The Crop Doctor
The Grains Research & Development Corporation

No doubt about it, 2002 was a bad year for farmers across Australia’s northern grains region. Bad as anyone can remember.

But for all that, according to Walgett agronomist Greg Rummery, there was cropping country in north west New South Wales that did not achieve its full potential in 2002.

He says a lot of cropping country in the region was not sown when it could have been, with much of the reason being poor uptake of zero tillage and controlled traffic.

Other paddocks that were sown didn’t yield as well as they might have, again because the growers concerned didn’t use all the currently available technology.

Mr Rummery backs his argument by comparing the yields and gross margins achieved in 2002 by the top 20 per cent of growers to those of the remainder of growers who planted a crop in 2002.

The top 20 per cent of growers stripped 1.5 tonnes to the hectare of wheat (compared to the remainder’s 0.2 tonnes), 0.9 tonnes of chickpea (compared to 0.2 tonnes) and (for the 2001-02 season) 2.7 tonnes of sorghum (compared to 0.7 tonnes).

And, while their crop expenses were a bit higher than the remainder’s – $147/ha against $132/ha for wheat, $191/ha against $173 for chickpeas and $156/ha against $137 for sorghum – the extra cost was recouped many times over in the gross margins achieved.

The top growers’ gross margin for wheat was $410/ha for wheat compared to the remaining growers loss of $56/ha, $274/ha for chickpea compared to $55 and $295/ha for sorghum compared to a loss of $16/ha.

"The real message out of 2002 was that only 25 per cent of the total cropping area was planted, with the rest being carried through as fallow," Mr Rummery says.

"Those growers who were able to plant a crop did so mostly on sorghum fallow country, and this highlights the importance of crop rotations that provide a mix of fallow histories in any one cropping season. "

Mr Rummery said the main driver of success for the top 20 per cent of growers was soil water at planting. The most profitable crops had higher plant available water at planting due to higher fallow rainfall, better fallow management or longer fallow periods.