WHEN the Mullins family felt the need to upgrade their farming system, also their machinery, they turned to a controlled traffic farming (CTF) specialist.
Based some 10km east of Allora in southern Queensland, both Andrew and Chris operate a 340ha enterprise supporting 160 Holstein cows, hoping to build herd numbers to approaching 300 animals down the track.
It’s a successful partnership in which daily milk production ranges between 29L to 31L/day. Protein levels average 3.25 percent and fat levels between 4.1 percent and 4.3 percent.
Located on black self-mulching clays to shallow Coolibah/Box ridges, the brothers had been experiencing difficulties with their sloping country ‘washing’, requiring them to continually push up banks in the aftermath of summer storms.
“But there’s not much fun in spending money doing that all the time,” Chris said.
As a consequence, Andrew Mullins contacted Precision Agriculture’s Tim Neale, a noted specialist in controlled traffic farming (CTF), as well as no-till and precision agriculture technologies.
The challenge was to develop a process to minimise erosion on sloping country, which could be as steep as five percent.
The issue was exacerbated because the Mullins’ dairy commitment required forage operations that remove large amounts of organic material using heavy machinery.
This would leave the ground bare and compacted, leading to increased run-off, lower infiltration, plus less soil water storage – to name but a few issues.
First-up Andrew and Chris freed up some capital by selling an old mixer wagon to purchase a new planter, which is a key element in any move to adopting a CTF approach to better managing their property.
“That’s pretty well where it all started and, hopefully, we will start to see the benefits from now on,” Chris Mullins said.
While the brothers have yet to invest in GPS technology, the emphasis is on ensuring that all their equipment runs on the one 2m wheel spacing. This dovetails with the silage contractor’s 6m corn front, the 6m row-crop planter and an 18.5m boomspray.
The point made by Precision Agriculture’s Tim Neale was that software used to map out wheel tracks on farms underscores the impact of the amount of wheel passes across paddocks in conventionally-farmed enterprises.
By not controlling wheelings, conventially-tilled operations can compact almost all all the ground in a typical paddock.
“This reduces to about 80 percent on min-till farms,” Mr Neale said.
“And the best result we’ve ever achieved using zero-till, but without controlled traffic, is about 40 percent.”
Mr Neale says comments to the effect “we are in zero-till so we don’t have compaction anymore” are at odds with evidence.
There’s been a significant reduction in the compacted area on the Mullins family’s property – now in the order of 15 percent - as a result of adopting a CTF system.
“So we’ve managed to pull all the wheels into one spot, ensuring they’ll consistently traverse the same area each pass – forever,” Mr Neale said.
In the context of the Mullins family’s property this translates into some 85 percent of their paddocks being in ideal condition for good crop growth, and also better water infiltration.
“They also will be benefiting from a doubling of water storeage in the top foot just from getting rid of compaction,” Mr Neale said.
The point being made by Precision Agriculture is of the “minimal effort” required of the Mullins family to reap the system’s advantages.
The company says it is important to set out and tackle the hardest element of the transition phase which, in this instance, centered on the forage harvester cutting 6m swaths on 2m tracks.
“We then kept the summer crop planter on 6m, also the winter crop planter with the boom sprayer on 18m so it runs down every third track,” Mr Neale said.
“Everything, except the cows, is now on 2m wheel centres.”
Interestingly, the Mullins family’s cows also prefer to walk down the compacted tracks, rather than tackle the heavier going associated with the country that is unaffected by the wheelings.
Mr Neale says he advises not to plant in the wheel tracks, principally because of wasting seed that must try to grow on heavily compacted soil.
“My suggestion, certainly from Dubbo north, is don’t plant wheel tracks - although plant them further south because of weed control problems,” he said.
Mr Neale says the advent of fuel flow meters on tractors lends weight to another CTF claim, notably a possible 50pc reduction in diesel consumption at the end of the day.
Pointing to another advantage associated with the switch to CTF is the likelihood of growing more crops due to the soil’s improved water holding ability.
The suggestion is that paddocks accommodating wheel tracks should be able to absorb downpours in the order of 75mls/hour (3in/hour) without suffering problems associated with run-off.
“If they can’t there is something wrong,” Mr Neale said.
“Uncompacted, dry soil will take that sort of rainfall – with good cover.
“Where it all goes wrong is when it doesn’t have good cover, or it’s not dried because it’s full water, or it’s compacted,” Mr Neale said.
When it comes to the costings, the Mullins family is looking forward to reaping $100/ha/year by adopting a CTF approach to managing their property, expecting to attain full benefits within the next three years.
As well, they also have the potential to save some $6000/year in input costs from adopting the technology.
All-up they invested $46,000 in a new no-till planter, spent some $2000 on CTF modifications to existing equipment, a further $5000 on effecting soil erosion repairs, plus $3000 on professional advice, totalling an outlay of $56,000.
Mr Neale believes the Mullins can expect benefits totalling $81,000 during the course of the next year and can expect to pay off their CTF investment within nine months.
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