This is a summary of the SANTFA Journals, to view the FULL content please click the 
icon for each Journal Article.
SANTFA 2008 Journal |
Summer Edition Month: January Vol: 1 No: 1 |
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 Seeder Modification | |||||||||
| Title: Conversion doing the no-till job and 'holding out pretty well' | Author: Mike Roberts CRC | ||||||||
| Two Upper South-East farmers who have taken the low-cost, machinery modification path into no-till have made quite different modifications to the same machine to access the multiple benefits of no-till on their properties For his ‘easy’ soil conditions at Pinnaroo, John Angel changed the spacing, increased the breakout strength, fitted poly trash guards and press wheels. At Coomandook, with a mix of stone reefs and deep sands, Clem Tynan left the breakout strength unchanged and mounted the sowing boots on the press wheel arm to control seeding depth. | |||||||||
| Part 1 | |||||||||
| John Angel sat at the kitchen table under a photo of his grandfather with a team of horses and piles of grain waiting to be winnowed and bagged. As tough as it gets on some days, in some years, this third-generation farmer from Pinnaroo acknowledged that things had come a long way since his family began farming there in 1926. “I farm pretty much by myself with the help of a casual emplo... | |||||||||
| Soil Ecology | |||||||||
| Title: Managing the soil habitat | Author: Dr Jill Clapperton | ||||||||
| A North American soil biologist gives tips to farmers on how to restore the soil environments on their farms so that microbes can thrive. | |||||||||
| Dr Jill Clapperton, Earthspirit Land Resource Consulting | |||||||||
| Creating a soil habitat is the first step to managing for enhanced soil biological fertility and long-term soil quality and productivity. This means severely reducing the amount of tillage (preferably moving to no-tillage) and increasing the amount and quality of the organic matter returning to the soil. Organic matter is the fuel for increased biological activity. Soil bio... | |||||||||
| Community FarmlinkX | |||||||||
| Title: Community FarmlinkX - pathways to urban-rural co-existence | Author: tony Craddock | ||||||||
| Community Farmlinkx is a National Landcare project supported by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Target Milestones for this project is to lesson the divide between urban and rural communities and provide education to the growers situated closer to the townships of conservation agricultural practises. | |||||||||
| Overview | |||||||||
| Every autumn, former SANTFA Scientific Officer Rohan Rainbow, during his frequent trips to Adelaide from Clare, would look across the brown, cultivated paddocks on the outskirts of Gawler and ponder the potential for increasing the uptake of no-till and conservation farming practices in the district. This sparked a meeting in late 2005 between Rohan and Rural Directions Pty Ltd consu... | |||||||||
| Community FarmlinkX | |||||||||
| Title: Community survey - focussing project activities | Author: Tony Craddock | ||||||||
| As part of the project outcomes a community survey of rural and urban residents was conducted to undertand the barriers to no-till adoption and urban understanding. | |||||||||
| “Let’s get out there and get the job done!”, was the immediate reaction of the project team once the Community FarmlinkX project was funded. But what were the barriers to growers adopting no-till and conservation farming practices in the project area? What were the information gaps that needed to be filled before farmers were prepared to take on no-till? What were ... | |||||||||
| Community Farmlinkx | |||||||||
| Title: Engaging the urban community through schools | Author: Diona Heinjus & Graeme Jennings | ||||||||
| Part of the Community FarmlinkX Project involved engaging local rural and peri-urban schools in an education program which demonstrated the differences between older farming techniques and those now practised by progressive no-till farmers. The aim of the project is to produce young community members in the northern Adelaide fringe who are aware of the farming contribution and the benefits of modern practices. | |||||||||
| An important part of the Community FarmlinkX project is a communications program that incorporates visits to schools in the project area. In the schools program, senior primary school students are educated about farming, the roles farmers play in the community and the methods they use to look after the environment while producing healthy food. At the sessions, students disc... | |||||||||
| Community Farmlinkx | |||||||||
| Title: Syndication provides access to new technology | Author: Tony Craddock & Graeme Jennings | ||||||||
| Machinery syndication can minimise the capital investment in the equipment needed to get into no-till farming. | |||||||||
| Two Wells farmers Malcolm and Timothy Wilson and neighbour John Sharpe are enjoying the benefits of the latest auto-steer and spray boom technology thanks to a machinery syndication arrangement. The syndicate, an extension of a close working relationship between the two families over many years, had made it possible to keep up with developments in farm technology at a reasonable cost, M... | |||||||||
| Community Farmlinkx | |||||||||
| Title: Getting into no-till at minimal cost - machinery modification | Author: Patrick Redden, Rural Directions PL | ||||||||
| A focus of the Community FarmlinkX Project is to identify ways growers can take on no-till with minimal capital expenditure. Modification of existing seeding equipment was one strategy identified. As a consequence three growers who have modified seeding equipment were interviewed and the following case studies developed. | |||||||||
| Converted combine - Stuart Roennfeldt, Greenock | |||||||||
| Farm consultant Stuart Roennfeldt runs his family farm at Greenock in the Barossa Valley in between providing consultancy services to broadacre farming clients throughout the Mid and Lower North. His property combines vineyards and cropping, with approximately 300 hectares of wheat, barley, canola, peas, and beans. Stuart was keen to adopt no-till on his farm, having seen the benefits... | |||||||||
| Community Farmlinkx | |||||||||
| Title: Putting theory into the paddocks | Author: Tony Craddock, Rural Solutions | ||||||||
| Demonstration trials are an important part of the grower communication activities of the Community FarmlinkX project. So far the trials have compared no-till and zero-till technologies with farmer practice and demonstrated best practice in areas such as pre-emergent herbicides, residue management and spray drift management. The trial sites are located adjacent to main roads near Daveyston, Templers and Angle Vale. After two years of hosting demonstrations on their paddocks, farmer co-operators were asked to reflect on the Community FarmlinkX program and what changes they’ve made to their farming systems. | |||||||||
| In the past 12 months, co-operator Phillip Winchester has modified his Case tool bar by widening the row spacing to 23 cm and fitting it with knife points. “We direct-drilled all our 2007 crops except for canola and a couple of bad caltrop paddocks, moving away from the minimum tillage system we’d been practicing for years”, said Phillip, who is the Farm Manager for LXL Pty Ltd, owned b... | |||||||||
| Community Farmlinkx | |||||||||
| Title: Innovative approach to community engagement | Author: Mike Roberts CRC | ||||||||
| The Community FarmlinkX Program is an initiative of SANTFA funded by Dept of Land, Water and Biodiversity Conservation as well as the National Landcare Program. The program aims to develop new approaches to engaging communities in the adoption of conservation farming in an area where uptake has been lower than in other parts of the state. This article discusses the views of Glenn Gale, Principal Technical Advisor (NRM) and Brian Hughes, SA NLP Coordinator on the aims of the program and achievements to date. | |||||||||
| “Hey honey, while you’re down at the Gawler shopping centre this morning, remember to pick up a loaf of bread, two litres of milk and a brochure on why we don’t have as many dust storms as we did years ago!” That may sound like an unlikely scenario, unless you are aware of how the Community FarmlinkX Program is bringing together urban and rural communities on Adelaide’s northern fringe ... | |||||||||