Shared Ag Solutions by BCG

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 herbicide rates a...

“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. So it's just thin...

“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 why the corporate farm al...

“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.” Professor Richa...

“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 venture. We're not doing it as a hobby. 

 “As P...

“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 of Afri...

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 do in every group has human...

“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 flights at any time of the day. 

“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 put a mark on the shuttle to know ...

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 camera from working altogether.” 

In our si...

“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 Walsh from Charles Sturt University about ...

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. 

“The idea with th...

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 acknowledging that initially things are goin...

“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 h...

“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 bottom line. We're get...

Welcome back to Shared Ag Solutions by BCG. We're thrilled to introduce our latest series, On the Horizon: Farm Tech!

In this season, BCG is on a mission to bring the latest in on-farm technology to our listeners. We'll explore topics such as protein mapping, optical spray technology and batching machines. This series will also investigate non-chemical weed management strategies, the latest in drone technology for livestock managem...

“One of the issues with P allocation on, say, lentils or chickpeas is that they're not that responsive in terms of yield, but they do respond, in terms of nitrogen fixation. So phosphorus will stimulate growth, which stimulates nitrogen fixation. So your pulses, and even some of the medic pastures and vetch, for example, they're usually the first things we cut phosphorus off, in our crop budget. But in fact, what happens is, by doi...

“…he's got individual nozzle controls, so Hawkeye, he's only spot spraying. That's all he uses the machine for. He's got a few sprayers. This is just his spot sprayer and he thinks that there is no other way to spray. He said he kicks back, watching the footy on his iPad. He's got his height controller controlling the boom. He's got his weed detect turning on and spot spraying his weeds and that's probably the best case scenario.”

...

“So say 2022, where we had good starting soil water, a very good timing of the break, a very positive forecast, then Yield Profit was really gung-ho and put on by, I think it was 150 kilograms of nitrogen Curyo, which is, well, very few farmers are going to do that commercially, that's over 300 kilo's per hectare of urea, whereas the nitrogen bank treatment tends to only put on about 60, or thereabouts, kilograms per hectare of nit...