Innovation the key - and sky's the limit for Sandy Day

SANDY Day embraces technology but also likes to keep things simple, writes LINDSAY HAYES

Sandy Day

INNOVATIVE farmer Sandy Day has harnessed the latest technology to increase his farm's profitability.

Which is exactly why he's learning to fly a drone.

AT A GLANCE
• Who: Sandy Day
• What: Cropping
• Where: Lockhart, NSW
• Why: Full flight

Sandy, 29, manages an intensive winter dryland cropping enterprise, Quamby Agriculture, at Lockhart in southern NSW, in partnership with his parents, Trevor and Christine.

After hearing that West Australian agronomist Warren Abrams, of New Era Ag-Tech at Geraldton, was developing drones for agriculture, Sandy travelled to a field day to see the craft in action.

He left impressed and with an offer from Mr Abrams to give a demonstration at Quamby.

In preparation Sandy built a small drone from a kit to get a handle on the technology.

He says the time saving and efficiencies of using a drone in cropping would be significant.

"As soon as the crop comes up you can monitor growth habits and nitrogen requirements quickly and efficiently," he said. "A drone could fly over the property twice in one day.

"It takes me two days on a motorbike to cover the farm and even then I only see only 2-3 per cent of it.

"The drones operate on real time, not hit and miss. They can pick up weed and insect infestations that might be missed riding around."

Sandy says drones are controlled from the ground but flying them requires a pilot's licence and adherence to strict Civil Aviation Safety Authority requirements.

They cost $30,000, which Sandy says is a fraction of the cost of satellite imagery.

He says satellites require booking a month ahead and "hoping to God" that when the satellites are in position there is no cloud cover.

Lightweight cameras attached to the drone relay images in colour patterns straight back to a computer.

Sandy has not yet fitted a camera to his because he is too worried about it crashing.

Sandy, who took on the manager's role six years ago equipped with an advanced diploma in farm management, counts himself fortunate to have been given the opening into an industry he is passionate about.

"Each year Dad passes over more responsibility," he said.

Sandy said he knew of farmers 10 years older than him with no say in the family farm and little chance of farming in their own right while they were young.

Sandy has focused on meeting Quamby's goals of increasing efficiency and profitability and said he was proud of his achievements.

"It's about keeping costs to a minimum by using our equipment over as many hectares as possible and contracting with the equipment in the Lockhart district," he said.

"We've just obtained a five-year contract planting job. We also do contract spraying."

A 44m Goldacres 8549 boom spray is a one-off and the biggest machinery investment made by the company.

The prototype was trialed on Quamby last season and is due to go back to the factory for modifications. It replaces a 30m boomspray built by Trevor.

The family has also upgraded its main tractor, a front-wheel John Deere with a tier-four engine, which pulls a 15m disc machine that can cover 20ha in an hour.

By comparison it took Sandy's grandfather, Harold Vincent Day, and his team of six horses a day to fallow 1.6ha with a four furrow disc plough.

He planted the wheat by hand, throwing the grain across the ploughed soil.

Vincent built the Quamby homestead in 1928 where Sandy lives with partner Elissa Strong.

Quamby once supported the families of Trevor and his two brothers and ran sheep in conjunction with cropping.

When Sandy left school the property was 1300ha.

The sheep were removed to concentrate entirely on dryland cropping and the property was progressively expanded to its current 2200ha with the purchase of nearby properties.

"We're still expanding; we've just purchased a property over the road," Sandy said.

"One hundred per cent of the farm is cropped. We removed all internal fences and filled in dams to get as much land as possible and picked up about 20ha."

The cropping program comprises wheat, canola for oil production and field peas or vetch in a four-year rotation.

Included in the rotation is a one-year break when the crop is not harvested and no income generated.

"To reduce our use of synthetic fertiliser we grow a legume to put nitrogen back in the soil," Sandy said.

Sustainable cropping practices of full stubble retention, minimum tillage and controlled traffic are well entrenched.

"With the new equipment which enables the right depth for sowing we dry sow a lot of the crop, sometimes 100 per cent and then we start praying for rain," Sandy said

Wheat grown on 902ha for an average yield for the past 13 years of 2.8 tonnes/ha is the major crop, followed by 615ha of canola returning 1.3 tonnes/ha. Both crops bettered the average yields last season.

Feed barley planted for the first time on 115ha yielded 4.5 tonnes/ha.

Sandy sold the barley to local feedlots and will plant about the same amount next season.

The grain is sold for the best price at the time with on-farm storage in silo bags enabling Sandy to market his crop when demand is high.

Sandy trades wheat in the futures market and has wheat marketed out for the next three years.

He employs a financial consultant and an agronomist, but no farm employees, continuing Trevor's practice of keeping things as easy as possible.

He does the cropping on his own with Trevor's help at harvest when a contract header is brought in. Any spare moment sees him out on his lawn at the controls of his drone. "It is just like what you would find in a cockpit," he said with a grin.