McLeod family's third state champion crop win

It's argued the district is the state's premier wheat growing area having won the Agricultural Societies Council's championship possibly more times than any other district.

But for Malcolm and Diana McLeod and their son Scott and daughter-in-law Julia and four grandchildren, the family operation is devoted to their cropping enterprise as much as their self-replacing Merino sheep enterprise run on a 25 to 30 per cent cropping to 70pc to 75pc sheep ratio.

The big woolcutting Merinos were of Uardry blood for 50 years and then Wanganella with the flock average growing 19- to 20-micron wool and cutting an average six kilograms.

Scott McLeod said the rich red loamy basalt soils hold water and are attributable to the success of cropping on their Thornleigh property where the champion 51 hectares of Condo wheat was grown. The success of the crop was a miracle to Mr McLeod who said the past three springs had failed.

"We had some summer rain from December to March of 214 millimetres last year with in-crop falls totalling 181mm, the most in May of 54mm," Mr McLeod said.

After a Roundup Ultra spray in December '18 and follow-up on May 15, with a mix of Roundup at 1.3l/ha, Logran at 35g/ha, Sakura at 118g/ha and Hammer at 35ml/ha the crop was direct-drilled at 68kg/ha of seed with 120kg/ha of MAP on 23cm spacings on May 18.

A pass of urea at 100kg/ha was made on August 9.

Regional finals judge Paul Parker, Young, estimated a yield of 5.4t/ha while the whole farm yield averaged 4.6t/ha, according to Mr McLeod.

"The previous year we grew a 2.2t/ha canola crop, a 6.1t/ha wheat crop the year before while in 2016 canola yielded 2.5t/ha after a pasture phase," he said. "I enjoy the cropping, but I also enjoy the sheep. It's a well-balanced operation."

McLeod's crop took out the southern region final with northern region won by the Woods family, Limebon, Boggabilla, with Gregory wheat, western winner was the Bowyer family, Wooddown, Lockhart, with Trojan.

Central region winner was the Barwick family, Yarrabah, Willow Tree with Sunmax while durum wheat winners were Richard and Michael Bowler, Kemendine, Bithramere near Tamworth with Lillaroi variety.