Organic farming extra information

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We sow a legume with almost every crop, except when sowing legumes such as mung beans. All of our cereal crops are undersown with snail Medic or Fenugreek, and the addition of these legumes add to the amino acid/protein balance by supplying carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and sulphur.

We also add natural mineral fertilisers as blends when necessary and lately have added seaweed and fish emulsion cultures, and are doing trial work with coal as a source of carbon. I Our soils both light and heavy are self mulching and contour ploughing and Keyline Pattern ploughing/ cultivating ensure this Status QUO is maintained and upgraded as well as storing the greatest possible amount of moisture, in a soil profile regardless of tilth.

We don't have access to irrigation except for some melon/vegetable crops near the house. Our storage care plan involves (if necessary) ambient air drying of grains whilst on a truck via a medium sized blower and a floor mounted, perforated, vaned tube to ensure an even distribution of air. All of our silo complexes are under cover, and this ensures a more constant and even temperature of the stored grain with no sweating compared to outside storage. As well we do not use steel silos for storage; but cement cone bases in one complex with wooden walls and the other has mesh silos set on masonite, with internal hessian/fine mesh to keep the grain in storage and provide aeration. As an Australian pioneer of the use of freshwater diatomaceous earth with cereal grains to prevent weevil damage in same, we have extended the use of this product into other facets of farm management after almost fifteen years usage.


As mentioned previously our seed genetic base is our lynchpin, encompassing among others two outstanding wheat varieties which have been in use for nearly forty years. Another is a special watermelon whose genes today are very rare. Yes! we do keep our own seed wherever possible; for any future use. The value of this is a stronger genetic base, more disease resistance, and higher germination plus more complete proteins as bonuses.
We grow a large variety of crops both summer and winter and the Keyline pattern cultivation (alternative strip cropping programme) on the contour allows us to diversify greatly.
Our attention to detail starts with land preparation, through sowing, some hand weeding (grazing) row cropping, harvesting, storage grading cleaning (not done by ourselves) and even to efficient despatch/transport or rail I.
What happens when something goes wrong? For example on some occasions we will get some heliothis infestation/attack in linseed crops, in which case we will only spray with Pyrethrum (natural) as a last resort and only then if the damage is going to be excessive We much prefer our abundant bird life to take care of small outbreaks of heliothis. Once the brix level of the plant has reached an acceptable level - insects have no interest in same!
Some years melon crops can be susceptible to powdery mildew/curl leaf. We can alleviate this to a large extent by spraying with a natural seaweed /fish emulsion/ hydrogen peroxide mixture but other work in this field is continuing.