An agronomist who loves solving problems for farmers had an unexpected suggestion up his sleeve for one client when the going got tough water-wise last season, and it really paid off.
Scott Reid, owner of Bindiwalla Pastoral, was forced to reduce his planned area of corn for silage last October when there wasn't enough water to supply the full allocation.
"Corn is usually really valuable feed storage for us," he said.
"But with the water limitations last season it just was not an option to do the full sowing.
"We had to find another way."
He reached out to Walkers AGnVET in Forbes.
AGnVET's Campbell Wilson said he loves working with farmers who are willing to try new things.
"At Bindarella, they are always pushing boundaries to elevate their outcomes," he said.
"We knew just what to suggest, and we are delighted it worked out so well for them."
Mr Reid followed AGnVET's suggestion, stretching out the water coverage by planting a single corn paddock side-by-side with plantings of S&W Chomper and Sweet As.
His first trial of sorghums took well right from the start.
"It was dry sown in October," Mr Reid said.
"We watered it out of the ground and watered again in mid-November and gave it some urea.
"Over the season, it was obviously not the greatest growing conditions overall.
"But it shot up and just kept going.
"It produced really well and continuing long after the corn was well finished.
"It was our first experiment with forage sorghum and was well worth the exercise.
"It absolutely saved our production cattle plan for the year".
The crop was cut for silage in early January, and then grazed in spells through until May, with extremely limited rainfall.
The cattle 'conservatively' put on a kilogram per day.
"We fattened 120 weaner cattle for market on that sorghum and would have been lost without it," Mr Reid said.
"Corn and other crops are still important for us here of course.
"But now we have got space set aside for more sorghum as well.
"If we did not have that sorghum forage and silage, we would have had no production cattle at all this year."
S&W Seed Company
Founded in 1980, S&W Seed Company is a global agricultural company headquartered in the USA.
S&W's vision is to be the world's preferred proprietary seed company in forage and specialty crop products supporting growing global demand for animal proteins and healthier consumer diets.
S&W is one of the global leaders in alfalfa/lucerne seed and recent acquisitions have added grain and forage sorghum hybrids, sunflowers and other varieties to the brand portfolio.
S&W's operations span the US, Australia, and more than 30 other countries.
- Visit: www.swseedco.com