MINIMAL tillage and a focus on enhancing soil condition while consecutively reducing inputs and increasing yields, has been part of a diversity improvement program critical to the long-term sustainability of the Burridge family’s Northern Tablelands mixed enterprise.
In an area where cropping is not extensive, James Burridge and his sons Henry and Ranald have notched up some respectable soybean crops since introducing the oilseed to their operation four years ago.
Soy beans have helped fund machinery purchases to take them further down the track of low input/high yield farming.
Four years ago soybeans were trialled for diversification of income and for their potential agronomic benefits.
“At the same time we moved into a minimal-till system to reduce input costs,” Mr Burridge said.
“Our aim was to increase organic matter, build up the soil profile and control erosion without the use of contour banks.
“We can see that our future on the land depends on being able to lift turnover while at the same time reducing costs.
“Cropping is not huge in this area, but for us it is an added diversity of income that is important to the overall enterprise.
“Soybeans don’t require a lot of input and they are a great soil conditioner but can be a difficult crop to establish.”
The idea was to have two years of soybeans in a paddock, have it sit as fallow for winter and then plant it to corn.
“However, the past few years soybean prices have been better than other options for us, so we now have some paddocks in their third year of soybeans,” Mr Burridge said.
“That puts a lot of pressure on weed control.”
The soybeans have been very successful, yielding upwards of two tonnes a hectare on an annual rainfall of 800 millimetres with very little input.
“Last year we only had to spray for heliothis once and some paddocks have gone through with no fertiliser at all,” Mr Burridge said.
This summer they planted 350ha of Cowrie and Moonbi variety soybeans for the culinary market between November 20 and December 17.
“The window was longer than we’d have liked because of rain,” Ranald Burridge said.
The soybeans were direct drilled into corn, bean stubble and oats residue, which the Burridges say seems to hold moisture the best.
It was also sown with 100 to 200 kilograms a hectare of superphosphate or top-dressed with cattle manure.
In the paddocks that were on the third year of soybeans, potash was also added.
They also had one paddock sown to soybeans this year, which had required no fertiliser at all and was looking good.
“It really is a low-cost crop, but the challenge is establishment and weed control, plus we only have a six-week window to harvest it all from mid-April,” Mr Burridge said.
“We can get heavy rain in May which keeps us off the ground and destroys quality and yield very quickly.”
So the men invested in a harvester of their own in order to guarantee timeliness.
They also acquired a new seeder at the start of last summer, a Vaderstad Seed Hawk for direct drilling.
Between the new seeder and the minimal till practices, they have been able to cut diesel use in half.
The seeder has an eight-metre wide span, folding to 2.9m for transport – handy when your crops are split between three properties.
The Burridges run three properties: “Ridgemount”, “Greenridge” and “Glendon Vale”, which encompass 2185ha, in the Dundee district north of Glen Innes.
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