fleurieu peninsula

Welcome to the Adelaide Hills and Fleurieu Farmcast – the monthly podcast where we let you know what we’ve been up to on farm and what makes sense for you to be doing on your farm or lifestyle property.

Over the past 12 months we’ve run through an almanac of farm management tasks to do every month but now we’re going to take a broader view.

Also, we have some guest interviews to take us deeper into some very timely topics.

So, join us as we take a broader look at farm operations and focus on one or two key things that you need to address as a part of running your small acreage farm throughout the year.

We have plenty of fodder to work through, but if you’d like to suggest a topic for us to discuss, please send us an email.

Thanks for listening to the Adelaide Hills & Fleurieu Farmcast. We hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s episode and jotted down a few things for your to-do-list.

00:00 Adelaide Hills Farmcast March Edition

Introduction

00:50 Topics

Horses

Japanese encephalitis in horses. Look for symptoms.

Summer weed spraying

Ours is all done. Finally got our hay bales off and able to spray.

And we’ve just had lime added to our two hay paddocks at a rate of 2 tonnes to the hectare.

Pods and Craig are out spraying Potato weed, caltrop blanket weed, buckbush, milk thistle stick wart for clients today and tomorrow they are heading just down the road to spray Cooch & Kiakoya.

Heiffers

Our heifers – many lessons learned:

• Don’t buy the ones you don’t want
• When you get them onto your property, assume they haven’t been vaccinated and administer a 5 in 1 vaccine immediately followed by the booster shot 4-6 weeks later
• And get all instructions from your vet in writing. Ie. Whether you’re administering an anti inflammatory every day for 3 days or once every 3 days.

And consider getting an autopsy. We did, courtesy of Dr Jeremy Rogers, Senior Veterinary Officer PIRSA.

Vaccination protocol for cattle

Biosecurity. The document highlights on-farm biosecurity practices as key to:

• producing healthy livestock
• maintaining access to premium markets
• combatting the constant threat of exotic and endemic diseases

More spraying insights

Talking of spraying, we met up with the powerhouse duo behind DART recently. Dart, or Drone agricultural remote technology is a new operator in south Australia offering spraying, seeding and mapping via drone technology. These guys can get your spraying or seeding program done quicker and with more accuracy than traditional boom sprays and they specialise in managing hard to access areas like steep hills and river beds and of course, they don’t need to worry about getting bogged in winter!

You can find more about them via their website: droneagremotetech.com.au.

WOTL Event

I attended a WOTL event: Back to basics best practice farm animal husbandry, Kuitpo. If you'd like more information, talk a look at the WOTL website.

11:40 Farmcast Interview: Michael Bowden, Hills Farm Supplies

Many of you would know Bodes or Michael Bowden from Hills Farm Supplies in Mount Barker.

Bodes and Pods went to Roseworthy together and we caught up with him to talk about capeweed and the best time to undertake a spray program.

24:16 Farmcast Interview: Anthony Chick from Optiweigh

I was lucky enough to attend the sold out Ag tech conference, Evoke Ag in Adelaide last week.

Whilst I did enjoy the conference, it was the Exhibition and start-up alley that I found interesting. There were some fabulous technologies on display and some fabulous concepts that are well beyond my pay grade.

I met with Anthony Chick from Optiweigh and asked him about his in-paddock weighing system and most importantly, what the benefits of the technology are.

30:37 Farmcast Interview: Dwain Duxson from Farm Tender

I also caught up with Dwain Duxson from Farm Tender.

Farm Tender is an online sales platform for all things agriculture.

His insights into the ag-tech sector and whats next for agriculture are definitely worth listening to.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This month, our Adelaide Hills Farmcast is a joint recording with Steve Davis from The Adelaide Show Podcast.

We still cover our monthly almanac of things to focus on during the upcoming 4-6 weeks on your property but Steve also gets us to reflect on what it's like to be farmers for his city-based audience.

The almanac has been structured into five things to think about over the summer break.

Plus we also announce that we've moved to Currency Creek and can now work with propery owners and small acreage farmers on the Fleurieu Peninsula.

We hope you find this helpful and we wish you a prosperous New Year.

00:00 Adelaide Hills Farmcast January Edition

Introduction

03:26 Adelaide Hills Farm Almanac / Farm CalendarWater Security For Summer

• If you’re planning to go away over the summer, please ensure you have someone available to check your stock water every day or every second day.
• Some problems can be assessed from a distance, but not all.
• There are a number of remote water level sensors on the market and if this is the direction you want to go down please do your research. Some are better than others. We have been very impressed by the Water Rat sold by Farmco.
• Clean out troughs regularly and slip in some Copper Sulphate tablets.

Bushfire Risk

• Have you done what you can? If a bushfire goes through your property can you honestly say that there was nothing more that you could have done?
• Spraying/slashing fencelines.
• Farm fire fighting units are invaluable.  The CFS has a Farm Fire Units Handbook on their website and we would encourage every landowner to read it – even if you haven’t got or don’t intend to have a farm fire unit.
• We would encourage you to install both the Alert SA app and CFS app on your smartphone.
• And only drive diesel vehicles around paddocks during the fire season. According to the CFS website – vehicle and engine exhausts cause about 25 fires each year in rural South Australia.

Summer Weed Spraying

• If you’ve cut your grass for hay, now is the ideal time to spray glyphosate to clear up the residual weeds. Basically keeping the paddocks brown to conserve moisture for the following planting season.
• Continue to spray your box thorns, blackberries and gorse.
• Paddy melons can be sprayed or spray-grazed.
• Soil Testing.

Home Garden And House Paddock

• Mulch your garden beds and fruiting trees – careful to leave an area at the base of the trunk to prevent rot.
• Always water plants at the base and consider where the water is running off. Creating a small dam to prevent water wastage is a great idea.
• Clear debris, limbs, old wood – anything flammable from around buildings. Not only does this reduce the likelihood of burning your dwellings, but it also reduces the spots that snakes can hide.
• Rooftop sprinkler systems are invaluable.
• Mosquitoes – we are about to put a small fountain in our lagoon to reticulate water which should prevent or at least reduce the amount of mosquito lavae sitting on the surface.

Going Away? Let Your Neighbours Know

• As we mentioned above, if you’re planning to go away over the summer, please ensure you have someone available to check your stock water.
• Also, having someone monitor for any unusual activity is crucial. We hear far too many stories, including a friend of ours recently, who have had their animals stolen and house and sheds ransacked.
• Consider putting locks on external gateways.

37:01 Farmcast Interview with Steve Davis

In this interview, Steve Davis from The Adelaide Show Podcast chats with Belle and Pods about what life is like on a farm over the summer holidays.

He also delves into the impacts of the River Murray flooding, and other topics.

Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.