JUST about every farmer grows a paddock of oats for grazing and home grain consumption each year, but Dunedoo farmer and seed grader Warren Hogden turns his annual crop into good income.
Last year he grew 60 hectares of Eurabbie oats and was happy with the eventual yield of 1.8 tonnes a hectare.
What made it particularly pleasing was the poor season it was sown into.
“I didn’t need to graze it but it was a difficult season, rain-wise,” he said.
“We are a small seed grading business and we try to grow a bit of oats, put it through the machine and then sell it on to farmers.”
He said local farmers liked the Eurabbie variety and aimed to sow it early so it could develop enough fodder for grazing, before locking it up to mature prior to harvest.
“Oats is part of my rotation – I might have to grow wheat next season, although I try to avoid it if I can because of its poor price and too many things that can go wrong with it,” Mr Hogden said.
He has two small properties close to town which total 200 hectares.
Mr Hogden bought a truck fitted with a seed grader from the Bestwick family, Wellington, some years ago and had been successful enough within the local area to purchase the whole business and now trades as Dunedoo Seed Cleaning.
His commercial oats growing, grading and seed selling operation supplements the grain grading business.
“We sell about 300t to 400t of our own seed a year and find good seed grown locally which is cleaned and graded and offered for sale,” he said.
When he is selling seed and looking for more to fill orders, locals had got to know his routine and at times increased their grain price.
However, grading is an on-and-off business.
Mr Hogden said he and his team worked hard for the first three months of the year just in seed cleaning.
“We start halfway through January when grain growers return home after a break from last harvest,” he said.
“So we go hard for six to eight weeks, then after the first rain in February, (demand goes) really crazy and then things tend to settle down.”
In his own operation he breaks up three or so years of cereals with a canola crop, which he plans to sow this season.
The last oats crop was direct drilled last May at a rate of 60 kilograms of seed a hectare with 70kg/ha of diammonium phosphate using an old Shearer 20-run, culti-trash drill at 18 centimetre spacings.
It followed a fallow spray of Round-up and Garlon.
One post-emergence spray in late June of Glean and a broadleaf spray in September were the protective measures taken during the growing period.
Growing top quality seed is a test, according to Mr Hogden.
“It can prove difficult to grow oats good enough to resell,” he said.
“That’s what I find hard to do as you have to do a pretty good job for people to buy it.”
Dunedoo crop overcomes weather odds
IT WASN’T a huge oats crop at Warren Hogden’s farm this harvest, but he still stripped 40 tonnes from his 22 hectare paddock.
This was despite no rain on it for the first three months after sowing, according to Mr Hogden, who is pictured harvesting on “Greg’s Block”, just west of Dunedoo, before Christmas.
“And we were lucky to get a bit of moisture in the past couple of months,” he said.
The end result was a yield of 1.8t/ha.
“For the year we had, I reckon that’s pretty good.”
Mr Hogden used a second-hand New Holland M135 header for the job which he bought from a friend and had “no trouble” with it this season.
“I guess it’s 30 or so years old and has a 5.5 metre wide cutting bar,” he said.
The paddock was one of a couple which totalled 60ha sown to Eurabbie oats last year in preference to wheat.
Mr Hogden said he could make more money selling oats seed to local farmers than what he could make from wheat.
“It’s pretty difficult to grow oats good enough to sell as seed,” he said.
“You’ve got to do a good job on it.”
To his advantage though, he is in the seed grading business, so he can offer clean seed with a good history.
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