Anyone seeking a developed farm offering multiple enterprise options with an underpinning of reliable irrigation will find it hard to beat a current Riverina offering.
Sally Douglas of Nutrien Harcourts Wagga Wagga has listed for sale a 390 hectare (966ac) aggregation of four adjoining blocks in the northern Coleambally Irrigation Area.
Attractively priced at $2.95 million, the aggregation stacks up as an ideal starter farm for a young couple, or a useful fattening or fodder-growing annexe to a dryland grazing operation elsewhere.
Situated 22 kilometres north of Coleambally and the same distance south of Darlington Point, the aggregation is owned by Corrine and Andy Wensing, who are now looking to slow down a notch.
The owners came to the area in 2006 when they bought two of the original Coleambally Irrigation Co-operative horticultural blocks, Farm 1036 and Farm 1039 (which were first used to grow potatoes).
Two adjoining make-up blocks, Farm 227 and Farm 229, later became available and these were acquired in 2012 and 2016 respectively, making up the aggregation now for sale.
Described as level to gently undulating, 95 per cent arable country of self-mulching clay and deep, well-drained sandy soils and 270ha irrigable, the property lends itself to a range of enterprises.
Under present ownership, all four farms have grown wheat, barley and oats and are now sown to lucerne, clover and ryegrass pasture to support a Dorper flock of 800 ewes (but previously up to 1600 ewes).
Rams run with the ewes year-round and the lambs are sold at Griffith, where the most recent consignment last week fetched $234 a head.
Pastures are topdressed with single super augmented by chicken and cow manure, and gypsum is applied when fields are re-lasered.
The Dorper prime lamb enterprise is augmented by a 14ha olive orchard of 3732 trees, established in 2017 and now yielding up to 20 kilograms a tree.
Olive crushing plants are located at Jerilderie and Hillston, and plans are in hand to expand the olive orchard, to which end a new drip system has been installed with a Kubota diesel drip pump and filtering equipment feeding a 200mm main line.
Apart from the existing and previous enterprises, the property is also well suited (based on local experience) to cotton, corn, soybeans, almonds, citrus and fodder production.
Underpinning the operation are water entitlements comprising 272 megalitres of general security and 47ML of high security licences, plus 414ML of delivery entitlements.
Water entitlements, valued at around $1m, are transferable across the four farms, and supply a 7ha centre pivot, border check, and a drip irrigation system for the olives.
Average rainfall is 412mm and the property also comes with a stock and domestic bore, reticulating to stock troughs.
The property is subdivided into 15 paddocks, with all internal and boundary fencing renewed by the present owners.
A near-new, three-bedroom home, built in 2015, has an open-plan living area, ducted reverse-cycle air conditioning, verandas, office and a five-vehicle carport.
It is supplemented by a self-contained three-bedroom, air-conditioned demountable cabin, currently occupied by a family member.
Working structures include a steel machinery shed/workshop, steel sheepyards with covered work area and steel hayshed.
