INVESTING in large machinery is making farming more efficient for a NSW family, writes MARK SAUNDERS

Fourth-generation grain farmers Matt and Andy Ryan are doing all they can to improve the efficiency of farming on Orontes, their property at Rankin Springs in NSW.

With about 6000ha of crop each year, the Ryans are seeking to maximise yields while minimising the time they spend sowing, harvesting and spraying.

The drive to maximum efficiency saw the brothers make two significant machinery purchases this year.

The first was a new seed drill and the second was a new harvester.

The seeding unit is a 22m-wide Morris Contour drill, which was used to sow the Ryans' 6000ha of crop for this season.

Andy Ryan said the Morris air seeder had a 15,000-litre bin capacity and was a big step up from their previous sowing equipment.

"We had two smaller units, so the 22m Morris makes sowing much faster," Andy said.

"We seem to have a much smaller window of opportunity to sow the crops these days and there is also a growing shortage of skilled labour when it comes to operating agricultural machinery.

"So the sooner we can get the crop in the ground with a minimum of fuss, the better."

The Morris is a tined air seeder and the Ryans have it set up with 300mm row spacings.

Andy said they had also been able to reduce their fuel usage.

"Our fuel usage is down to about two litres a hectare when we are sowing with the Morris and we can cover about 26ha an hour, so it's quick and easy on the tractor," he said.

The Ryans haul the Morris drill with a 328kW Case IH tractor and Andy said this combined well with global positioning system guidance to ensure very accurate planting, both in terms of seeding depth and row placement.

"We use an AutoFarm GPS system and that is accurate to 2cm, which means there is no overlapping or missed rows," Andy said.

"It also means we can inter-row sow each year and keep the soil disturbance to an absolute minimum."

Andy said the Morris air seeder provided an excellent start for the canola, wheat and barley they sowed in April.

"The accuracy of depth placement and the machine's ability to closely follow the ground contours is excellent.

"Each tine has plenty of movement up and down and its ability to sow accurately was demonstrated when the whole season's planting all germinated pretty much at the same time."

Andy described the family's cropping system as "minimum tillage" and said they only cultivated when absolutely necessary.

"We pretty much sow directly into stubbles or fallow ground now and rely on chemical sprays for weed control."

Orontes has a similar soil to that found in the Mallee and as such, Andy said he could not afford to have it overworked.

"The country here is a sandy loam and we have to keep ground cover on it at all costs," he said.

"We have cut back cultivation to pretty much zero and instead rely on targeted spraying for weed control and soil moisture conservation."

The Ryans' spray rig is a home-made unit, comprising a four-wheel-drive Hino tray truck, 5000-litre tank and a 36m Hardi spray boom.

Andy said that like the tractor when sowing and the harvester when reaping crops, the spray rig used the GPS system.

"The GPS and auto steering on the sprayer are fantastic," he said.

"It means we can spray virtually all the ground at night when conditions are ideal and you get out of the truck feeling far less fatigued than when spraying with a traditional system, such as a foam marker."

The GPS is used on the Ryans' new Case IH 7088 harvester for accuracy, and the Ryans have also recently started using yield mapping software to monitor crop and paddock performance.

Next year they plan to incorporate the yield mapping data into their sowing and use variable-rate application of fertiliser.

"That will hopefully lead to further efficiency gains, by only applying nutrients to the soil where they are needed."

As for this year's crop, Andy said the season ended disappointingly after a promising start.

"Unfortunately this was a record early finish to the harvest for us," he said. "We had very little rain on the crops since August and the hot weather of the past few weeks finished the crops off."

Andy said the canola yield averaged about 0.6 tonne/ha while the wheat and barley yielded about 1.2 tonnes/ha.

"All up we had about 100mm of rain for the growing season and after getting the crop in early in April, it was not a good finish."

Andy and Matt have stored the entire harvest on-farm and plan to sell the grain when prices are appropriate.

"With the deregulation of the market, prices are very volatile and that means a lot of monitoring and ringing around to ensure you get the maximum returns," Andy said.