https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/agribusiness/on-farm/mixed-farming-brothers-grant-and-troy-keating-from-werneth-play-to-their-strengths/news-story/37e63d9a159542bfbdbe76d3c71285e8
BROTHERS Grant and Troy Keating are combining their cropping and sheep production skills to put their 1400ha farm in Victoria’s Western District on a secure footing for the future.
Underfoot, soil quality is improving thanks to many new practices the young farmers are employing.
They have recently moved from a tyne to disc seeder to retain stubble and reduce damage to soils, and improve water-holding capacity.
They are also applying lime at variable rates to reduce costs and reverse soil acidification. The pair also do as much work as they can themselves without contractors.
While Grant takes the cropping lead, Troy is in charge of the livestock. Sheep fit in with the cropping, grazing winter crops and using stubbles.
This symbiotic relationship — spreading production and income risks — is matched only by the brothers’ straightforward approach to sharing jobs on the farm.
“We’re working towards the same goal, we have to make it work and get on well,” Grant said.
And while the recent move to farming focused on soil conservation required different machinery, the changeover cost has been minimal, thanks to the brothers’ mechanical expertise.
The Keatings’ grandparents bought the original family farm in 1908. Today Grant and his wife Emily, Troy and his wife Ebony, and the brothers’ parents, Ann and Neville, run the operation at Werneth, Cressy and Lismore.
About 1200ha of the 1400ha operation is cropped. Average rainfall varies from 500mm to 620mm a year and soil types are sandy to clay loams.
SKILLS AND THRILLS
BOTH brothers embarked on off-farm careers to give them “something to fall back on”, before coming home. Grant spent six years as an Air Force aircraft mechanic while Troy worked as a diesel mechanic.
This year they have planted 210ha of faba beans, 85ha of barley, 270ha of wheat, 165ha of oats and about 510ha of canola.
“We’re heavy on canola this year due to the wet sowing time — we couldn’t get other crops in,” Grant said. One paddock was not sown at all and he hopes to sow it in spring.
Canola normally yields 2.5 tonnes/ha in their region, wheat returns 5-7 tonnes/ha, oats 5 tonnes/ha and faba beans 2.5 to 3.5 tonnes/ha.
The Keatings’ calendar year begins with harvest finishing up in summer. “If we get summer rains we will sow cover crops to improve soil health and stop soil blowing in dry months if you don’t have paddock cover, as it can here,” Grant said.
This year he sowed 100ha to a mix of eight species and next year plans to increase that to 400ha.
These crops can be sprayed, grazed or sown into, which reduced the risk of problems created by wet conditions. A quarter of the farm has its soils tested annually and the Keatings have started pH mapping.
The Keatings apply variable-rate lime to ameliorate pH imbalances at two tonnes/ha every four years, slashing liming costs by 25 per cent.
“Mapping pH has shown us pH can vary within a paddock from 6.5 to 4.5,” he said.
Waterlogging is another soil concern, so they apply gypsum. Nitrogen is applied at 150-200kg/ha/year.
Chicken manure had been used as fertiliser but was labour intensive and, as its popularity increased, so did its cost.
NO-TILL TILT
THE Keatings went from using a tyne to disc seeder and controlled traffic farming two years ago.
The switch was made to retain stubble and preserve the 10-20cm of topsoil while reducing compaction and slashing fuel and labour costs.
“It can turn into a dust bowl in summer, so we wanted to move away from that,” Grant said.
The Keatings hope no-till methods lead to an improvement in soil structure and health, producing improved water-holding capacity.
The risk in their region is if bulky winter crops hit a dry spring and they run out of water, failing to produce a good grain quality.
“We’ve had a couple of neighbours using disc seeders for quite a while, but what convinced me is one day I jumped the fence into the neighbour’s to have a look at their crops compared to ours,” Troy said.
“I pulled up a plant in our paddock, the plant snapped off.
“But in his I pulled the roots and all out because he had these much softer soils. Ours were all compacted.
“(He) had been retaining his stubble and using controlled traffic and that just showed me the real difference it was making to plant and soil health.”
Grant said by watching the neighbours they “knew the disc seeder would work”.
Changing over machinery was not costly and they even pocketed some money from selling the tyne seeder.
“It makes crop preparation a lot simpler,” he said. “We used to spend weeks burning stubbles, and we don’t have to rush.”
The move to CTF was also straightforward. The boomspray was widened with nozzles moved to 25cm spacings. All axles on equipment were made to suit the 9m 3:1 system, with 3m centres, all of which they did themselves.
ALL FRONT
THE Keatings bought a Shellbourne harvesting stripper front for harvesting and retaining the stubbles, which made harvesting much faster.
“It has doubled the tonnages per hour we can harvest from 40 to about 60-80 tonnes/ha in a 6 tonnes/ha wheat crop, and doing it at 8-9km/h instead of 3-4km/h,” Grant said. “That would produce diesel savings of 30 per cent.”
That increased speed was pertinent this year when harvest finished within a day of 25mm of rain. And because less chaff is left on the ground Grant and Troy also see less slug and mice activity.
“We also bought a John Deere 8345RT rubber track tractor, which is better for CTF,” Grant said. Inter-row CT sowing helps prevent issues with sowing into stubble.
Neville and Troy run the sheep and join 1200 medium-frame Merino ewes to Inverbrackie Border Leicesters.
Their 550 first-cross ewes are mated to Gemini White Suffolks, lambing at 130-140 per cent.
The sheep account for 25 per cent of the business and run on permanent phalaris and clover pastures and stubbles.
They also winter-graze wheats and spring-sown canola crops, which grow for up to 14 months before being harvested.
Sheep are joined in February for six weeks and ewe lambs are joined mid-March, weighing 55kg. This year ewe lambs scanned 138 per cent in lamb. Lambing starts in mid-July to allow lambs to be finished on summer green feed at the target rate of 400g a day and are sold over-the-hooks to Australian Lamb Company at 24-28kg in December. Prices of 520-630c/kg carcass weight were achieved last year.
Troy is using electronic ID tags and is collecting information about multiple births, with the hope of using that to select ewes in future. “The increasing amount of technology in sheep production is exciting. It has a bit to go to catch up to what’s used in cropping now,” he said.