Hard road to family farm expansions
A FOCUS on sustainable agriculture and the implementation of a corporate management structure have seen the Wundersitz family increase its cropping capacity 1200 per cent in 15 years.
Ben and Belinda Wundersitz operate fifth-generation farming business Anna Binna, on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula, which dates back to 1875.
When Ben first returned home to work on the family property in 1987, he worked seasonally off-farm to provide extra income, and when he and his father, John, initially started to expand they did so through contract harvesting and seeding to increase cash flow and upgrade machinery.
“We struggled to expand because the area is tightly held,” Ben said.
To counteract that, in 1997 they began share-farming and then, a year later, began leasing properties, often in low-rainfall areas and many with high weed populations.
The Wundersitzes have grown their land size from 500ha to 6500ha — 1800ha of which is owned and the remainder leased — spread over nine properties, within 60km of Maitland.
The continuous cropping program is traditionally made up of 40 per cent wheat, 30 per cent barley and 30 per cent lentils. Oaten hay and canola are grown occasionally for extra grass control.
Average yields across the family’s entire program are about four tonnes/ha for wheat and barley and 1.8 to two tonnes/ha for lentils.
Ben said while most land opportunities were in low-rainfall areas more traditionally associated with livestock and cropping enterprises, the family had used the best technology available and placed a strong emphasis on a sustainable rotation.
SEA CHANGE
RAINFALL across the farms varies from 270mm to 500mm a year and Ben said their success in producing grains and legumes with so little rain was due to the coastal climate.
This reduces risk of frost, allowing them to take advantage of their entire growing season rain from a mid-April planting, and provides cooler temperatures in the crucial spring growing period.
This enables them to achieve consistent yields in areas generally considered too marginal for continuous cropping.
Ben said much of the growth of the business had been achieved by early adoption of RTK GPS and no-till systems, which had improved soil health and fertility.
“We had to be efficient with machinery, so all major plant such as seeder, spreader and sprayer run 24 hours,” Ben said.
Increasing paddock sizes for more efficient machinery operation and setting up water and fuel infrastructure have also been other simple measures to achieve growth.
“We try to get the best out of everything, but we also keep pushing the boundaries,” Ben said.
Ben said they used to run “pretty lean and mean”, but five years ago started benchmarking to work out their strengths and weaknesses.
“From that we learnt we needed to be aware of burn-out of ourselves and staff, we needed to focus on simple efficiencies, we introduced Workplace Health and Safety and we needed to invest in upgrading machinery,” he said.
BOARD GAME
THE Wundersitzes have adopted a corporate management style with an advisory board scrutinising the business, which means “we have more structure and focus, particularly when it comes to workplace health and safety.
“I think that really flows on to how we manage our properties,” Ben said.
With a strong focus on being sustainable and producing crops for the human consumption market, Ben said they aimed to “only take the grain and put everything else back in”.
This means full stubble retention and trying not to be too reliant on herbicides.
The Wundersitzes use a low-disturbance seeding system, retaining all crop residues to maximise water use efficiency and protecting the soil from wind and water erosion.
And the approach when harvesting is to get it done as quickly as possible.
This means barley is windrowed so it ripens earlier and therefore harvest can start up to two weeks earlier.
Ben said lentils, not a common crop in the area, were a “tough plant”, but harvest was risky as they had to be harvested as soon as they were ripe.
After the lentils, the wheat was harvested and the aim was to produce high-protein bread wheat.
Ben said they had recently invested in a Seed Terminator, which is used on the back of the header to crush all weed seeds until they are non-viable.
“It can potentially make the system more sustainable and less reliant on herbicides, because we are very conscious of herbicide resistance,” he said.