Range of enterprises maximises production and returns at Riverina farm
A NSW Riverina farm maximises production and returns by striking a balance between a range of diverse operations.
WATER and land might be limiting factors on one farm in the NSW Riverina, but that isn’t keeping a lid on production and cash flow.
Michael Teusner and his wife Maria manage a 2300ha property just west of Darlington Point where they have put together a range of enterprises to maximise production and returns.
Rather than a scattergun approach to this diversity, enterprises have been chosen to dovetail into a management program that maximises resources and labour units.
It’s also making the most of capital resources like machinery, choosing crops that can be sown with existing equipment and then contracting out tasks that would otherwise require a big spend. The result is a farming program of winter crops of barley and oats, summer crops of cotton and maize, a sheep flock and a 120-head self-replacing herd of Angus cattle.
While Michael downplays his multifaceted operation, it takes careful management and a bit of luck to make sure that the work can be done.
“It all depends on the weather as we can get too wet, not that this has happened that often,” he said.
“That will push things back like summer cropping preparation or shearing, and then management tasks can push up on each other.
“But doesn’t that happen with all farmers, whether they have a big single enterprise or a number of smaller ones?”
SUMMER LOVE
THE major crops on the Darlington Point farm are cotton and maize.
Michael has been a long-term maize grower producing more than 13 tonnes/ha of grit maize which is grown for human consumption and made into products like cornflakes and corn chips.
The maize is grown on 1.8m beds, sown with a precision planter, with gear that is “nothing fancy, all second hand”, Michael said.
It was the ability to use the same gear to plant a cotton crop, as well as the gross margin per megalitre of water, that encouraged him to look at including cotton in his rotation about four years ago.
“Being able to sow on time is the really important aspect of growing a crop and it is something that I could do given I had the precision planter already for sowing maize,” Michael said.
“There had been plenty of people who had been growing cotton in the area for a decade.
“To be honest, I was probably a bit slower than I could have been but I wanted to look over the fence and see how it was done.
“The best thing about going into cotton is that the growers are very open about what they are doing, and it is possible to learn from them.”
That first season, Michael produced a 13.5 bale/ha crop as the stars aligned with weather conditions.
The following crops have produced a range of yields from 11.5 to 13 bales/ha, with this year’s cold start and end to the season plus a hot spell during cutting yield.
WHITE WAY
COTTON will continue to be included in the rotation as Michael said it fitted well in the enterprise mix, offering a break crop to maize.
“You can grow rotations of corn on corn on corn, but we are using a cotton-corn rotation which maximises the land we have that is set up in beds,” he said.
Usually the rotations are set, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be some last-minute changes, and it’s the flexibility that Michael said was so important.
Cotton and maize fit these criteria too. Both are grown on the same size beds; both have similar preparation of 10 cubic metres/ha of chicken litter followed by 325kg/ha of urea under the beds for both cotton and corn.
Post sowing management is slightly different in terms of nitrogen with more for maize than cotton, but it’s one of the few differences in terms of setting the crop up to grow.
This past summer, the Teusners grew 75ha of cotton and 100ha of maize, and the coming summer, those numbers will be reversed.
It will allow the row cropping country to have its rotation, and the capacity to use a different group of herbicides on each area which decreases the chances of resistance building up.
But sometimes it can be a tight fit trying to get the cotton or maize off and the country prepared for its next summer crop.
Rain can delay summer crop preparation after the previous crop is harvested, and with cotton ideally planted at the end of September/early October and maize in October, it can be a juggle.
Then there is the winter cropping program to throw into the mix.
HERE’S CHEERS
EACH year, Michael plants about 90ha of barley which ideally targets the malting barley market, and 40ha of oats which is grown for hay which is either used to feed the operation’s cattle with any surplus sold.
Canola is also sometimes thrown into the mix as a break crop.
The winter crops are grown on country that previously grew rice, but that crop has been abandoned due to its high water use on that area.
Livestock make use of the country that cannot be developed for irrigation.
There is a flock of Bluebush-blood Merino ewes, with about 600 joined back to Merinos for wool production and another 400 joined to White Suffolk rams.
First-cross progeny and young Merino wethers target the prime lamb market selling for up to $200 recently for Merinos, while wool cuts of 7kg for adult sheep bolster returns from this enterprise.
The other livestock enterprise — cattle — utilises river country grazing plant species that sheep won’t touch.
There are also thousands of other creatures that Michael admits he is not involved with other than to make sure they are safe. A commercial apiarist uses the farms for his bees, which adds to the biodiversity of the property.
“We just tell the apiarist when we might be doing some spraying which could even have a small chance of affecting the bees, and they are then locked in their hives,” Michael said. “The bees are an asset in terms of pollination of crops and there is no problem having them and our cropping enterprises together.”
MAXIMUM EFFORT
WITH nearly two decades of experience managing the Darlington Point farm, Michael said it was important to be flexible in maximising production.
Licensed for 1642 megalitres of bore water and 972 megalitres of general security river water, although only 7 per cent was available this year, he said it was “about making the most of that resource”.
“I like to keep some river water as a backup in case the bore fails, but we also need to make sure that we are maximising the returns per megalitre,” Michael said.
“It is always important to look at gross margins, as we did with cotton, and to be able to incorporate new enterprises into the mix if they stack up financially.
“But you can’t be just jumping at things as soon as they come out. Any new enterprise we consider needs to slot into the ones we already have.
“And anything we can add which adds to the biodiversity of what we do, which can utilise different chemical groups, is certainly worth considering.’’
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