WITH the aim of concentrating on one industry instead of many, Galore farmer Mark Taylor got out of livestock in 2002 to focus on cropping.
His focus had been on wheat, canola and faba beans on his property "Woodlands", but he decided to conduct a trial for faba bean varieties to see which one he would better offing using in his area of the state.
"We are using four different varieties: Nura, Samira, Farah and Rana," Mr Taylor said.
"The trial is more about which variety is best on dryland and pivot point irrigation and Hart Brothers Seeds is watching it, I'm the only one doing it.
"It's a pretty simple trial in what suits our methods, nothing scientific, just for our own benefit."
With 1400 hectares up his sleeve, Mr Taylor said for the paddock trial he's using 20 hectares per variety.
"They were only sown in May, so only eight weeks off planting and it's going well so far," he said.
"I wanted to do it to see what would be the best, as faba beans take up a large percentage of my rotation now."
He said his guess was as good as anybody else's as to how the crop would perform until harvest to determine the results of the trial towards the end of the year.
"We rotate every two years: two years of canola, two years of beans to control grass weeds," he said.
"The grass weeds are a major problem."
The trial had a "spot on" start with the weather.
"We don't have water issues, as it rained last year; it has been textbook weather so far," he said.
Mr Taylor will be ready to harvest in November and said most of the crops had been sprayed and would be top dressed with urea in the coming months.
He sowed the crop using minimum till with knife point, press wheels and RTK global positioning.
"Everything is sown with urea and nitrogen at time of planting," he said.
He sowed at a rate of 100 kilograms a hectare, combined with 80kg/ha of monoammonium phosphate (MAP) and 95kg/ha of urea.
The extent to which he would irrigate would depend on the season and how much water the crop ended up needing.
"It depends on the season how much water is needed, I like to top up when needed, rather than intensive irrigation," he said.
After previously losing money, Mr Taylor preferred to wait closer to the crop being harvested before selling.
"It goes locally, but it comes back to price, I don't do big amounts of forward selling," he said.
"It's stored here in silos on farm and marketed pre-harvest or during harvest to be delivered during the summer."
Beans Galore
HART Brothers Seeds sales agronomist Ellie Readford, Junee, took part in a three paddock scale demonstration at Mark Taylor's property, "Woodlands", Galore, to collect information regarding different varieties of faba beans.
"One of the demos we looked at was a Hart Brothers Seeds faba bean variety demonstration under a pivot at Mark Taylor's property," Miss Readford said.
"This demonstration includes four faba bean varieties: Nura, Samira, Farah and Rana."
She said the aim was to assess which varieties were better suited to the area in southern NSW, based on disease resistance and yield comparisons.
The four varieties were chosen as they were the main varieties suited to southern NSW and were all commercially produced in the area.
"Our role is to assess the four varieties throughout the season and judge which are suited to different areas in southern NSW," she said.
The crops were sown in early March and will be harvested later this year.
Delta agronomists Heidi Gooden, Warwick Nightingale and Elissa Strong gave a talk updating faba bean herbicide and fungicide strategies, the three critical periods and what to look out for during the season.
Mark Taylor, "Woodlands", Galore, is pictured with Ms Readford in one of the "Woodlands" demonstration areas.