SUMMER cropping is an integral part of farming operations for Upper North South Australian farmer Ray Beyers.
In this semi-marginal country, livestock enterprises are an important fallback option should crops fail and for Mr Beyers, growing sorghum in the summer months for a nutritional sheep feed base reduces the costs and labour associated with supplementary feeding.
Ray and wife Josephine farm in the Telowie district at the foothills of the Southern Flinders Ranges between Port Pirie and Port Germein.
He has farmed there all his life and has no plans to go anywhere else.
Ray crops 35 hectares of wheat each season and runs Merino ewes on the rest of the property.
He has experimented with sowing lupins, but found they didn’t work very well and now sticks to cropping wheat and growing sorghum in the summer months for sheep feed.
Ray runs about 450 Merino ewes, with half used in a self-replacing flock.
Older ewes are mated to White Suffolk sires for his prime lamb enterprise.
He said investment in solid genetics over the years had resulted in a steady improvement of their wool clip.
The Merino flock now averages about 21.3 micron, which he said was ideal for his country.
In September last year, the Beyers received the top price in the Elders Yorke Peninsula and Mid North wool auction at 965 cents a kilogram.
Sorghum has been an integral part of this, having grown it as sheep feed for the past 15 years to reduce reliance on supplementary feeding in autumn.
“As the country is semi-marginal, we always have the sheep to fall back on should the crop fail,” he said.
“What can hit us hardest is the strong September coastal winds, which can dry crops out.”
This season, these hot winds, coupled with low rainfall, took their toll on his wheat crop, resulting in one of the “worst crop results”.
He sows forage sorghum in late spring or mid-summer after sufficient rain.
Last year the property recorded an average rainfall of 443 millimetres.
In late October he sowed 22ha of the sorghum forage variety Zulu 2.
Following good rain earlier this month, he sowed a further 13ha.
The seed is mixed with fertiliser for an “extra kick” and then sown at a rate of 2.67 kilograms/ha and a depth of three inches.
“We sow at this rate to ensure the sorghum crop is thick enough to make a good crop but thin enough sheep can walk between plants and feed easily,” he said.
He said the sorghum plants were multi-stemmed and spread out well.
Recalling the good seasonal conditions in 2010, Mr Beyers said it had resulted in a ripper sorghum crop which was so high he couldn’t even see the sheep in the paddock.
“The crop grows very quickly and we usually put the sheep on the crop in about March after it is more than knee-high,” he said.
He said grazing on the sorghum before this time could sometimes be toxic to sheep.
Sheep usually graze the crop for about three months, which tides them over until the new season’s winter feed cover develops.
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