AS A telelifter stacked 800 big squares of assorted crop in his silage pit at “Valdemar” just outside of Millthorpe it was pretty obvious Duncan Clowes was relieved.
“Yeah it’s good to have it going in, I’m pretty exposed without it,” he said.
At the start of 2017 the same pit contained 1600 big squares, they’re all gone.
“Yeah I thought we were prepared, but we obviously weren’t,” he said laughing.
Those 1600 bales were complemented by another 800 of export quality oaten hay bought in from Victoria for about $200,000 and fed to his 600 Angus breeders (culled back from 700).
The bales came off a neighbouring 280-hectare property sown down to Blackbutt oats, Moby barley, Kittyhawk and Wedgetail wheats and triticale by Lee and Stacey Matthews, opertating under the business L&S Matthews Rural Contracting.
Mr Clowes baled the silage and Mrs Matthews was stacking it in blocks on Tuesday afternoon, while her brother-in-law Matt Baker loaded up his Kenworth semi-trailer and Duncan’s table top truck.
It was a fast operation, when Duncan finished his last bale he jumped on a Bobcat and chipped in with loading.
“Yeah in the middle of a drought we got two of the best crops,” said Mrs Matthews.
She pointed across the farm which has been in the Matthews family for 160 years, “that 20 acre paddock next to the house, last year we got 40 bales off it, this year we got 198”. The Matthews have left 8ha of oats standing to strip for seed.
Their sheep will be turned onto the stubble now.
“It’s been a tough winter, feeding starving sheep throughout it,” said Mrs Matthews, “it’s physically and emotionally draining”.
The preparation of the paddocks with top dressing of urea and lime and an application of super phosphate made a big difference, she said, enabling crop to get going on extremely low rainfall. Rob Matthews, the family patriarch, took a look at the paddocks his son now owns and daughter-in-law had mown and reckoned it was a job well done.
“You know some people might say they were lucky, but you make your own luck a lot of the time.”
Lee Matthews said it was ironic that some of your worst years could turn out to be among the best.
“I fattened 700-800 sucker lambs on those crops in June and July and that basically paid for the imputs, so the silage is cream,” he said.
“The crops had already paid for themselves.”