The Johnstone family, of Woodstock near Cowra, are no strangers to success in the Suncorp Bank/Agricultural Societies Council Dryland Wheat Competition.
They have been finalists on four separate occasions since 2011 – that’s when brothers Ben and Tom joined their father Peter in the running of the family business, Illinois Farms Pty Ltd – and Peter, too, had previously been a finalist several times.
However, this year, they went all the way. They won champion crop with the new variety, Kittyhawk, and a total score of 183 points.
Wheat growing is in this family’s blood. Peter’s grandfather, Walter, who emigrated from the US in 1911, had, in 1938 won the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW Central Slopes Wheat Competition for farms less than 640 acres, with a variety called Dundee.
It was he who also named their farm Illinois.
An article from the Sydney Morning Herald, published on November 21, 1938, said it was the third time Mr Johnstone had gained the leading position in his district, and was “ably assisted by his son, Wiley”.
That season’s crop was on land that was being cropped for just the fifth time and the “undulating medium loam was disc ploughed at the end of October, harrowed in January, spring-toothed in February and harrowed in April”, the article said.
The rain that year was described as erratic, but was a lot better than the season just dished out, 80 years later, for Walter’s great-grandsons and their father.
Ben said the soil moisture last year was okay to sow into, but there was no sowing rain.
“Pretty much all our farm last year was dry sown, then it rained after sowing,” he said.
The crop was sown on May 3 with a Gyral Sure-Strike planter with disc openers and narrow knife points.
This missed the start of the preferred sowing window, but the timing was due to the season, and to fit with their staggered grazing plan.
Last season was the first time they used Kittyhawk, and from the grazing opportunities it presented alone, it returned them $1265/hectare (“Kittyhawk is dual crop choice”, The Land, December 6, p35).
The Johnstone’s 28ha winning crop had been grazed twice – first by their cattle and then by their lambs – before being locked up for grain, and was also the Cowra Show Society’s winning crop.
Paddock preparation began with previous rotations. A few years earlier it was under lucerne, then wheat, then in 2017, canola. This rotation helped reduce grass weeds, but also provided a disease break.
Most of the family’s agronomy work was done by Tom, but he also swapped notes with agronomists Peter Watt, Elders, and Mitch Small, AdvantageAg, both of Cowra.
Tom said the planning had to consider the next three to four years and include weed control, chemical rotations and crop options.
“What you do in a paddock you’ll see for three or four years after. I think that’s also how we get our extra five or 10 per cent,” he said.
What you do in a paddock you’ll see for three or four years after. I think that’s also how we get our extra five or 10 per cent.
- Tom Johnstone, Illinois Farms Pty Ltd
They put 100 kilograms a hectare of urea onto the paddock, in-crop, once they removed their lambs. The paddock was grazed with 96 Angus heifers for 15 days, and then by 900 lambs for 42 days.
Competition judge, agronomist Paul Parker, Young, estimated the crop would yield 5.6t/ha. The Johnstones said it ended up yielding 5.5t/ha, explaining Mr Parker must have walked through the better patches.
Despite the dry year, this shadowed the 1938 estimated yield of more than 14 bags/acre (2.82t/ha).
The 2018 crop tested 11.5 to 12.3 per cent protein, the testing done as it went into grain bags at harvest, so they could market the whole bag as a package.
Their marketing is done through grower/broker David Wheaton, Advance Trading Australasia, Mudgee.
The Johnstones also windrowed and baled the straw off the back of the header, yielding and estimated 3.5-4t/ha of hay.
The judge’s notes
During the presentation, judge, Paul Parker, said about all the finalists "the fact you even achieved a crop was amazing, given some of the conditions”.
The 2018 competition was also marked by the number of young farmers taking over from “the old guard” and still rising to the top as placegetters or finalists in their regions.
Mr Parker said as an agronomist of 50 years, the past season was the worst he had seen, not just for the dryness, but also the frosts.
The growing season rain totals varied from as low as 84 millimetres in parts of the Northern region, and 87mm in the Western region, to only as high as 212mm in the Central region and 217mm the best in the Southern region.
“What really stood out was the excellent level of management – if you hadn’t have had that management, you wouldn’t have had a crop,” Mr Parker said.
He said all crops in this year’s competition had been sown within the recommended sowing window for each variety and moisture conservation had also been critical.
“I can guarantee that’s going to be critical again (into 2019),” he said.
He also said, among the 10 wheat varieties represented, the most striking aspect was perhaps the performances of the two Kittyhawk crops, which were both grazed in season and then recovered.
Matt and Kellie Mason, at Westwood, Spicers Creek, also grew Kittyhawk and returned $2170/ha from the grazing of lambs alone.
- More results, including the Excellence in Farming Award winner, p25.