Controlled Traffic Farming
Graingrower Dennis Hobbs has made the successful transition to Controlled Traffic Farming at his family’s Warracknabeal property in the Victorian Mallee.
Dennis made the move to farming in straight lines five years ago as part of a wholesale change to the way his 1416 hectare property, including leased country, was managed.
“I’d been concerned about soil compaction for almost a decade and was deep ripping but not satisfied with the results,” Dennis says. “So after quite a lot of research we decided controlled traffic was the way to go.”
One of Dennis’ research trips was to Queensland where the Queensland University and Australian Controlled Traffic Farming Association have been looking into controlled traffic farming for close to 10 years.
“I was very impressed with what I saw. There were no fences or stock. It was great.”
Changing over to Controlled Traffic meant extensive changes to the Hobbs property, but Dennis and his wife Leah were determined.
“We were expanding the property through leasing, so we decided to pretty much make the change to controlled traffic all in one go. We went from conventional cropping to minimum till and controlled traffic all in one year, including changing the layout of the fencing of the farm and the machinery. The changes were based on a whole farm mapping exercise that included topography, natural water courses and soil types,” Dennis says.
Included in the property revamp was opening up paddocks as much as possible. That meant going from an average paddock size of 40-80 hectares to 120 hectares. The controlled traffic meant the machinery had to be on a wheelbase of three metres,
“We were also looking to upgrade most of the machinery at that stage as well, and the three metre wheelbase was chosen as that was the wheelbase of the header.”
Dennis bought a new R75 Gleaner header for the job as it already had the required three metre wheelbase. He bought the Gleaner through Irwin Motors at Horsham and he says it has been a great harvester.
“It has a tremendous capacity and easily copes with our harvest, it is very simple to operate and we hope to soon combine yield and harvest data gathered from the Gleaner into our farm mapping and management,” Dennis says.
He also had the axle of his 90 foot boom spray converted to a three metre wheelbase while his air seeder already had a three metre wheelbase so no modifications were required. Even though using the Controlled Traffic method on the Hobbs’ farm is in its relatively early days, Dennis says he is already seeing a difference in the property’s performance and efficiency of operation.
“The theory behind controlled traffic is that it will be five to eight years before we see a real difference, but we have already noticed the soil holds moisture much better.”
Despite the below average rain, Dennis says their barley averaged 13-15 bags per acre and most of it was malting quality.
“And we are seeing more efficiencies in machinery use. The tractor would use up to 28 litres of diesel per hour, but with the no-till system it’s more like 18-20 litres.”
To add even more efficiency, Dennis also utilises GPS technology in his farming. This year he will make the jump from 10cm accuracy to 2cm accuracy to ensure he is not wasting any inputs such as fertiliser and herbicides.
At sowing, the crop rows are set up 15 inches apart and thanks to the use of GPS and controlled traffic, Dennis can now alternate the crops between the rows each year.
“I want to make sure it’s as accurate as possible and there is the added benefit that you are not sowing directly into stubble the next year.”
With this many benefits it’s little wonder Dennis is looking forward to what tomorrow will bring.
