CONSTANTLY looking for improvements and efficiencies guided Beverley farmer Duncan Young to a win in the Sustainability category at the recent Syngenta Growth Awards in Sydney, New South Wales.
The annual awards were held on Thursday, November 30 and recognise growers and advisers who are making a difference to the industry through leadership, best practice and innovation.
Embracing different ways to look at agriculture is what made Mr Young an outstanding candidate. This year he hosted 11 hectares of on-farm trials for chemicals, the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and Syngenta.
“I run with some pretty ‘out there’ ideas and we try a lot of new stuff,” Mr Young said.
“Each year we have between 10-18 trial sites on our farm with other companies.”
Knife rolling is one of the many ways that he focuses on reducing his environmental footprint, moving away from burning stubbles. Mr Young also focuses heavily on water supply which he said helped with chemical efficiency. Six years ago he built a desalination plant that is used to strip minerals from the water.
“We have a big artesian water supply and we use some of that water and desalinate it down to almost distilled water,” he said.
The water comes to the surface at 3000 parts per million of salt, which is reduced down to 100 once it goes through the plant.
Mr Young said weed-killing efficiency had improved dramatically just from the quality of the water they used.
“It’s just the little things that add up,” he said.
“We also use the water for a lot of other things like livestock – typically the water is high in minerals so we need to get rid of them.”
Other ways in which Mr Young has tried to improve his farm is cover crops and green manuring, which he said seemed to work well in his area.
“I assume I won it because we are trying to adapt to new technology and I try to push the envelope a little with the trials.”
Having one full-time worker and a part-timer over harvest and seeding is another way Mr Young has improved efficiency.
“We have mechanised up so we don’t need a big workforce,” he said.
“We do more with bigger bits of machinery, I try to get the best efficiency out of everything.”
