Using a contract harvester, buying seed, trucking in hay and running sheep - they're normal activities on plenty of farms, but for Western Downs agronomist turned grower Glenn Milne, they've cost him big.
Speaking at WeedSmart week in Dalby, Mr Milne shared his weed incursion story to improve grower awareness around biosecurity on the farm.
"One of the big things I've [experienced] over the last 10 years is bringing in weeds in different ways," Mr Milne said.
Mr Milne farms on the Jimbour Plain just north of Dalby, growing dryland sorghum, chickpeas, faba beans, mung beans, barley and wheat, as well as some irrigated cotton, corn and sorghum.
Because it's just him overseeing 600ha, he uses a contract harvester.
Unfortunately, the contractor brought annual ryegrass, barley grass, wild cucumber and canola onto his farm.
"Luckily the canola wasn't Roundup Ready, but we have had some annual ryegrass survive," he said.
"The other mistake I made was I brought in some chickpea seed and it had oats in it and it turned out to be resistant to group A [herbicides].
"I ran over it with Verdict like we normally do if we've got the odd oat, and this year it didn't clean them up."
Mr Milne also runs a small flock of killer Dorpers, and when they were short of feed, he bought some hay locally, which came from NSW.
"[Sheep] love going through fences and we had it going through our lawn and all over the farm. That barley grass came up everywhere."
He's also seeing fleabane appear in unusual spots, which he suspects is the result of pest animals.
"I've had a fairly clean paddock and there's just a scattering of fleabane all over it. I just couldn't work out how," he said.
"We never used to have kangaroos on our place, but nowadays [there's] kangaroos, pigs, foxes, hares, birds. I think we're getting a real scattering of seed through our property, especially feathertop Rhodes. It sticks in fur."
The grower says he has learnt from his mistakes and one of his biggest changes has been moving to a local header contractor - one who doesn't typically travel into NSW where there are "a lot of resistant weeds".
"It's just being aware of it - seeing where they've come from. Just building a good relationship with your contractors, I think.
"Biosecurity is something that we really have to think about."
IN THE NEWS:
Brandon Long
Brandon Long is a Queensland Country Life journalist based in Toowoomba.
Brandon Long is a Queensland Country Life journalist based in Toowoomba.
