NEW LAND OF COTTON Frontier farmers at cutting edge
FORMER Grain Corp chairman and one of Australia’s leading agricultural identities Ron Greentree has joined with Gulf Country cattleman Scott Harris to grow cotton on the North’s inland frontier.
Mr Greentree, of Greentree Farming, already cultivates 115,000ha of land in the Mungindi area on the New South Wales- Queensland border. He is Australia’s largest wheat grower and is ranked by News Corp’s Weekly Times newspaper as one of the nation’s biggest farmers in terms of production volumes.
Mr Greentree is operating at Strathmore under the banner of Gulf Farming.
He is now harvesting 1100ha of cotton he has planted as a trial on Mr Harris’s 10,000sq km Strathmore Station between Georgetown and Croydon in the Queensland Gulf Country.
Mr Greentree told the Bulletin he was more than happy with the results so far, averaging two bales of cotton per hectare at Strathmore compared to 2 ½ bales at Mungindi. He said one 400ha section at Strathmore harvested four bales of cotton per hectare.
“It has whetted our appetite to plant more next year. We plan to eventually have 30,400ha under cotton, sorghum and mung beans. As we learn what trace elements and fertilisers are needed in the soils our yields will increase. Once we know that it will be as good as anywhere,” he said.
Mr Greentree plans to export mung bean, sorghum, cotton and cotton seed meal from the Port of Townsville, 624km to the southwest.
“The Port of Townsville is close enough by bitumen road. In fact if the port wasn’t there we wouldn’t be up here. It’s about the same for me getting grain to Townsville as it is getting it from Mungindi to Fisherman Island at Brisbane ( 550km),” he said.
Mr Greentree said he was planning on building a cotton gin at Strathmore in the next two to three years. He said that until that was built the Strathmore cotton would have to be carted 1100km to the nearest gin at Emerald in Central Queensland. “Twenty per cent of what we are paid for our cotton here at Strathmore is spent on getting it to the Emerald gin,” he said.
Mr Greentree said he had always wanted to farm on the Australian frontier. He said he had always been confident that it could be achieved.
“There’s no textbook on it. There’s no one down the road who has done it before that you can go and have a cup of tea with,” he said.
Mr Greentree said once Mr Harris was granted his clearing licences he didn’t hesitate to become involved.
“Scott is happy to have someone here who has farming experience and who isn’t afraid of going into the unknown. This is an adventure,” he said. “There’s land, soil, rainfall and the bitumen road to the Townsville port. That’s all we need.”