No. 3

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Since the introduction of raised beds and controlled traffic cropping in 1996, there has been a tremendous interestgenerated in seeding techniques to successfully sow our new �uneven� ground. Many ideas and developements havetaken place and the photo below shows the latest.

This machine has been purpose-built to handle making raised beds, renovating raised beds and sowing raised bedsas well as flat soil. The full story of where we have come from to reach the design of the machine below.

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31 Separation Street, North Geelong Vic 3215phphphphph 03 5277 2777 mob 0408 520 267 fax 03 5278 308403 5277 2777 mob 0408 520 267 fax 03 5278 308403 5277 2777 mob 0408 520 267 fax 03 5278 308403 5277 2777 mob 0408 520 267 fax 03 5278 308403 5277 2777 mob 0408 520 267 fax 03 5278 3084

www.watsonfarmmach.com.au email: watsonfarmmach@bigpond.com.au

ABN 99 007 196 223

Sept 2003

The �Southern Seeder� Surfaces

The new machine being tried for the first time.From left, Mark Watson, Peter Blair, Rex Watson and John Hamilton discuss it�s performance.

Welcome to the third edition of Bed Time Stories. There was little feedback from the secondedition but I did receive a letter from a person concerned about my comments on direct installa-tion of beds and deep ripping. The writer felt I over-emphasised the �good� points of direct bedinstallation and under-emphasised the problems encountered and I actually agree.

However, the large machine owned by Simon Gillet did work beautifully in the lighter, sandiersoils but certainly struggled in the heavier, clay soils. It must be remembered however thatSimon was trying to install about 2,000 hectares of beds with one pass in a very, very dryautumn. I think it would only be natural that every part of the operation was going to be difficult.As soon as it rained the soil become workable and there were very few problems.

Bill Day from Nagambie was only aiming to install 40 or 50 hectares of new beds and wasprepared to go over the paddock three times to achieve a good result. By the way, Bill experi-enced a very dry year and he felt the canola root systems found it very difficult to break throughthe hard ground in the uncultivated new beds.

The correspondent also questioned my comments about deep ripping. At this stage of our knowl-edge and experience, I believe that at all times deep ripping should be kept away from the furrowsin established beds and should be no deeper than the furrows in a new paddock yet to be bedded.Therefore I guess we should ask, what is deep ripping? To me, deep ripping is going down to thedepths of 25cm and deeper. This is deeper than the initial cultivation a chisel plough might achievein preparation for bedding. Therefore with my level of understanding and interpretation, deep rip-ping should not be practiced before bedding. However, after the beds are established, deep ripping(25-50cm) is being considered by many farmers and lots of research is going on to identify anybenefits. I have always hoped that once we get rid of waterlogging, plants will establish deeperrooting systems and biological deep ripping would eventuate.

Renick Peries, our soil scientist will be studying the root systems under lucerne this season andwe look forward to see if biological ripping is being achieved.

From the Editor � Bruce Wightman

No. 3 September, 2003Executive editor: Colin Hacking, Southern Farming Systems LTDEditor: Bruce Wightman, DPI GeelongContacts: Southern Farming Systems, Ph: 03 5229 0566

Bruce Wightman at NRE, Mobile 0419 586 891Postal Address: PO Box 916, Geelong Vic 3220

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Bob Evans -Victoria�sOilseed GuruGoes Golfing

It certainly was the passing

of an era when my wife and

I helped celebrate Bob

Evans� cropping career at

his retirement par ty in

Ballarat recently.

Bob was growing crops at

Vite Vite North in 1972 when

I asked for some land to

carry out my first canola

(rapeseed) trials. He had no

hesitation and that was the

beginning of a long friendship.

From farming Bob joined

Cargill OIlseeds about 21

years ago and his commer-

cial agronomic career flour-

ished and he certainly is re-

garded by all as the most

knowledgable and experi-

enced oilseeds agronomist

in Victoria.

Bob is a great listener, a

keen observer and was

more than ready to help

wherever he could. So

much so, that for many

years he �grew� every crop

for every farmer.

Well done Bob, a distin-

guished gentleman who had

a distinguished career.

We all hope Bob and Isabell

have a long and happy re-

tirement.

As all raised bed farmers know,some paddocks become easierto traffic when in beds whileothers can become harder.Soft furrows can cause prob-lems and �milky� run-off wateris not a good sight.

To try and help solve bothproblems, I spread 1t/ha of gyp-sum the full length (700m) of afurrow. The 1t/ha rate of gyp-sum equates to 5t/ha within thefurrow (400mm furrows in a 2mbedded paddock).

Suck it and See!

Gypsum at 5t/ha(in furrows only).

Run-off water fromthe adjacent furrow

after the first rainfallevent - milky or

cloudy with dis-persed clay.

