Peters notch up another season

Arnold Peters and his wife Jill run the family business along with their two sons and daughters-in-law, Lance and Annika Peters and Mark and Keturah Peters.

Mr Peters is based on 1457-hectare property Springfields, at Norwin, on the central Darling Downs.

This season they planted Pioneer P55, PAC 727 and Pioneer P56 varieties across 405ha of dryland and 109ha of irrigated country.

The irrigated country was planted in late September and early October, while the dryland corn was planted a week before Christmas, on the back of 120 millimetres of rain.

The Peters subsequently received 46mm of follow-up rain after Christmas and another 76mm in January.

"Prior to planting we applied 100 units of N (nitrogen) and 40 units of Starter Phos (phosphorus fertiliser)," he said.

"The dryland country was planted at a rate of 9000 plants per acre (23 plants/ha)."

Over the past few weeks, they harvested the irrigated corn, the best of which yielded nine to 10 tonnes/ha on country that was pre-watered. The remainder of the area was not pre-watered and yielded six to seven tonnes/ha.

The Peters are supplying their gritting corn to Defiance and PB Agrifood.

Mr Peters said he liked to be surprised be the yields at harvest time and wouldn't speculate on what he expected the yields to be on the dryland country.

"I don't want to set my sights too high, but the crop is looking pretty good," he said.

"We expect harvest in late April, it's just starting to dry down now."

Mr Peters said he has been growing corn for as long as he could remember; his father Laurie first planted a maize crop in the 1950s.

This year, he said, they were happy with how the season had unfolded.

"In early December it was looking pretty grim but now we're feeling pretty blessed."