A farming family on Queensland’s Darling Downs is claiming a Guinness World record feat by planting 905ha of wheat in 24 hours, thereby trumping a previous world record set in Ukraine by some 300ha.
The Coggan family’s property, Enarra, is within a stone’s throw of the tiny township of Westmar. Its fund-raiser initiative was by way of thanks to Brisbane’s Prince Charles Hospital which performed a life-saving heart transplant for family patriarch John Coggan a few years ago.
Excitement has been building ever since the challenge was announced with the close-knit family quietly confident it could rise to the occasion.
“As long as there are no breakdowns, we’ll be right,” John Coggan said a few hours before the giant tractor and seeder rig was flagged away by scrutineers who were needed to verify the results.
For the record, the Coggan’s fine-tuned their Simplicity air seeder and Multi Farming Systems planter, which spanned 36m (120ft), hitching them behind a 397kW (530hp) John Deere 9630T tracked tractor.
With all the paperwork in order, Phillip Coggan, who was named Queensland Graingrower of the Year in 2005, climbed aboard the impressive tractor and seeding rig and activated the farm’s Beeline Arro GPS navigation system a few moments before mid-day on Wednesday.
The world record attempt was flagged away to the shrill note of bagpipes with AgForce Grains president Lyndon Pfeffer acting as the chief scrutineer.
The rest, as the say, is history.
The first milestone occurred in the early hours of Thursday morning when John Coggan breezed past the existing world record. From then on in to the finishing line it was just a matter of seeing how far they could push not only the machinery but also their tired bodies.
“When they passed the 500ha mark at three minutes past one in the middle of the night, there was a lot of yahooing because the adrenalin was pumping at the thought that they were on the way to setting a new world record,” chief scrutineer, AgForce Grains president Lyndon Pfeffer said.
The statistics involved in this ambitious venture required some pretty handy logistics management because every three hours stops were needed to top-up with seed and fertiliser. However, as down-time was limited to about six minutes every three hours, the team was able to achieve an average sowing rate of about 38ha/hour over their 24-hour bid.
John and Phillip Coggan also acknowledged the part played by other members in the four-strong team, namely farm staff Les Bruce and Stephen Wall.
Assisted by JP and local bus driver, Jerry Lynis, the Department of Natural Resources and Water’s Dave Waters, the CSIRO’s Peter Carburry and the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries’ John Sheppard, leaving the ground covered during the attempt to be overseen by GPS technology belonging to Goondi Communications’ Gary Turner.
The officialdom was needed to verify that the tractor/seeder combination didn’t just ‘blast’ its away across the property, haphazardly sowing seeds, rather that strict Guinness criteria demanding the planter be calibrated to sow 120 seeds/sq m were met.
Chief scrutineer Lyndon Pfeffer believes the attempt “demolishes the unofficial 571.9 hectare record set in Ukraine,” believing it has passed all the benchmarks needed to become an official record.
At the conclusion of the event John Coggan said he was “truly humbled” by the interest it had created – not only in Australia but around the world.
Independent witness Jerry Lynis, who is a JP and also responsible for the local bus run, said the event had “well and truly” put Westmar on the map of the world.
Meanwhile, people can still donate to the Coggan’s Guinness World Record fundraiser at any Rabobank branch or cheques made out to the Prince Charles Hospital Foundation can be mailed to Rabobank, PO Box 1671, Toowoomba 4350.
Money can also be directly deposited into the Prince Charles Hospital Foundation bank account BSB - 633 000 Account - 121 857 106.
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