Run-off from thegypsum treatedfurrow - crystalclear. However,this effect didnot last and thesecond rainfallevent producedcloudy water.

I did not observe any significant difference in the softness of the fur-rows in the first year. I will keep you informed but I�m not holding mybreath. I think we�ll see furrow stability very much improved when weperfect the technique of furrow cleaning and the reduction in the number

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Headland Management Projectfounded by GRDC (Project SFS4)

In the last issue of Bed Time Stories I outlinedthe treatments we installed to try and help alle-viate the wet soil problems in the headland andcollection drains at the end of the raised beds.To refresh your memory we increased the heightof the headland wide raised bed to about650mm in the centre. We then introduced cul-vert drains and three collector drain treatments.

The collector drain treatments were:

a. collector drain deepened and backfilledwith large crushed rock.

b. agricultural drainage pipe installed 400mmbelow collector drain and backfilled with40mm clean gravel.

c. control.

Road-graderreworking andreshaping the

headland at theSFS concept farm

at Winchelseawhere the work is

taking place.

As well as reshapingthe headland, culvertdrains have beenplaced under theheadland at the lowestpoint in the paddock.The headland is nowfully trafficable.

The undergroundtreatment in latewinter. Note the

slightly wet areasbetween the

gravel and thebeds. A steeper�apron� has been

installed in ournew project.

At sowing, conditions were moist andthe collector drain on the control treat-ment instantly showed the effects of thetractor and airseeder weight.

The large crushed rock treatment took theweight of the machine but the rocks squashedinto the mud. The tractor driver reporteddifficulty negotiating the rough passage.

The underground treatment re-moved water very well and re-mained �dry� and withstood the trac-tor weight very easily.

During the winter itbecame veryapparent that theundergrounddrainage treatmentwas far superior.This photo showsthe control (fore-ground) comparedto the undergroundtreatment (back-ground).

The following photos show how the treatments worked in an average rainfall situation for Winchelsea,which means quite wet!

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Headland Management Project

The apron between the bedsand the underground drain has

been set at about 4%. Lastseason the apron was 1% and

we felt it was not quite steepenough to carry water effi-

ciently.

The backhoe diggingthe 450mm deep and300mm wide trench.The spoil was re-moved while thebackhoe was workingand a gravel baseadded to the trench.

Pipe was fed off a reel di-rectly into the trench. Wehave not used a filter sockover the pipe. We will haveto wait and see if this was agood idea. We have in-stalled a small length of pipewith a filter sock to observeany difference.

This season we becamemechanised. Here thefarmers grain truck wasused to add the gravel base.

Gravel (40-50mm) was placed over the pipe using the graintruck. However this time a much larger chute had to be con-structed for the truck to handle the larger diameter angular gravel.Our photo shows Renick Peris admiring the finished job.

New Project 2003This season we have installed a full 350 metreheadland with the underground system. Theheadland has been reshaped and second hand100mm slotted plastic pipe installed

Poorly drainedcollector drain after50mm rain in 2001.

The same collectordrain soon after50mm of rain in

July 2003. Nopuddles or surface

water to be seen.

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It certainly has been an interesting 7 years since raised beds were first tried at the Southern FarmingSystems site at Gnarwarre. Bed making techniques pre-occupied the thoughts in the first year or twobut sowing techniques quickly gained the spotlight. Below is a pictorial history of �raised bed sowing�.

Sowing Story To Date

An old Napier was the first sowingmachine converted to sow raisedbeds. David Cuthbert and BruceWilson spent many hours �cuttingand pasting� to make this machinesuitable to sow beds - and it didwork very well.

A �511� with a direct drill under-carriage. Note the extension tothe undercarriage, long narrowknife points and the tube to dis-tribute seed into the furrow infront of the wheel.

A �511� with an elevated box to al-low the seed to flow smoothly tothe furrows and outriggers. Itquickly became apparent that har-rows were not needed on beds andit was best to leave the tops ridgedto harvest water - as long as thebeds were a good height. A well ridged bed after sowing. Knife points and

press wheels created this �ideal� situation - butthe bed must be high enough to internally drainwater to the furrows.

A slightly less ridged bed top cre-ated by rolling after sowing witha heavy ridged roller built byLynton Langley at Winchelsea.An added benefit was the crea-tion of top soil conditions whichend up fine and firm enough toinhibit the movement of slugs. Noslug baiting was required on thiscanola crop.

From the first trial with raisedbeds we experienced diffi-culty establishing plants inthe �rounded� shoulder ofthe bed. Rain sheds veryquickly and moisture pen-etration is minimal.

The first press wheels used on beds wereplaced on the outside rows where establish-ment problems were being experienced. Alsothe tines were extended 50mm to gain a fullsoil cut.

