POINTS OF VEIW AT YOUNG NSW –A BIOLOGICAL APPROACH

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Bill and Rhonda Daly along with their son James and his wife Joss and baby son George run a mixed farming business at their property ‘Milgadara’ Young NSW, known as YLAD & Co. The farm has been in the Daly family for over 100 years.

In the 1980’s Bill and Rhonda became increasingly concerned with the overall health of their farming system, especially with having to repeat applications of nutrients such as lime every few seasons and increase artificial fertiliser rates and chemical use to get the same yield results from the past 20 years.

We questioned whether we were actually mining our most important resource, the soil. Minimum till and some no-till were being practiced but burning for weed control and trash flow still happened.

The farm enterprises consist of a mix of pulses and canola, as well as growing oats, triticale and wheat for seed. A self-replacing merino flock and a prime lamb enterprise complimented the cropping enterprise. The realisation that our soils were becoming ‘dead’, soil structure deteriorating and nutrient levels imbalanced, there was a need for change to more regenerative practices.

With these ideas, a huge amount of investigation and study was undertaken to determine the best way forward. The first practice altered was to stop burning and change to a no-till system.

Our greatest change to date has come from looking at the overall balance of the soil, been physical, chemical nutrition and biological. Current farming practices are not taking into consideration the necessity to maintain the critical balance between these three aspects of the soil, mainly focusing on the chemical nutrition and physical, not the microorganisms that are critical to a healthy soil. To achieve the soil’s full production potential and reduce disease, weeds and pests it is critical that all three aspects are taken into account.

In 2001 YLAD began incorporating biological fertilisers into their farming system. Fourteen soil tests were taken to establish the chemical nutrient levels of the soil and physical conditions were measured with a penetrometer. There was a hardpan at about 15 cm in every paddock and little sign of soil life or earthworms. Older farmers will remember picking buckets of mushrooms, where have they gone? Farming soils now contain very little fungal activity, making way for predatory fungi to cause havoc with diseases such as blackleg, crown rot, and take-all.

The No-till system has the benefit of saving the fungi from being sliced and diced as well as having the ability to retain stubbles supplying the soil biology with a food source.

A blend of living natural fertilisers was recommended from these soil tests and broadcast before sowing. This blend supplied carbon, natural phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, sulphur, zinc, copper and boron, blended together with a biological inoculum, kelp and molasses. All the above nutrients were lacking in our soils causing lack of performance in the cropping rotation.

Carbon levels were very low from the past practice of burning stubbles making it impossible for the soils to hold on to nutrients such as sulphur, phosphorus, and ammonium nitrogen.

To rectify low carbon levels we add Boron Humate granules, and necessary trace elements blended with 60kg MAP down the tube at sowing. Humate granules buffer root zone burn from acid fertiliser MAP and reduce phosphorus lockup and nitrogen leaching. The humic acid released from these granules when solubilised provides an excellent food source for fungi creating a healthy rhizosphere for nutrient uptake by the growing crop.

Our Flexi-Coil Air-Seeder runs the Ag-Master knife point and seeding system on 9” spacings with press wheels. The Ag-Master rolling harrows are added when sowing pasture for inter-row coverage. Our Flexi-Coil has been adapted to a liquid injection system so that we now apply ‘living biology’ as well as liquid fertiliser and minerals in the seeding row.

One of our most important learning lessons with no-till was the need to be flexible in your approach and plan well ahead, especially in weed control. In all our approaches we first ask ‘what damage will this do to our soil life’ and soil structure and the health of animals that are eating on these crops and pastures.

The biological system and no-till system gives great hope to farmers to retreat from the round about of ever increasing costs of high analysis products and fuel, and return to a healthier more natural farming system, utilising our greatest asset, a living breathing soil.

We are now using alternate management tools, other then chemicals, to control weeds, using baling, or intercropping with field peas and oats in the spring. This is then turned into a humified compost to spread back as fertiliser on our land to maintain the balance and diversity in our soils.

The change to no-till farming certainly has given the whole farm more flexibility, with stock been rotationally grazed more effectively. With no sign of erosion from wind and rain, a reduction in tractor hours and noticeably softer soil conditions has given us a brighter future for our farming enterprise. Conserving all our natural resources is the key.