December 2021
Beef Battle double
Born for the role
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Local snub
Livin’ the dream
A Blackbutt husband-and-wife avocado farm is joining a nationwide outcry over what they claim is a growing rejection of Australian produce at major supermarket chains, after feeling the effects of the crisis first-hand earlier this year. Andy and Judy Veal, the owners of the 65acre Touchwood Farm at Mount Binga, are calling out grocery store chains Coles and Aldi for, they claim, a refusal of Australian-grown crops in favour of imported goods - a discovery they made after trying and failing to find their own avocados at Toowoomba shops. “So, I kicked up a stink,” Andy said. STORY PAGE 3
Since she was five, Charlotte Ernst has yearned to jillaroo; to ride horses, muster cattle and to learn the ropes of working on a cattle station. Now 18, she is living that dream on a 161,874-hectare station called Gleeson, 150 kilometres northwest of Cloncurry. “I am always learning, laughing and facing challenges that people my age from more southern regions just wouldn’t ever expect to happen.,” Charlotte says of her dream job “Challenges are what keep me motivated, the more handson and physical, the better!” STORY PAGES 12-13
Waste to cash Researchers at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) are investigating ways to convert organic waste into biofertilisers, thanks to the Waste to Biofutures Fund, providing $5 million to help Queensland companies find innovative ways to convert waste into bio-based products. Chief investigator, Professor Bernadette McCabe, said the research was about finding innovative ways to make the nutrient-rich organic material the same as synthetic fertilisers. STORY PAGE 4
A game changer An irrigation method that promises to increase yield, save water, cut fertiliser costs and reduce energy consumption by up to 70 per cent sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well, N-Drip, which helps farmers switch from flood to precise gravity-powered, micro-
irrigation is bringing big smiles to the faces of broadacre graingrowers throughout southern Queensland and NSW. The Israeli-designed system provides an irrigation plan that claims to maximise yield and comes with technology that advises when and how often to irrigate and fertilise. It also predicts yield.
This year Howard Rother of Nangwee, west of Toowoomba, trialled the N-Drip system in 11 hectares of his 70ha of cotton, beside a flood-irrigated crop. Both blocks had identical histories - fallowed for three years and planted the same day with the same variety in a single skip row set-up. Mr Rother said he was stunned when the
drip field achieved 11.5 bales/ ha compared with the flood, which was 7.5. “It was a remarkable result, which definitely exceeded all of my expectations,” he said. “The difference between 7.5 bales and 11.5 meant the system more than paid for itself in a year.” STORY PAGE 6
Pre-Christmas delivery
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By Fiona Gowers
