Photo caption: Ryan Geaves, Gary Geaves, David Trindall & Jason McVea. Photography by Rhys Tarling, Farm Weekly.
The Greaves’ seeding program will see a change this year at their family farm Journey’s End, as they have just taken delivery of a Morris rig. It is a 9 Series liquid air cart and an 18-metre Quantum seeding bar on 300 millimetre spacing, delivered as a set by McIntosh & Son Wongan Hills branch.
Ryan Geaves has been farming with his dad, Gary, for five years, at their family farm Journey’s End located 30 kilometres northwest of Koorda, said they intend to put the new Morris rig through its paces. This year the Greaves, who also run sheep, started seeding on April 10 and they will crop 4000 hectares worth of barley, wheat (Kansai, Vixen and Scepter varieties), oats, and lupins.
Last season the Greaves’ yield was 1.8 tonnes per hectare. “We were quite happy with that, given the low rainfall year we had,” Ryan Greaves said. “I largely attribute that to some new technologies, being able to do more with less.”
As to why they crop these different varieties, Mr Greaves said they aim to cover their bases in the event of a lack of rainfall. “We went to Vixen two years ago – it was the first time we used it, although we didn’t use it last year which was lucky for us given the season,” he said.
“We saw it was a dry start so we just cut it out of the program and it ended up being beneficial given some of the results we heard at harvest.” The Greaves have added Goldie oats to their seeding program this year, a first for the graingrowers.
Although its early days yet, Mr Greaves was optimistic about the season. “We’ve sowed most of it dry and in the last two weeks we’ve had anywhere from 4 to 25 millimetres (of rain) – we’re pretty much on par with last year but it’s a little dryer than what we would’ve liked considering we have had no summer rain,” he said. “We would’ve liked a bit (of summer rain) for the sheep feed.
“It was good in the sense of not necessarily having to go out into the paddocks and spray the weeds during summer but you definitely miss out on that subsoil moisture come seeding time.”
Mr Greaves said his dad, who has been cropping near Koorda for the last 45 years, has admitted that certain technological advancements in precision agriculture are starting to get past him. “Automation is something we’re starting to chase a bit more, in terms of what we can get out of the machines verses what we put in,” he said.
Mr Greaves said for their operations, and availing themselves of new technologies, cost isn’t a major factor yet. “We’re not massively advanced or anything but I think further down the line cost might be a barrier but for what we’ve got at the moment, it isn’t massively expensive,” he said.
For the Greaves, section control technology on their Morris air cart, which reduces fertiliser, seed, and pesticide overlaps, will be a first for them this season. “We’ve got it (section control) on our sprayers and everything at the moment, and that’s been the biggest cost for us lately,” Mr Greaves said.
“We wanted to go to the Morris cart purely for the liquid originally,” he said. In Mr Greaves estimation, a bigger liquid cart would cover more hectares than their previous air cart machine. “But after sitting down and going through it, we ended up going with a whole system with the section control,” he said.
“Having everything through one screen, one system, all talking to each other, as opposed to trying to change the system we previously had.” Mr Greaves said so far they’ve also been really happy with how the Quantum seeding bar has been performing, having already seeded 1400 hectares with it. “There’s been no issues with it so far,” he said.
Morris 9445 Air Cart & 18 m Quantum Air Drill. Photography by Rhys Tarling, Farm Weekly
“It’s got the packing control [Morris Auto-Pack], which is something new to us. “At the moment the press wheels are set to 80 kilograms of pressure, to get a good soil to seed bed contact bed, hopefully establishing good germination.”
McIntosh & Son, Wongan Hills, Jason McVea, said the Morris 9 Series liquid cart has a capacity of 7000 litres. “The two granular tanks have a capacity of 7788 litres each,” Mr McVea said. “You can use either tank for seed or fertiliser.”
He said the metering system works through metering every run on the bar individually. Every run metered individually means that each head on the bar has a specific metre roller in the metering unit, to give the correct amount of seed or fertiliser for the amount of outlets on the ends of the bar. “So we get accurate metering all the way to the head,” Mr McVea said.
“It (the Quantum seeding bar) also has input control technology [ICT] which will shut off individual sections, saving on overlap,” he said. “Underneath that there’s a diverter which we can split the seed and fertiliser into either the top pipe or bottom pipe, or blend between the two so that way we can control whether we want the seed in the front tank or the back tank.”
Another feature on the Morris seeding bar Mr McVea pointed to was the Auto-Pack feature. It automatically creates consistent packing pressure across the changing conditions in a paddock, allowing good seed to soil contact. “That’s something that’s been a big bonus for the Greaves,” he said.
For the construction of their seeding bars, Morris uses a system called Duraloc™. Morris’ patented interlocking Duraloc™ system means instead of the beams being welded together, a hole is cut with a laser with the tubes running through it, and welded on the outside, resulting in an incredibly sturdy frame.
“The Duraloc™ technology gives two things: incredible frame strength and also gives us the ability to make sure the bar is heavy enough so that when the tynes are operating, the bar isn’t being lifted off the ground,” he said.
