The McKenzie family wanted to make every drop of rain count on their Coonamble property, and a progression into conservation farming is now paying dividends.
Ian and Ruth McKenzie, their son, Matt, and his wife, Kim, “Loyola”, were last week named winners of the Central West Conservation Farmer of the Year competition.
They won as a result of their uptake of no-till farming, a good balance between livestock stocking rate and carrying capacity, cell grazing, pasture re-establishment, and general trialling and uptake of new methods to improve their property’s natural resource base.
Ian McKenzie said the result was “fantastic” and it was an honour to win.
“It was great to be judged by other people who think what you’re doing is the right thing,” he said.
The McKenzies crop a third of their 3328-hectare medium clay-soil property in a mainly chickpea-wheat-barley rotation, and the remainder is used for sheep and cattle trading and agistment stock.
Their conservation farming story started with issues including sodic soils, a loss of perennial grass species and consequent invasion of weeds, and low groundcover leading to erosion.
Mr McKenzie first started minimum till farming in 1990 and by 2006 the family had gone completely no-till.
Last year they bought a 12-metre Rogro Master Plus parallelogram planter with Gason airseeder – both set up for two-metre controlled traffic farming – and also a global positioning system (GPS) autosteer for sowing and harvesting.
The McKenzies had three main goals for their operation – the happiness of the people, the growth and flexibility of the business, and the healthy biodiversity and soils of their property.
From The Land, July 17, 2008.