NORTH-west NSW grain growers John Woods and his mother Peggy Boazman have defied the vagaries of a difficult winter cropping season to win the local field wheat competition with a crop of Gregory that yielded 5 tonnes/hectare.
In a touching family connection, the prize-winning crop they grew on their Boggabilla farm, Booroola, won the John Woods Memorial Champion Crop of the Year award in the Goondiwindi P&A Show Society Dryland Field Wheat Competition.
The award was named in honour of Mr Woods' late father.
Mr Woods said the competition was judged not just on yield, but a range of management criteria that included crop husbandry and rotational practices.
"We are honoured to win it. The reason we try to keep the wheat competition alive is it is as much about promoting the industry and keeping people interested," he said.
"We still have a lot of people who participate in the wheat competition. It is good that people engage in that."
Mr Woods said they planted all their intended hectares of winter crop on Booroola in a season that went on to produce a wide range of outcomes - "some was quite marginal and some was okay".
"The loamier country had more moisture and performed a lot better this season than the heavy black country did. It was a year of very mixed bag crops. This year we harvested everything from 700kg/ha to 5t/ha."
The prize-winning crop was sown on May 8 into a block of loamy creek country that grew chickpeas the previous season.
"We try to run a rotation of one or two summer crops long fallowed into wheat, chickpeas and another cereal.
"We try to get two summer crops in a row to give us a good disease break. That has become very difficult in the past three years because we can't seem to get a summer recharge to let us do a second summer crop.
"That is becoming a challenge for us with our rotation. This northern grain region relies on subsoil moisture. If we don't get the recharge, it makes it very difficult."
The champion crop started with a reasonable moisture profile from rain in March and received some in-crop storms to keep it ticking over to produce an impressive yield.
"I didn't think it would do as well as it did," Mr Woods said.
As harvest draws to a close in the district Mr Woods said some crops on the lighter loamy country south of Goondiwindi and east of the Newell Highway had done better than most people thought they would given the season.
He has now turned his attention to summer crops of sorghum and mungbeans, where he has 50 per cent planted and is waiting for more rain to sow the other 50pc because, even though it is long fallow, there is insufficient moisture in the profile to put it in.
Neil Lyon
National machinery writer for Fairfax Agricultural Media.
National machinery writer for Fairfax Agricultural Media.
