Martin Quade, "Avonlea", Tallimba, was already looking to change his barley variety coming into this season and RGT Planet caught his eye.
John Quade and Sons, a partnership of father John and wife Helen, Martin and his wife Kate and Anthony and his wife Carmen made the leap. In national trials, despite only a year's data accumulated on the variety, RGT Planet looked the goods.
Across Australia it has consistently performed 10 to 15 per cent better than its competitors.
"We don't normally make an entire change (in variety), but we have this year," he said. Mr Quade has sown 700 hectares to RGT Planet and while it's up, it's looking for a drink now.
Really, if it stays dry like this, I wouldn’t expect much from any kind of barley planted on wheat stubble, but then who knows? It could come good.
- Martin Quade
"We've had 60 millimetres for the year so far, last year we had 700mm," he said. "I guess it's not that unusual, we've had plenty of wet years followed by really dry years, that's the nature of the thing, it's pretty unpredictable." Mr Quade said after last year's good soaking there is subsoil moisture available, but the gap between surface moisture and subsoil is ever increasing until it rains next.
"There's some patches where it looks like it's made it (to subsoil moisture), or will, but there's other patches where it looks like it might struggle," he said. While the outlook does not look promising, Mr Quade is fairly philosophical not only about the chance of rain, but also the prospects of RGT Barley getting malting accreditation in the near future. "It would be good if it could (get malting accreditation), but really we're looking to fill bags," he said. Asked about potential yields, Mr Quade was not confident. “Really, if it stays dry like this, I wouldn’t expect much from any kind of barley planted on wheat stubble,” he said. “It might come good, might not, but that’s okay, we’ve had a good run of years.”
The Quades store about half of their barley on farm and deliver some at harvest.
“We do backloads for lime, barley goes out, lime comes back.” The sum of it he uses to feed about 1400 ewes, a mix of cross breeds and Merinos.