The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Antipodean new king of record-breaking barley
I KNEW we had a cracking crop of Plaisant winter barley at Edington Mains in August 1989 so I asked Bob Noble, our excellent NFUS secretary, to oversee our world record attempt.
The crop yielded 12.2 tonnes per hectare (t/ha) and it has stood as a record until now so it was a great pleasure to be able to congratulate the new record holder, Warren Darling, in person on his farm.
Warren farms 300 ha on the southern boundary of Timaru, New Zealand.
Highway 1 from Christchurch to Dunedin runs through the middle of his farm.
The soils have a 12-inch topsoil of a Claremont clay that has excellent fertility and water holding capacity.
Warren runs a simple min-till system and a three-course rotation of canola, winter wheat then winter barley.
All are established by an initial pass over the stubbles with a five-metre Simba SL behind a 400 hp Quad Trac.
The same tractor then sows all crops with a six-metre Great Plains Centurion cultivator drill.
Warren used to use a Horsch Pronto Drill and he believes the Centurion is a vastly superior machine.
This is hardly surprising as he was asked to contribute to the current design.
We use a Pronto drill at home and we have several issues with its design and I was very impressed to see all the things that I have found wrong with the Pronto have been addressed by the Centurion.
The wider tyres, the even seed distribution system, larger discs and an easy but precise depth wheel control all rate very highly in my book.
The record crop yielded 13.8 t/ ha from a 11.6 ha block.
Guinness have yet to accept this but there can be no doubt Warren deserves this record.
I was very impressed with this quietly spoken gentleman whose attention to detail and knowledge of agronomy was simply astounding.
In the hour I spent in his company I learned more about what NOT to do when growing bumper crops.
Credit must also go to the famous plant breeder John Blackman who bred the record two-row winter barley.
John is also in New Zealand and when I spoke to him he explained that Variety 622 clearly was out-yielding Retriever in the country.
His wheat and barley varieties are bred to achieve maximum yields in the east coast of South Island where high residual fertility and long warm summer days provide perfect conditions.
According to Warren 2014-15 has been the “best season on record” and a wee bit further south Chris Dennison harvested a world record oil seed rape crop.
The common link between all these record crops appears to be organised by Claas, who sold around 30 new “headers” in Canterbury this year.
However it seems even the yield monitors on Claas combines cannot handle these huge crops and weighbridges are essential to establish true yields.
The high fertility is reflected in very low seed rates which are 60 kgs, 45 kgs and 2 kgs/ ha for barley, wheat and OSR respectively.
Phosphate and potash are applied according to GPS grid sampling with farm crops receiving from 0 to 700 kgs/ ha phosphate and 0 to 350 kgs/ ha potash.
Nitrogen is applied at 25kgs/ ha per tonne expected yield.
Lime is applied again by a GPS grid system and the average pH is 6.3.
Straw is chopped and worked in with the Simba SL.
However, the severe drought affecting dairy farmers has meant straw has become a vital forage with a high ex-farm value so more is being baled this season.
The ex-farm value for wheat and barley, again driven by a lack of grass, is £200 per tonne.
This year Warren has not needed to dry any crop but he has a floor drying silo for wheat when coastal mists increase harvest moisture.
However, it is these coastal mists that John Blackman believes makes such massive yields possible as the crops never burn up. Indeed the coastal arable areas between Highway 1 and the Pacific coast to the east produce the heaviest crops in New Zealand.
Warren did irrigate the record barley crop but I was fascinated to learn that to justify the cost of irrigation on wheat the extra yield must exceed 1.5 t/ ha at £200 per tonne.
My host JamesWestgarth drove me past several amazing crops in the Seadown area just northeast of Timaru.
These farms and fields are not visible from the main highway and I travelled roads I had never been on before and was simply blown away by the large number of bumper wheat crops all ripe and ready for harvest.
No wonder this land is worth £10,000 per acre where over 12.5 t/ha of wheat seems par for the course.
And at £200 per tonne ex farm at harvest the sums actually add up.
“I was very impressed with
this quietly spoken gentleman whose attention to detail and knowledge of agronomy was simply astounding.”