Our first resultswith these �shoul-der� press wheelswas exceptional.Increased germi-nation and estab-lishment rates ofaround 50% com-pared to the cen-tre rows of thebed. As well theplants emergedup to a week ear-lier. Soil conditionswere marginal formoisture.

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Another example of theground tool attached to a par-allelogram which in turn is di-rectly attached to the tool bar.The system works very well.

Here is a system wherethe parallelogram is at-tached to the tine. HOW-EVER, the tine has a HY-DRAULIC BREAKAWAYand is extremely gentle inits action unlike a springrelease system. Thissystem also works verywell and the concept hasbeen purchased and pro-duced by farmers withgreat success.

HOWEVER, the search hasgone on for a simple andcheap sowing assembly. Onelocal farmer produced a toolbar with about seven differentground tool configurations -EACH WAS ATTACHED TOTHE TOOL BAR SEPARATELYFROM THE OPENING TINEAND KNIFE POINT. This is animportant difference becauseif a rock is hit no forces fromthe opening tine are passedon to the sowing tube andpress wheel.

Seven full rows up on arounded bed. In this ex-ample press wheels andextended tines were onthe outside rows. Thissuccess led us to pur-sue the use of knifepoints, press wheels andcorrect sowing depthsusing adjustable tines orsowing depth controlpress wheels.

With many paddocks exhibiting uneven bedheight, furrow depth, rounding of beds, sow-ing flat paddocks and raised beds manyfarmers began to �want� a more versatileground tool. There has been general agree-ment that each sowing tine / boot should

have independent depth control, preferably by a press wheel. The photo shows ourfirst attempt to produce such an item. Based on a parallelogram attached to thespring release tine it soon fell short due to our rocky conditions which producedvery harsh forces on the assembly and after a while the idea failed. A number offarmers purchased this concept from commercial machinery manufacturers andunfortunately some did not work well.

Sowing Story To Date

However some haveworked extremely well butthey have �solved� the prob-lem of the the severe forces.This machine has the paral-lelogram attached to the toolbar and the spring releasetine is within the ground tool.

From the seven differentground tools shown above, thefarmer chose one design thatworked well and included theseinto the design of his air seeder.

Another local farmer andmachine manufacturerfurther developed theconcept of press wheeldepth control shown above.

So what is the ideal sowing

machine for our purpose? I

believe it should have the fol-

lowing features:

1. Excellent clearanceand sowing height toaccomodate the tallestof beds.

2. Ability to sow control-led traffic flat countryand beds without toomany (if any) adjust-ments between areas.

3. Bed renovating ability.

4. Long knife points tohelp break uprhizoctonia and allowthe primary roots quickand easy access to thesubsoil.

5. Press wheel sowingdepth control.

6. Folding for easy trans-port.

7. Light enough to sowthrough wet conditions.

8. Abil ity to sow morehectares than a normalcombine between fills.

9. Handle soil conditionsranging from sand throughto heavy clays.

10. Excellent trash clearance.

11. Press wheels that canhandle sticky andcloddy soils.

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The information contained in this publication is offered by the Southern Farming Systems Ltd soley to provide information.While all due care has been taken in compiling the information, Southern Farming Systems Ltdand its officers and employees take no responsibility for any person relying on the information

and disclaims all liability for errors or omissions in the publication.

To accommo-date bed renova-tion (and perhapsbed making)furrowers havebeen fitted to thefront tool bar.

Sowing Story To Date

Knife points, presswheel depth controland spring sowingtubes have been in-corporated. Alsohydraulic rams areused for the openingtines and points.

Full adjustment ifthe swivel sow-ing tubes andpress wheelsare incorporated.Press wheelscannot hit thetool bar behind.

Two air boxes with 880 litre capacity fitted over the toolbars. Small air boxes are fitted to reduce the temptationto carry too much weight in wet conditions.

Three machinery manufacturersin Geelong met late last year todiscuss the idea of producingthe �ideal� sowing machine forour conditions - one that wouldsatisfy the above aims RexWatson (speciality - raised bedsmachines), John Knuckey (spe-ciality - press wheel assem-blies) and Harry Green / DarylCooper (speciality - air seederboxes) decided to pool theirresources and produce a small

prototype machine. However, anInverleigh farmer got wind of theidea and decided he would put hishand up and order a commercialsize machine.

Another farmer from Berrybank madethe same decision and two machineshave been built.

These first machines really are pro-totypes but they have performedvery well indeed. Of course therehave been a number of teething

problems and many adjustmentshave been made...and manymore will be made to future ma-chines. However, the conceptand design is certainly on theright track to satisfying all theabove criteria for the �ideal sow-ing machine�.

Naturally I can�t endorse the ma-chine, but to make up your ownmind you are more than welcometo contact the manufacturers.

Note the open-ing tines andpress wheelassembl iesare attachedto the tool barseparately.

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