Ashley Dempster and agronomist Katherine Lloyd check out the oat crop.
“This is the best drought we have ever had,” farmer and hay contractor Ashley Dempster remarks, tongue-in-cheek, standing in an oat crop that comes up to his shoulders.
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The heads are waving in the spring breeze and in the background the mower is cutting a swathe through the heavy crop, produced with just one watering.
Ashley was referring to the forecasts earlier this year of an El Niño and accompanying dry conditions in the spring.
Anticipating a hot and dry season he banked extra water and only cropped half of his farm, expecting high costs of fertiliser and fuel.
As mild conditions persisted during spring Ashley had to buy in cattle to knock down the grass growing on the family farm at Zeerust.
“It was all doom and gloom when we were sowing (in May). Now this is the best outcome ever.”
But he warns: “A drought will come, so store it away, because the day will come when it won’t rain.”
The crop is destined to be baled up and sold for feedlot cattle.
Ashley’s ‘secret sauce’ is the application of sugar and microbes to spur the plant growth.
Ashley applied 100 kg/ha oats, plus 50 kg of MAP at sowing and six weeks later applied sugar and microbes, through a spray with a Tow and Fert machine.
The sugar feeds the microbes and sugar makes the plant sweeter.
The sugar is supplemented with cow effluent and applied at the rate of between 150 to 250 litres per hectare.
He only used half of his typical fertiliser application.
The microbes are commonly used with regenerative farming, in a practice to boost soil health, fix atmospheric nitrogen, unlock soil nutrients and reduce reliance on synthetic fertilisers.
“I have found the microbes seem to open up the ground more and (are) achieving better water penetration.”
The outcome?
Ag Warehouse agronomist Katherine Lloyd described the oats as a pretty decent crop with a lot of height and dry matter.
“This year has been a bumper season for the area.
“A really mild winter which means everything has come out into head a bit earlier than expected. We should have bumper grain crops and hay.”
And feeding the bugs? She said there were a few farmers following the sugar regime.
“Sugar is an energy source for the bacteria, and certainly there are different ways of applying it.
“Ash does it in the form of fruit syrup. Some do it with molasses or with raw sugar.”
Ashley said the sugar hasn’t encouraged interest from pests.
“I haven’t sprayed the farm for pea mite for about five years.”
Ashley Dempster's oat crop at Zeerust was being cut on October 15.
Ashley Dempster is building on a good season with his own approach to hay making.
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