Early rains have brought about the establishment of Brassica plants (pictured), such as radish and canola, which are common hosts of Diamondback Moth (DBm).

West Midlands Group mixed farming systems officer, Brianna Hindle, recently spent a few days driving around the countryside identifying areas that may be prone to Diamondback moth (DBm).

Brianna placed 40 traps between Eneabba, Coorow, Calingiri, Lancelin, Jurien Bay to begin monitoring the presence of this crop-destroying insect.

The West Midlands Group (WMG) and Gallagher have recently pledged to work together to support the pastoral beef industry through the BEEFLINKS backgrounding project. The WMG led project will focus on the collection of animal performance data that can be used by backgrounders and pastoralists to increase the productivity and efficiency of their operations. WMG executive officer Dr Nathan Craig said the involvement of Gallagher will complement the project as its core is based on collecting accurate animal production data.

Paddock Chat

A West Midlands Group Original Podcast

The limitation of centre pivot irrigation systems currently is that water can only be irrigated as a blanket application across the whole site, or be limited into ‘pizza slice’ sub-sections of the paddock. This creates severe restrictions in being able to apply water to meet the specific needs of each soil type, and often results in some soil types being over-watered or under-watered depending on the location on the site. The over-watering of soil types can result in the leaching of unused water and nutrients down the soil profile and can potentially cause off-site impacts of nutrient enrichment. The aim of this project was to better understand the movement of water in the soil profile for three distinct soil types in the West Midlands region and assess the potential for the leaching of nutrients and water below the rooting depth of potatoes. This could then guide the implementation of variable rate irrigation in the region, where irrigation can be varied across the landscape to match water applied to soil water holding capacity.

Matching pasture production and livestock requirements can dramatically improve animal production while reducing the cost of supplementary feeding. The aim of this trial was to evaluate a range of pasture mixes that have the potential to fill niche pasture production windows in the West Midlands region. This pasture demonstration site was located at the 2019 Spring Field Day site near Dandaragan on a sandy loam soil type. The site was established on the 5th May using a plot seeder to dry seed 12 pasture mixes, with a volunteer pasture adjacent to the site as comparison. Up to three pasture cuts were taken from each plot during the season to assess pasture production.  The site was mowed in August to simulate grazing, and NKS21 fertiliser was broadcast to each treatment.

Matching pasture production and livestock requirements can dramatically improve animal production while reducing the cost of supplementary feeding. The aim of this trial was to evaluate a range of pasture mixes that have the potential to fill niche pasture production windows in the West Midlands region. This pasture demonstration site was located at the 2019 WMG Spring Field Day site near Dandaragan on a sandy loam soil type. The site was established on the 5th May using a plot seeder to dry seed 12 pasture mixes, with a volunteer pasture adjacent to the site as comparison. Up to 3 pasture cuts were taken from each plot during the season to assess pasture production. The site was mown in August to simulate grazing, and NKS21 fertiliser was broadcast to each treatment.

Legumes can provide value to the crop rotation through the fixation of nitrogen, and there is the need to evaluate a wider range of legumes that could be grown in WA. Nine demonstration sites were established across the wheatbelt region as part of a GRDC project led by Liebe Group. In 2018, demonstration strips of field pea, lupin, lentil, and chickpea were grown and then followed by Scepter wheat in the 2019 season.
The West Midlands Group demonstration site was located at ‘Kayanaba’, 1 km east of Dandaragan on a clay loam soil type. The site was sown and harvested by the grower and managed similar to the remaining area of the paddock. The Gross Margin was calculated for 2018 by Farmanco as part of the overall project, while Gross Margin was calculated in 2019 based on grower supplied data, and including machinery costs at contract rates.

Legumes can provide value to the crop rotation through the fixation of nitrogen, and there is the need to evaluate a wider range of legumes that could be grown in WA. Nine demonstration sites were established across the wheatbelt region as part of a GRDC project led by Liebe Group. In 2018, demonstration strips of field pea, lupin, lentil, and chickpea were grown and then followed by Scepter wheat in the 2019 season. 

The aim of the National Variety Trial (NVT) program is to generate independent information for growers and industry about newly released varieties of winter field crops relative to the current commercial varieties grown in the area. The data generated can be compared by year/s, location and variety, providing an important decision support tool for growers when assessing if they are growing the right varieties for their farm business. This trial was sown onto a high yielding, burnt barley stubble on the 7th June. 
The soil type was a high quality dark Dandaragan sand/loam. Unlike many areas of the state in 2019 this site had reasonable subsoil moisture from some earlier localised rain so germinated and grew exceptionally well. The late start to the season and dry spring tended to suit the quicker varieties, however exceptional yields of >4t/ha were returned by all varieties in the trial. 

The aim of the National Variety Trial (NVT) program is to generate independent information for growers and industry about newly released varieties of winter field crops relative to the current commercial varieties grown in the area. The data generated can be compared by year/s, location and variety, providing an important decision support tool for growers when assessing if they are growing the right varieties for their farm business. This trial was sown onto a high yielding, burnt barley stubble on the 7th June. 
The soil type was a high quality dark Dandaragan sand/loam. Unlike many areas of the state in 2019 this site had reasonable subsoil moisture from some earlier localised rain so germinated and grew exceptionally well. The late start to the season and dry spring tended to suit the quicker varieties, however good yields of were returned by all varieties in the trial.