Straw pays for baled up brothers

It's something brothers Brad and Ryan Vonhoff at Moola, north east of Dalby, didn't see themselves doing, but with straw continuing to be in demand from feedlots and livestock farmers looking for fibre options, it's a decision that paid off.

"The only reason we did wheat straw this year is because of the higher prices for straw at the moment. We took an opportunity for a bit of extra cashflow," Brad said.

The second generation farmers, who run Vonhoff Windrowing & Hay Baling and milk 150 Friesians with their parents, planted 155 hectares of Reliant wheat for dairy feed.

It was slow going in early June as they sowed into muddy paddocks, and it didn't get much better come harvest in November, with a severe storm damaging about 60ha of grain.

Despite the rollercoaster season, the crop averaged 4.7t/ha and was safely stored in silos.

In most seasons, the farmers wouldn't bother with the straw, but the loss of contracting work pushed the pair to use the whole crop.

"It's been a battle. Our contracting business is down 80 per cent on green hay compared to last year due to the weather and people just going 'bugger it, we'll put it into silage'," Mr Vonhoff said.

"Even with our own crops [such as vetch] - we've got all the gear, but with the weather, we just went 'it's wet, they're talking more rain, I'll drop it into silage and we're done'."

However, the tail end of the contracting season has been an improvement.

From the Reliant stubble, they produced about 300 square bales of wheat straw header tailings, with each bale weighing about 450kg.

And with prices around $175/t and Sandalwood Feedlot at Dalby lined up to take a major chunk of it, the plan panned out.

Sandalwood Feedlot managing director Geoff Cornford said the straw would be used for Wagyu rations for their market in Korea.

Not many 20 and 17-year-olds decide to start their own contract harvesting business, but for Brad and Ryan, now 28 and 25, it's been a dream since childhood.

"I thought it was always an exciting time of the year - harvest as a kid growing up. I thought if you could do it yourself as a business, it'd be pretty cool," Mr Vonhoff said.

"It was a hard slog starting out. It's not like dad had contracting experience; I was just thrown in the deep end at 20, so it's good to see where we've got to at the moment. We don't want to be milking cows forever."

It's in the last few years that they've dramatically expanded and had the ability to upgrade the machinery.

The brothers now run two tractors, a square baler, two round balers, two windrowers, two disc fronts, two 30-foot draper fronts and one truck.

Their second tractor, delivered in July has already proven its worth, but it's their new investment - a 40-foot draper front - they're most excited about.

It will offer them more flexibility when operating on controlled traffic farms where the crop zone and machinery traffic lanes are permanently separated.

Mr Vonhoff is also optimistic about the growth of canola in Queensland, given they have the specialised machinery to windrow it.

This season they harvested a good quality crop near Oakey and have been speaking with several growers who were placing their seed orders for next season.

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