Tackling innovation can be a challenge for some dairy farmers, but not Reece Donhardt, who hails from the hills of Nangkita in South Australia.
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Reece was recently awarded Innovative Farmer of the Year at the South Australian dairy awards after embracing the use of drone technology on his wife Chelsea’s family farm.
Reece said it was an honour and a surprise to receive the award.
Coupled with CASA accreditation, the drone technology has enabled Reece to get in and spray areas on the dairy farm previously inaccessible, boosting productivity and saving on physical labour.
Reece said looking to upgrade their boom spray was the catalyst for the change.
“We began investigating drone technology, and we could see there were some real management benefits for our farm.
“We have had our drone for 12 months now and it has been a great help and enabled us to get into areas we have never been able to before.
“We have some hilly country covered in blackberries and the drone has been a great help there too,” Reece said.
He said the beauty of a drone was it doesn’t damage pasture.
“There are no wheel tracks and no sinking in soft ground – the drone just flies over the top and does its job,” he said.
“Anyone can learn to operate a drone in a couple of hours, you just have to get your head around the controls.
“When I was a young teenager I used to fly radio control and I really enjoyed it back then — this is an extension of that really.”
Reece said they purchased the drone in Adelaide and it cost about $40,000 to set up.
“You need to have a trailer and a batching system capable of holding a fair bit of water and chemical because the drone is always flying back for filling and battery changes.”
So far the drone has completed around 350ha of spraying.
“The worst thing about this technology is it continually changing and getting bigger and better and what you buy now will certainly be out-of-date in a couple of years time,” he said.
The dairy business has never been afraid to adapt and invest in technology.
“The family have been innovative for as long as I have been here – 30 years ago they adopted rotary technology and milk meters at a time when it really wasn’t all that common,” Reece said.
“In 2021, six robots were installed at the Minbee farm followed by eight robots at Nangkita in 2023, and that has been a real game changer and delivered into areas we never even thought possible.”
Reece said the voluntary milking system had improved herd health, lameness and fertility.
“All these little wins add up and if you get 10 of them suddenly you are 10 per cent in front.
“We have such happy, comfortable cows now which is a credit to my brother-in-law Jake Connor who looks after the herd side of things.”
Automation has also extended to calf rearing.
The family milks 750 seasonal calving cows across three farms on 550ha (one farm milks 350 and the other 400).
The majority of the herd is Holstein with a few cross breeds and Jerseys.
The family runs a grazing system and the cows are fed silage in the paddock, there is no mixer wagon involved.
The original farm was purchased in 1930 and the Mount Jagged farm in the early 2000s, they have always been run as separate entities.
Reece said this season was looking quite good compared to last year's devastating drought and they were expecting to get some silage on the ground soon.
“The season is about six weeks behind, but it is certainly looking better than last year.”
They have access to irrigation on one of the farms which keeps the cows going over summer.
Reece said he had always loved farming.
He has worked in the dairy industry for the past 20 years and seven years ago made the move to Chelsea’s family farm.
“My role is more machinery based. I do a lot of the spraying, fertiliser and feeding out rather than herd health.
“There are not many jobs you get too passionate about, but dairying is certainly one of them,” he said.