A CROP of HSR Enforcer sorghum grown on the Darling Downs last year emerged from a big field of dryland and irrigated summer and winter crops to break an Australian yield record and be named the overall champion crop in the 2012 RASQ Queensland Country Life Grains Outlook crop competition.
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The outstanding crop, which produced a dryland grain sorghum Australian record yield of 13.747 tonnes/hectare when it was harvested on February 16 last year, was grown by John and Jill Alexander, Carnamah Farming, Jimbour.
The Alexanders were presented with the championship award at the official presentation ceremony held at the recent Toowoomba Royal Show.
"Why did it do so well? Frankly I don't know," Mr Alexander said.
"The previous crop was a failed and sprayed out fully grown chickpea crop from the 2010 winter.
"There was little waterlogging too from the large amount of rain which affected the crop planted further down the slope from the Enforcer as well. To be honest, simply everything aligned in our favour and if I can see that yield again I will be amazed and very happy."
The prizewinning crop of Enforcer was grown by the Alexanders more or less as a trial to see how the variety performed.
They only planted a bag of the variety over 17 hectares as part of a test to find another variety to partner the Eclipse they regularly grow at Jimbour.
The crop was planted at 75,000 seeds/ha on September 21, 2011, with Graham Weier's Norseman double disc planter with trailing airseeder cart.
It was planted with 30kg/ha of Starter Z and had 402 millimetres of in-crop rain.
Mr Alexander said the soil had a full profile prior to planting, however it had started to dry out before the first rain in October.
"Unfortunately harvest details are not accurate due to trialling the Trimble yield monitor; however, the paddock average would have been well over 10t/ha with both it and the Eclipse," he said.
"The Eclipse in the same paddock with the same history went 11t/ha just next to the Enforcer."
Mr Alexander said soil tests showed the paddock had 59kg/ha of nitrogen available in February 2011 and a further 220kg of urea was added prior to planting.
After harvest, when tested on March 21, 2012, there was 20kg/ha of nitrogen available. Across the property, including sorghum-on-sorghum paddocks and despite some waterlogging and establishment losses due to soil drying out at planting, the total sorghum crop averaged over 8t/ha.
The reserve champion crop in the competition was a stand of irrigated Pioneer 32P55 maize grown by Maydan Pastoral Company at Warwick. It yielded 15.114t/ha.
Maydan owner Geoff Willett and farm manager Errol Cooper planted the crop at 50,000 seeds/ha on October 10, 2011, with an International Cyclo planter.
It was sown into a paddock that grew wheat the previous year and was hit by two major floods over the intervening summer.
Mr Willett said the paddock had had feedlot manure at 50t/ha spread over it in 2009. He said there was no fertiliser nitrogen applied prior to the maize crop being planted.
"It was too wet to put urea on, so it was grown with no fertiliser, other than the manure the previous year," he said.
Crop competition coordinator Andrew Speed said more than 50 entries from a wide range of dryland and irrigated crops were received in the competition.
The champion wheat prize was won by a crop of EGA Gregory grown by David and Carmen Bailey and Ross and Coral Bailey, Woodlands Partnership, Denby, Brookstead.
The crop, which was harvested on November 3, produced 5.1t/ha at 11.1 percent protein.
The reserve champion wheat prize went to Michael and Rebecca Sperling for a crop or EGA Gregory, which produced 4.73t/ha at 10.4pc protein on their Chinchilla farm, Kildare.
In the field barley competition, the champion prize was a 5.21t/ha crop of Shepherd feed barley grown by Don, Wayne and Tom Saal on their Pittsworth farm, Waco. The reserve champion barley prize went to Chinchilla farmers Col and Marcia Davis for a crop of Shepherd that yielded 4.93t/ha.
