Bruce Saxton
Farm: Khancoban Station
Region: North-east Victoria
Commodity: Small-seed crops, vegetable seeds, summer crops and beef cattle
Farming area: 1300 hectares
Rainfall: 900 mm average per year
Email: saxto@bigpond.com
Phone: 02 6076 9222
If we expect more variability because of climate change, the answer is to stay flexible. You cannot say: ‘We can’t plan because things might change’. You need to plan but be flexible so you can respond to a situation.
I believe the future of farming in Australia, taking into consideration the existing weather variability, will be closely reliant on accurate medium- to long-term seasonal forecasting. Forecasting is becoming increasingly important in assisting farmers make sound business decisions in times of escalating production costs.
See what Bruce has to say about:
- Producing seeds, cattle and cereals
- Climate variability in our region
- How climate change exposes the cropping industry
- Responding to climate variability by staying flexible
- Varying crop choice to deal with drier conditions
- Using forecasting tools to make decisions
- How climate data can save farmers money
- Understanding our crops by measuring soil conditions
Producing seeds, cattle and cereals
The property I’m on here specialises in small-seed production. The property’s about 1400 hectares and we crop 700 hectares. I manage the farm for a partnership.
We focus on the small-seeds cropping. In the partnership I work for there is a long history of experience in grass-seed production.
The area we farm in is well suited to some forms of grass-seed production because of high rainfall and relatively soft finishes. We irrigate 100 hectares, on average, to finish winter crops and water our summer crops.
Soil types vary widely here. Because lots of our land is just a metre over the river-fed watertable, sometimes up to 10 per cent of the land has extreme acidity issues. That soil is silt with a gravel subsoil. About 20 per cent of the cropped area is granite hill country.
We have also done vegetable-seed production and cereal seeds, but we concentrate predominantly on grass seed.
Summer cropping also plays a small part in our program depending on circumstance. We might grow crops such as buckwheat, millet, maize and—if the opportunity presents—forage crops for local livestock markets.
We also run cattle, which are mostly agistment cattle [agisting is grazing someone else’s cattle on your own property]. This offers us the flexibility to have many or few cattle, to fit with the cycle of our cropping program.
We graze the crop stubbles [stalks left in the ground after a crop is harvested] heavily. Some crops are perennial and if they are summer active this also adds to the seasonal nature of feed supply.
By using this approach, we make sure stock numbers are optimised for the feed available in the paddocks. We feel agistment is economically comparable to owning our own stock.
Climate variability in our region
Climate and rainfall vary a lot through the valleys here. It’s a rainfall zone of about 900 mm of winter-dominant rainfall. We haven’t had 900 mm very often in the 10 years we’ve been here.
Most of the rain that falls in July, August and September is excessive—it’s negative for our production—so a dry winter can be a good thing for us. You certainly can’t use the standard growing-season-rainfall (GSR) formulas to benchmark our crop results. But evaporation usually exceeds rainfall in early October, and now quite regularly in September as well.
How climate change exposes the cropping industry
In relation to climate variability and change, the issue that I see threatening our industry is that the cost of inputs is increasing and our margins are getting narrower and narrower.
As the cost of those variable inputs increases, you’re much more exposed if the season turns against you.
Responding to climate variability by staying flexible
If we expect more variability because of climate change, the answer is to stay flexible. You cannot say: ‘We can’t plan because things might change’. You need to plan but be flexible so you can respond to a situation.
There are often certain trigger dates when we can say: ‘We’re going to have to change the way we’re doing things’. I think all farmers are fairly good at this. If you don’t stay dynamic then you’ll suffer.
For example, in a grazing operation, if you don’t get an autumn break by early May—according to your property’s pasture composition—you can say: ‘Well, I know it will be tough this winter’, and prepare. If you’re ready for it, you can minimise the loss and use the opportunities.
What people need to be able to do is to use weather information to help with extra questions such as, ‘What if it’s warmer than normal?’ or ‘What if the spring tapers off as well?’
It’s about being able to respond quickly when you see a scenario develop.
I believe the future of farming in Australia, taking into consideration the existing weather variability, will be closely reliant on accurate medium- to long-term seasonal forecasting. Forecasting is becoming increasingly important in assisting farmers make sound business decisions in times of escalating production costs.
Varying crop choice to deal with drier conditions
Crop choice is our primary management decision—according to markets, seasonal expectations and where we’re at agronomically in the paddocks.
One strategy is being able to vary our crop choice. Diversity in our crops has given us a degree of insurance against the variable seasons.
With the winter crops this is largely based on when the crops will mature. At times, we grow 12 or 14 different crops in 1 year, and sometimes cultivar variations within that. We can then spread our harvest date over a longer period.
Winter crop harvest can last from late November through to early February, then the summer crops will come off during March or April.
We try to get 90-day summer crops to fit in as a double-crop program; however, that requires tight management, a bit of luck, and a summer with enough heat to finish the crop before frost threatens.
We’ve had years where the crops have suffered a lot of stress in November and December and then it’s rained in late December. It was too late for half our crops but it helped the late-finishing crops.
Because we’ve been exposed to some dry finishes and increased temperatures, we have moved more toward summer cropping and that’s been a success.
You still need to be able to change direction, though, at fairly short notice.
On a longer timescale we are thinking more about summer cropping. If we have water available and don’t use all the irrigation water we have at this point, we’ll focus on that. If there’s climate change and increasing temperatures, that’ll help the summer crops, but challenge the winter crops.
Using forecasting tools to make decisions
It’s a standard catch-cry to have a crack at the weather forecasters, but I think they’re brilliant. We can make quite accurate decisions a week to 10 days in advance now, based on those weather predictions. But you still have to monitor the weather every day—you can’t just make a decision and then forget about it.
For example, in the past we put off spreading nitrogen because we found out about a serious rain event forecast for in 10 days’ time, and more a few days later. So we didn’t put out nitrogen. It would have been ideal timing to do it, but we would have lost quite a bit of nitrogen into the rivers. So forecasting brings huge benefits.
We’re also now getting some reliability in temperature predictions over a 3-month period. They were quite accurate last year [2010] at forecasting high temperatures in the spring. I think it will be really useful for farmers to have a wider understanding and knowledge of forecasting tools, and accept their accuracy.
How climate data can save farmers money
I think we need to introduce people to tools where they can use the available climatic data—which is based on probabilities—and make meaningful decisions out of it. For instance, if we bring that back to the ground and say, ‘From that climate prediction, we can have different expectations of dry-matter production out of our pastures’. We can use that to make better livestock, fodder-conservation and fertiliser decisions.
We spend up to $300 a hectare a year in fertiliser inputs, so that’s 20–30 per cent of the cost of growing a crop. If we can modify those inputs because of our expectations of the season, that can be a big saving.
Understanding our crops by measuring soil conditions
Upper Murray Agribusiness Group [a community group in Bruce’s area] have set up a monitoring system and website which monitors, gathers and collates weather data from 3 remote weather stations in the surrounding districts.
The weather stations automatically and continually record weather data, which is used to assist in many decision-making processes around the farm.
For example, if we think we’ve had a production loss from frost, we can check what the temperatures were at those times. It’s useful to be able to look back at soil temperature and moisture, and minimum and maximum temperatures.
Monitoring soil moisture very accurately and looking at graphs without having to put spears in the ground all the time is very useful, but you still have to go and look at the paddock. It really helps with precise irrigation management and it’s also helped us understand the agronomy of our crops better.
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Original interview date: July 2010; Updated August 2012