When the manager of Pomany Angus at Whiddon, George Spring, went looking for a bigger and better air seeder he followed his agronomist's advice and checked out the new Bourgault HD848 eight metre model on display at AgQuip.
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Mr Spring's desire was to make better use of the winter fodder planting window.
This years oats sown in February, into fallowed country with 100mm of stored moisture jumped out of the ground and got calves to sale weight in a difficult season.
However, in these patchy conditions a producer needs to make best use rainfall and so Mr Spring required a machine able to cover more hectares.
This year, by for example, what he planted early was available for grazing six times compared to just once for a late sown crop.
"We need to be in a position to go when we have moisture," Mr Spring said. "We need to be nimble."
Pomany's agronomist Tim Sawley, Merriwa, said he was after a machine that could do fine work for sowing sub-tropical pasture and cereal seeds. The fact that this seeder followed undulating ground mattered a lot.
"The rig is in a parallelogram and that helps it follow the ground," he said.
Of course getting a machine up the Whiddon Valley without the need for an escort was also top of mind. This compact Bourgault seeder can be towed with just wide load signs attached and no accompaniment.
In fact, that was how the seeder got to Gunnedah, from Spring Hill, behind a tractor with only one bloke in charge - Bourgault's Quirindi dealer and mechanic Leigh Dugan from North West Farm Machinery - fresh from field trials.
It was far from new and shiny because the Canadian creation had spent the last few months getting acclimatised to the Australian way of doing things, planting across 2000ha from Victoria to northern NSW.
"We abused the hell out of it," said Mr Dugan.
Mick Hockey at Spring Ridge found out about the seeder's availability as a test subject and so with Mr Dugan's help used it to sow a multi species cover crop, under irrigation, as a break between cotton.
The job, involving faba beans field peas, chickpeas, vetch, rye, wheat, barley, oats and radish was made possible because the HD848's seed hopper can be split three ways and it can be set up so every other tyne sows at different depth.
"On a 250mm spacing you can have a forage crop at 500mm with legumes and clovers in between as a cover crop," said Mr Dugan.
Benefits of the HD848 include adjusting sowing rate on the fly, robust magnetic sensors to keep track of what goes out and an easy clean-out after the job is done.
