Bundaberg grower's nutty venture

Mr Loeskow operates Relmay Farms, Bundaberg, which has 1150 hectares of cane under full irrigation and rotates 20 to 25 per cent of the farmland into peanuts.

Close to 22 years ago he realised the soil was fairly marginal and began planting peanuts as a rotation crop to fix nitrogen back in to the soil.

They also made a good break crop and the costly process of nematode control is no longer needed.

Removing grass seeds in sugarcane is a difficult process, so planting peanuts also gave him the opportunity to use herbicides and control grass.

"Fixing nitrogen to the soil is a great thing to improve our cane production," Mr Loeskow said. "We also get organic matter build up in our soil from peanuts as a break crop.

"At the moment we focus on the Holt variety, which is probably suited to the Bundaberg area quite well."

Another benefit of planting peanuts is it gives Relmay Farms the ability to employ four staff full-time.

Mr Loeskow said they do some contract peanut harvesting and digging work, as well as owning their own peanut-cleaning plant.

Cane crushing on the property starts in June and finishes in November. Work on the peanuts begins with planting in October/November and finishes up in May/June.

A water-storage capacity of 10,000 megalitres enables Mr Loeskow to irrigate the cane at roughly 10ML/ha, which has proved beneficial in dry years. Their sugarcane is supplied to Millaquin mill, owned by Bundaberg Sugar.

Mr Loeskow said Relmay Farms was running about 10pc above their estimate and they had cut a better crop this year. He said the rail system was one of the best things going for the sugar industry in terms of transport.

"We have a rail system here that shifts 350 tonnes of cane with one 'locom' three times a day.

"If we were to have that on a trucking system like we did 20 years ago, it would be 30 or 40 trucks each day - the opportunity to shift to rail was a big step forward for us.

"I believe the shift to road by many farmers has not been beneficial to the industry. Rail would have to be the most efficient, as well as good for the industry and the whole community."

Relmay Farms: Looking back and ahead

Relmay Farms has come a long way since Mr Loeskow's father bought a 1600-hectare block to run beef cattle.

Mr Loeskow said that over the past 35 to 40 years, they had developed the block to cane.

In another move to diversify, his twin brother John is involved in aquaculture.

The property has 10 ponds of perch and the water is recycled back on to cane.

"Other opportunities we have by running a rotation crop are income and expenses can be separated into two crops," Mr Loeskow said.

"If we ran all our expenses as cane only, we would go broke.

"By having another crop, one-third of the labour and costs goes to peanuts, which makes our cane crop more viable."