From dust storms to healthy soils: One farm shares its secrets
A family farm went from frequent dust storms to healthy soils, almost doubling its size in just 15 years.
Eight years ago, Dan Fox made a discovery that changed the way his family has farmed for generations.
It was 2015, and a barley paddock on his Marrar property had just been harvested.
On the fragile, granite hills, low loam soils and harsh climate of the undulating property, the Fox family had been battling for years to control erosion and make the best of limited rainfall.
In dry years, dust storms swept through the area, carrying away precious topsoil, and any moisture was quickly lost.
Finally, Dan thought he had discovered part of the solution to the problem.
The previous season, he had swapped a narrow windrow burning technique (cutting stubble at “beer can height” and burning residue out the back of the harvester to control weed seed set), for a different approach: leaving 30cm of stubble in the paddock.
The results floored him.
“We found that it was half a tonne (yield) difference between 15cm stubble height, or harvest height, and 30cm harvest height and the only the only difference was the amount of ground cover that we had over that summer to conserve that moisture,” he said.
Leaving just a bit more biomass in the paddock to protect the soil had translated to a big increase in yield, and Dan could see straight away that applying the same technique across the farm would translate to a big difference in income.
“With barley at $250, it was $125 a hectare just in lost revenue from harvesting low.
“I thought, ‘if 15 centimetres makes that much difference, well, what difference would having full stubble residue do to our business through the dry years?’”
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that the system will pay for itself,” he said.
A willingness to trial new approaches to farming is a big part of Dan’s philosophy.
Working alongside his father, and under the guidance of his granddad, the third-generation farmer has overseen big changes to the 2140ha property, including almost doubling its size in just 15 years.
Overarching all of his decisions is the aim to be as efficient as possible with water, soil and fertilisers “while causing the least amount of harm”.
“You’ve got to remain productive, but it’s all about balance,” he said.
Removing livestock to reduce erosion
By far the biggest change to the family’s operations was a decision in 2008 to transition out of sheep farming.
At that time, the family was farming 1260ha, including 260ha of leased land, with a 50:50 mix of sheep and cropping.
But after years of drought, Dan said the fragile soils were struggling to hold together.
“What we found was once you grazed those lucerne-based pastures, the soil around the crowns of the lucerne plant tended to get very fragile and blow away or wash away,” he said.
“So we used to have a lot of wind and water erosion on our place.
“(In dry years) there was a lot of dust storms coming off paddocks.”
Farms across the region were reeling from the effects of drought. As properties came up for sale, the Fox family decided to take a gamble and buy new land.
The family bought property in 2008, followed by another in 2011, then again in 2013 and 2014.
As they did so, they switched to continuous cropping, rather than sheep.
“Our percentage of country that was under crop versus pasture was increasing naturally,” Dan said.
“Sheep certainly got us a very good start, but we feel that with what technology we’ve got now and thinking around the way we manage our crop, we feel we can probably respect our soils a lot better by not having the livestock compaction effects and certainly the overgrazing and the bare soil that livestock induced in our system.”
Better water infiltration
After years of continuous cropping and minimum soil tillage, Dan said the changes to the soil were obvious.
“You can just see that it’s easier to drive a shovel into the ground the longer we’re in this system,” he said.
“We can certainly see our structure has changed. (The soil is) much more crumbly.”
To get the best results, the operation runs a 12m controlled-traffic system.
In the areas outside the wheel tracks, water infiltrated the soil quickly, he said.
“You can certainly see the difference in infiltration rates between the compacted soil and the uncompacted soil outside your wheel tracks,” he said.
Wet years a challenge
As an advocate for no-till farming, Dan doesn’t shy away from discussing its challenges.
In 2022, he faced plenty of them.
“You certainly don’t have any years where you don’t learn anything. And if I had to do 2022 again, I would have handled it completely differently,” he said.
The family’s new farming system, which shines during dry years, presented a range of challenges when it was wet, he said.
“We’re certainly finding a lot of challenges in terms of crop establishment when it’s wet, and being able to sow our crop on time,” he said.
“You start running into issues having such high residue amounts.
“And the other thing is then with the wet weather comes a lot of mineralisation tie up. With the high carbon load you grow big stubble and then obviously there’s more carbon there that then takes more nitrogen away from the crop. So you start running into issues if you haven’t got your rotation right.”
Overall, the 2022 season delivered a “well above average” year.
The family’s barley crops delivered decent yields, well above average and good quality, and the canola yielded about 2.4 tonnes per hectare — roughly equal to district average for the year.
But hesitancy to apply fungicides early in the season meant the faba bean crop failed, and waterlogged paddocks meant Dan couldn’t access the Beckom wheat, and the crop was hit badly by septoria.
Sharing what you learn
After attending workshops and events organised by VicNoTill, a farming group that supports growers to learn about no-till farming and regenerative agriculture, Dan gradually became more involved in the organisation.
Although it was technically a Victorian-based group, he found he could easily adapt what he learnt to his southern NSW farm. In 2022, he was elected president.
The same year, VicNoTill launched the Farmers Helping Farmers podcast, an interview-based format hosted by Dan where farmers and experts discuss no-till farming techniques.
“(No till farming is) not just a disc seeder or it’s not just a stripper front,” Dan said.
“It’s really a system where all the things have got to work together. Otherwise, you’ll get burnt.
“If you try and take your agronomy from a stubble burning and tine seeding system into a disc seeding, stripper front system, you’ll fail.
“That’s where groups like VicNoTill … that have had experience with systems like this, you can go and talk to them. You learn off them, but you certainly make a lot of a lot of mistakes on your own as well.”
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