LARGE-SCALE farmer Laurie Starcevich from Gedrow Farms, Salmon Gums, made the trip over from Western Australia to attend the University of Southern Queensland’s (USQ) Future Farm Field Day recently.
He was one of around 80 visitors to the inaugural field day, and was drawn to the event because of his interest in adopting new technology to keep Wimmera ryegrass at bay.
“It’s not a problem now, but it could become one, and we need to be aware of it and what we can do to stop it if we need to,” Mr Starcevich said.
“I found out about this field day through GRDC and thought I’d come over and check it out.”
Gedrow Farms farms 5600 hectares each winter and Mr Starcevich said the increase in summer rainfall had made control of summer weeds essential for ensuring there was enough sub-soil moisture for winter cereals and canola.
“It’s costing us a lot of money to control,” Mr Starcevich said.
While the inter-row spot-spraying run-through which used depth and colour sensors to identify weeds captured most of Mr Starcevich’s attention, there was a host of other demonstrations to satisfy the curiosity of farmers, graziers and agribusiness professionals.
Vanderfield brought a tractor to demonstrate some of the semi-autonomous functions available on John Deere machinery, and USQ’s National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture’s (NCEA) Dr Cheryl McCarthy and V-TOL Aerospace pulled a crowd with their unmanned aerial vehicle flight.