PURE economics with cost savings were the basis behind Stuart and Sue Barclay moving to an 18 metre (60 foot) wide front on their harvester.
When using a contractor during harvest the Barclays were stripping some 850 tonnes of cereal a day with two headers. But when the first of the wider fronts hit the market, they heard feedback of tonnage per day was tallying roughly 800t with the one unit.
The economics was simple for a family team of two, one a header driver and the other the chaser at Kilbirnie, Nyngan.
"That's our operation here," Mr Barclay said. "Sue and I are a team and work side-by-side, and at busy times we'll call on others including backpackers.
'But most of the time it's just the two of us."
The unit is a combination of a New Holland CR9.90 twin rotor harvester with dual wheels working a Midwest Durus 60ft front manufactured in Dalby, Queensland..
"I saw a 60 footer a year or two before we bought this 2017 model," Mr Barclay said. "The first new machine we had was a 30ft (9m) 1666 Case and it basically had the same size rotor as these CR9s and was a very easy machine to set up, very forgiving, and minimal grain loss.
"So this is basically strapping two of those onto the on machine."
Mr Barclay said the front matches the processing capacity of the harvester well.
"It has a larger cleaning and separation area and with two smaller diameter rotors the harvester is better at processing small/medium grain sized crops with less grain losses over the sieves and through the rotors out the back. It was the first New Holland they owned, Mr Barclay had owned a Claas 85 harvester followed by a Gleaner N7.
The couple's first new header was a Case 1666 followed by a Case 2188 before moving to a John Deere when the company brought out the rotaries and STSs (single tyne separator) in 2000, Mr Barclay said.
Eighty per cent of Kilbirnie, or 3180 hectares, was cropped this year while the remainder, Bogan River country, was left for their small Angus herd to graze.
"We normally grow a 66/33pc split for wheat and chickpeas, but this year we grew more wheat only because of the spelling our country has had from the drought," Mr Barclay said.
Some 2835ha of Lancer and Flanker were the main wheat varieties sown with a small amount of Hellfire and Spitfire around the house blocks, while 344ha was sown to HatTrick chickpeas, and a small amount to Yarran oats.
"The season broke in February, so we sprayed and sprayed and sprayed," he said. "It was like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge, finish one end and start again at the other. We did four sprays up to sowing which started on April 17 with wheat."
Drought exit strategy pays crop dividends
STUART and Sue Barlcay's drought exit strategy was to have everything ready to sow at Kilbirnie, Nyngan.
"We had run out of water and the last of our stock had to go by March of last year," Mr Barclay said.
When the rains came in February, their plan was put into practice and after four sprays sowing commenced with wheat varieties at 32kg/ha on 38 centimetre spacings with 70kh/ha of MAP, 43kg down the front tube and 27kg with the seed at the back.
Oats was sown at 55kh/ha and chickpeas at 70kg/ha.
"The area we under-sowed with lucerne was at 2.6kh/ha down the tube with the wheat, and the fertiliser at 43k/ha down the front," Mr Barclay said. We don't leave wheel tracks unsown in the control traffic as that can lead to a massive loss of precious heads full of grain falling forward out of the front into the tracks without the crop pressure to assist with the feeding in the vacant rows."
A Grizzly 12 metre (40ft) rig is also used in the operation.
"The header and tractor run down the same tracks while the spray rig is a little bit narrower, but all within that three to 3.5 metre width," he said.
The Barclays work on a rotation of two seasons wheat followed by one season of chickpeas, and this year for the first time in quite a while, put some country back out to lucerne in two paddocks totalling 600ha and will stay in pasture for up to five years.
One of the Barclay's Flanker paddocks won the Nyngan crop competition with a 7t/ha-plus yield to be placed in the western zone final of the 2020/21 Agricultural Societies Council/Suncorp Bank state dryland field wheat competition.
Mr Barclay said the Flanker was the best performing variety among their wheat.
"It was out on its own this year," he said.
