FARMING comes with plenty of challenges, but as far as lifestyle goes, it can't be beaten according to South Kuminin farmers John, Bev and Ben Hunter.
John and Bev, together with their son Ben, farm over 2700 hectares of owned and leased land in a mixed cropping and livestock enterprise.
The property was farmed by John's father before John joined him at age 15 and eventually took over, and now Ben looks set to carry on the family tradition.
In the 2009/10 season, the Hunters cropped a 2380ha program comprising of wheat, barley, canola, oats and peas, with their latest crop averaging about 1.1t/ha for barley, 1.2t/ha for wheat and 0.750t/ha for canola.
A lack of finishing rains stalled the potential of last season's crop, but in the coming season, John said they planned to crop about the same, but with less barley and more wheat and canola.
"But it all depends what happens, we like to keep our options open," John said.
"Although at the moment we wouldn't increase our stock numbers."
John and Ben said they were hoping for a wet summer to kick off weed germination, which they did not have prior to seeding last year and made for difficult weed conditions.
"There have been a lot of dirty crops around the last few years, and it's been a challenge for us too, because chemicals aren't cheap" John said.
"The shortage of Monza last year hurt us too," Ben said.
While John said he believes a three-year rotation is the ideal way to go, because they crop 90 per cent of their land it's really not an option if they want to make a profit from their land.
They generally like to kick off seeding before the end of June, but will go in dry if they have to, using a direct drill system on nine inch spacings.
Seeding is done using a 9400 John Deere tractor with 10,000L emu tank, 44ft Flexicoil bar and trailing Flexi-N tank.
The Hunters have been using Flexi-N for five years and said they had been getting better results than they had with urea.
"It's good because we can mix fungicides with it and chemicals afterwards," John said.
"We lacked storage which is why we got into Flexi-N in the first place, and it's simple."
Barley grass is the biggest weed burden for the family, along with radish, but they believe their biggest challenge has been not having a decent season since 2003.
That, combined with increasing input costs has put a lot of pressure on the enterprise.
"We just have no control," John said.
"Input costs are increasing but profits have not, which is why we cut our fertiliser rates back.
"The farm lobby groups do nothing to help and it's small towns that are all suffering.
"The sooner WAFarmers and the Pastoralists and Graziers Association become one, the more pulling power we'll have.
"I think at the moment we're a bit of a joke.
"At the end of the day though, farming is still a great lifestyle and that lifestyle is underrated."
John said farming had changed greatly over the years and an increase in office work had meant an increase in stress, and gone were the days where working hard meant making money.
But for Ben – he loves farming for the lifestyle and has no desire to work anywhere else.
"I love the lifestyle," Ben said.
"I can't imagine doing anything else."
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff
Twitter