideas in an environment of mutual respect; stimulates both personal and business growth. 

“The reason why it's [good conflict resolution] so critical is because everything that we ...

“So it's essentially a drone in a box. And it is automated, but it's only just been released, so it will open up at a predetermined time, do its map, and come back, park up and close up for the night. And people are sending them out every day to collect data,    

“It's in a weatherproof station that sits outside a shed or something like that. As long as it's got internet and power, you can then plan ...

“Just put all your chemical in as per order. The important thing is to give it the granules time to dissolve, get into the solution. 

“we've got scales so we can measure all the chemicals in, especially your bulk chemicals out of shuttles. 

“We need to know the  specific density of each chemical which is all different so you need to know that before you're doing it. I've used the scales and I also p...

On the Horizon: Farm Tech 

Farm security with AgCloud’s Grant Sutton 

“But there's some more organised criminals that have a bit more nous about how they’ll tackle a farm, and they'll go to power, and they'll cut power. That can disable the system if it's not planned correctly. 

“It can cause the internet to go down. Say for example, so there's no alerts coming through, or it could stop a came...

“I’m most excited about, probably for the wrong reasons, lasers because they are awesome to use!  

“There's just so much energy! It just gets blasted into these weed plants in such a fantastic, intense, short period of time. It's quite satisfying to burn these weeds to a crisp with a big laser.” 

In our fifth episode of our series On the Horizon: Farm Tech Janine chats to Professor Michael Wal...

This podcast was brought to you by GE Silos. Visit https://www.gesilos.com.au/ today. 

"Our market has been in tow behind sprayers. They don't take a huge amount of horsepower to pull. It means we can keep our weight really light for a 24 meter boom, for example, we'll be eight ton loaded, so you can get on the ground nice and early. We don't want to go bigger because that's going away from where SwarmFarm began. 

“...

This podcast was brought to you by GE Silos. Visit https://www.gesilos.com.au/ today.

New farm office tech and cybersecurity with Carmen Quade 

“I think the first thing to do is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. When new things come in, we’re often bad at it. 

 “And as adults, you don't like that feeling of things being difficult or hard or harder than they were. And it's just acknowledgi...

“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 D...

“Take that challenge. Nut it out, really. Have a bit of persistence and find support from someone else to get ideas on how to fix it. What are other people doing to get through those wet conditions? How do they do that? Can I keep climbing that ladder, rather than starting back from scratch? Because, as we climb that ladder, our yields are improving. 

“We're getting way better soil health. It's better for our botto...