Crop science: Australian Grains Champion Brad Jones farms for the future

AN appreciation of analysis is behind a cropping approach that is maximising productivity, writes EMMA FIELD

Number cruncher: West Australian farmer and Australian Grains Champions director Brad Jones on his Tammin farm. Picture: Emma Field

FORGET crop science driving Brad Jones’s business. It is “the science of economics” that is front of mind for the large-scale West Australian ­farmer.

But technology and science have their place. Brad has been collecting, analysing and using crop and soil data on his farm for more than two decades.

More recently he has used it to drive investment returns into his business that, if he were a listed company, would have hedge funds scrambling to invest.

Brad and his wife, Kate, crop 11,000ha of cereals, canola, field peas and export hay at Tammin, in 300mm rainfall country about 180km east of Perth.

The farm is Kate family’s, with Brad starting his working life as a pilot on Queensland’s Darling Downs for 15 years, which gave him an ­appreciation for the power of data.

“We had lots of analysis tools and I used to really study them comprehensively, and I took the skills I learnt there to the farm,” he said.

The family had gathered yield data, but it was not until Esperance-based Precision Agro­nomic Australia conducted a soil analysis that they ­realised the power of their data.

The company used electromagnetic data collection and processing from the farm to examine changes in soil salinity, texture and moisture, and also used as gamma-radiometric spectrometry to provide an indication of the soil’s parent material.

“They mapped our farm in 2007, and gave us the initial data to start our trial work from,” Brad said.

TRIAL JUDGE

BRAD has since conducted hundreds of trials to test fertiliser application, variable rate technology, varieties, row spacing at sowing and how to run the farm more profitability.

Using these soil maps overlaid with previous yield data, Brad said it became obvious weeds and poor soil pH were limiting his business.

The maps showed there were more weeds, such as radish and ryegrass, some of which had become resistant to herbicides, growing in areas low in pH.

“I was looking at the soil’s profile and yield data, and there was not a prominent ­return coming from the capital being employed,” he said.

“I started to use the science of economics and, to start ­addressing this, we set about to drive our costs down.”

They started using variable rate technology to apply granular fertiliser, as well as spreading lime to address the low pH areas.

“In 2008 we started using variable rate technology, it took a bit of investment, but we started driving our (application) rates lower and lower,” Brad said.

Some years later a soil scientist friend suggested Brad switch to liquid fertiliser application, which offered continuity of application, and after trialling this system, he took the leap in 2013.

“We had 11.3 per cent better return on (investment) with our liquids rather than ­traditional granular fertiliser program,” Brad said.

Another benefit of this system was in the form of labour and machine time savings. He estimates they are 17 per cent more efficient with the liquid system.

COMING OF AGE

BUT Brad admits before the change, there were plenty of doubts.

“We had to accept that we were going to apply 20 per cent less than normal application — mentally that was a hurdle to get over,” he said.

“But my doubting ­moments are less and less now because we have the data to draw a trend line from our soil’s samples.”

The Joneses have more than 450 soil sites on farm measured every three years.

Now in the fourth year of liquid fertiliser, they test for nitrogen and sulphur ratios, plus nitrogen and calcium ­ratios as well as the more common nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium levels.

Their cropping rotation ­includes two years of wheat and barley, then a break crop such as canola or a legume, usually field peas or, depending on the performance of the paddock, sometimes a chemical fallow.

While canola is essential to the rotation and can be high value, Brad said it was also risky. He prefers hybrid ­canola — which is more expensive — because of its early season vigour and end-of-­season potential.

In an attempt lower this risk, Brad helped develop the Groundbreaker, a singular seed sowing machine for ­canola, with Toowoomba ­Engineering.

He wants to optimise competition using uniform plant density between the canola seeds for his tyne sowing ­system.

This year they sowed 650ha of their 1870ha canola program using the machine, after trialling it last year and the results have been ­extraordinary.

They have driven their canola sowing rates down as low as 500g/ha.

Western Australia’s ­Department of Agriculture recommends sowing medium-sized hybrid canola at 1.9kg/ha under good conditions, or up to 2.6kg/ha when it’s drier.

MAKES CENTS

BRAD calculated that with the same yield outcome, it saved them at least $25/ha in seed costs, and a 5 per cent yield gain from using hybrid at the current canola price of about $500 a tonne equalled an extra $50/ha in revenue.

“(On) our scale that’s giving us a 60 per cent return on investment from our ­machine,” he said.

The long-term average for wheat yield on the Tammin farm is 2.2 tonnes/ha, 2.5 tonnes/ha for barley about 0.9 tonnes/ha for canola and field peas, but “we aim to get our yields for canola and field peas over 1 tonne/ha”, Brad said.

Each field on the farm, along with all other capital infra­structure, is measured against a return on investment benchmark of 15 per cent.

Brad said he calculated his return on capital by dividing profit, which was revenue minus expenses, excluding tax and interest, by total asset used or employed.

“It’s a good tool to measure your efficiency,” he said.

“My hurdle rate is 15 per cent return on investment, if we are not striking that hurdle rate we have to look at why.

“If you concentrate on tonnes per hectare you have got any easy out, you can blame it on the weather and walk away.”

This year his hay crop, which mainly goes to the ­export market, exceeded this target, achieving a 22 per cent return on investment.

LOTS IN STORE

ANOTHER major capital ­injection in the business was building a 9000-tonne ­capacity silo complex, which can store about half of the farm’s annual production.

This investment cost $650,000, proceeds from the sale of his aviation business, and is a hi-tech operation that samples the grain for moisture, temperature, protein when it arrives, similar to a bulk handler.

“We record the tonnes and this is all added into a database, we then accumulate the averages in all the other silos so we know (what is in each,) and from then we can blend back out of them,” he said.

Building the silos was to capture more control of the supply chain to market.

He came to the conclusion the CBH Group bulk handling system was too inefficient for his operation, despite the closest silo being only 400m from his farm.

He is only 180km from the Kwinana Port so he said running trucks to port and backfilling with fertiliser and other farm products to get cost savings would be better for his business.

“It makes my soil amelioration products quite cost efficient ... I’m averaging just shy of 20 per cent return on investment on the silos,” said Brad, the spokesman for Australian Grain Champions.

He believes the silo infrastructure and liquid fertiliser application resulted in return on asset going from “single digits to mid-teens returns”.

“Our strategic focus has ­always been on increasing, production efficiencies driving ourselves further down the cost curve,” he said.