Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The secret to Cams success
A very big school day
My reading has led me to believe I need a Brix meter - to measure plant sugars so today John and Cam demonstrated it to me - it seems a really good agronomists tool to monitor the crop to help decide when leaf tissues should be carried out.
Today was a very big school day.
Christmas finally came!
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
1 part conventional, 2 parts biological and a dash of biodynamics
Cam also showed me the old wool shed and shearers accomodation - unused for around 20 years, it was really interesting to see some of the areas farming history still alive on farm.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Culture and Cartoons
The Lapa Steps were created by an artist who couldn't sell his work because he lived in a dangerous part of town. He decided to create something to bring tourists to the area to buy his work. He started to tile the steps outside his studio and has been at it ever since. There are tiles from all over the world. There are even tiles with the beetles, a red telephone box and the simpsons on.
Christ the Redeemer was just as you'd imagine, a big statue on the top of a very hot rock. He has the best views of the city from the top of his mountain and it's a very steep journey up to him. He was built by the church to show any visitors they are a Catholic country, which many Brazilians dispute as they are a very cultural melting pot.
Sugar Loaf Mountain is not the biggest mountain in the Rio bay by any means but the cable car project was always planned for this one - Christ didn't bag his hill 'till much later, but any way, it's a two cable car hop and was the third cable car in the world. It has been running since 1912 and the mayor only finally granted planning permission on the premise that it would only count if the project was going in 100 years time! An impressive feet of engineering - the first mountain can be hiked up but the second, the true sugar loaf has to be climbed, it's faces are incredibly steep and not a single man (was recorded) to have died on this project.
So off now to Australia...
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
A crash by any other name just ain't the same!
And purely for your entertainment - a sign from a toilet door at the Mennonite museum!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Gears 2, 4 and window glass need not apply
Friday, December 10, 2010
Soil Erosion on a truely MASSIVE scale
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Farming next to the big boys
El Descanso has the few (250) suckler cattle that the farm owns. All the land would once have been cattle land, the fund have removed all the fences on the farms – the only signs remaining of the cattle are the massive water tanks and troughs that stand at the corner of four fields. The boundaries are now dictated by soil type and rotations by what crops they can grow on the soil types.
At the main holding we saw a contractor waiting to start soyabean seeding. A 10m drill with only a 220hp tractor on the front – such a low requirement because of both the topography and the extremely shallow depth the machine is working at.
Neither of these farms had irrigation with El Descanso receiving 950mm of rain a year.
The farms don’t have tramlines as they stop running through the crop at any early stage (because of the roundup and few fungicides programme). The contractors use GPS for the early spray and fertiliser applications and the crop can close back over and compensate later. Wheat is the exception –non GM and sprayed later so tram lining may come in here in time.
GM soyabean is the key to the system here. It is a legume – so fixing N. It’s roundup ready – so cleans weeds out. It’s a short growing season – so 3 crops in 2 years. It’ll grow in very poor soil types. In rotation with conventional wheat, and triple stacked GM corn and the possibilities of sunflower, linseed, lucerne… the system –the rotation works. Crops that encourage plenty of soil life and trash return that acts as moisture saving mulch, crops with excellent financial returns (without yields like ours).
Argentina has turned my perspective on GM – a bit. The system the US are using is frightening and extremely unsustainable – here in Argentina it is a well placed tool. If we could just have roundup ready OSR my god life would be different. Just one total cleaning crop, in conjunction with conventional cropping to ‘save’ the soil life.
We have been extremley fortunate during our stay to sample the beef from the farm on both nights. The first cooked for us by their Gaucho on a traditional barbeque and the second with a simple pasta dish which was absolutely to die for - bigger clothes are going to be needed all round! We can't establish what they do to their beef over here but it is by far the best I have ever tasted in the world - accompanied off course by copious amounts of Malbec red wine.
We've learnt so many things over these three days about so many aspects of farming and business I can't begin to list them all. The main themes, people, education and drive. I know this trip will have a huge effect on me and the way I farm / run my business. So about 1400km's later, a ridiculous number of empty bottles, copious mossy bites and three road kill dogs (observed), it's back to Buenos Aires now and reality -firstly in the shape of a youth hostel, secondly in the shape of burger and chips for tea, thirdly in the shape of booking a 20hour bus journey!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
All aboard RyanAir
We got to Jims office in Buenos Aires and sitting on the step had to be an Aussie - shades on, tanned and brown R. M. Wiliams. - Murray, and he was to join us with Jim. 5 minutes later a very pastey looking gentleman approaches who Julian immediately greets - Thomas an irish Nuffield, also joining the tour, and last but by no means least a taxi arrives and out jumps the ever charismatic irishman, Mr Jim McCarthy.
Quick change of clothes for Jim, tour of his office for us and on the road to farm number one. We will be visiting 3 in 3 days, several hundred miles apart. The farm is 3000ha and immaculate. Growing soyabeans, maize, wheat and now rice in rotation the farm has recently been contoured (gently graded with the natural slopes) to allow water management primarily for the rice but also the soyabeans. The maize is mostly centre point irrigated. No livestock which is unusual for Argentina. They are generally achieving three crops every two years with warmth, sunshine and adequate water this place appears to be 'the' perfect farm. Jim has an excellent manager - Hogey who's job it is to organise the running of the farm. They own only two tractors -all operations are carried out by specialist contractors. A central database allows information to move between Buenos aires, the investors and the farms.
The soil was fantastic. About 1.5m of topsoil, a little phosphate deficient with about 3% OM. Everything (Julian and I check out the rooting)
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
South Ameri Belli
The north is largely sustainable forests which are used to feed their industry. -They seem to have a very sustainable set up where internal trade is key. The arable lands of the south rotate around wheat which is min tilled in -quite mixed really, soyabeans, drilled direct into wheat stubbles and maize where cattle feature, there are also oats and barley grown in some localities as beer and whiskey are big!
Yes that is a car battery