Farm story Australia

We are bringing you a short quoted story, from the dry land in Western Australia. In this part farmer Richard Leeson tells us his crop farming style and mechanisation processes where a Terraland TO 6000 is used and helped to upgrade his results to 1t/ha extra on Canola. Plus Richard was not afraid off to run a few tests in a field before the wheat was seeded.

„Currently farming 8000ha with my brother Nathan in Meckering Western Australia.
Cropping 6000ha consisting of 1/3 canola and 2/3 thirds cereals mainly wheat, barley and a few oats. Having started a 15m CTF (Controlled Traffic Farming) system in 2012 we found some problems with straw distribution and lime spreading mainly.
Direct heading of canola was another big issue, so with the harvester front due to be changed, in 2015 we went to a 13.5m Macdon D65 draper front.
That allowed us to have the option of using it as a swathe front on our nitro boom spray as well as a good front for direct harvesting of canola. Also by coming back a little in size we can spread straw more evenly too. We had winged curtains put onto our spreader so that now we can spread lime sand out to 13.5m no problems.”

The hard-pan test comparison in non-ripped wheat field and ripped parts. After the first ever pass of Terraland TO the test shows significant difference on a penetrometer.

Richard presenting his wheat test in the mid-season. The wheat crops looked stronger and greener than the first.

„So one big problem left… And that was to get rid of the old 15m very hard compacted tramlines. So I was looking for a well-built deep ripper as our current one was not up to the task.
Keeping in touch with Grant Borgward (Bednar Sales representative in Western Australia) over the years, he has informed me that he had a machine that will do the job…. And that he did!
After a quick demo of the Terraland TO 6000 CTF we could see the potential to do multiple jobs just by tooling the machine differently to suit.
The double-spiky rollers are a big plus for us because any clay clods that come up were broken back down by them allowing us to not use another machine for seedbed preparation. Along with its slick design and smooth curves it’s ripped over 3000 ha of soil without a frame or tine problem and 1750ha of that done in the 2016 ripping season.

The crops are looking a darker green, thicker and healthier where we have ripped and we are looking forward to doing some more.”

Quoted: Richard Leeson

Root systems in comparison from the non-ripped field on the left and ripped on the right. Bacterial life is obviously more seen on the right, this a sign of better aeration in soil profile. Therefore the decrease of pH is also expected due to good microbiological processes.