Podcasts

Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries principal research scientist Dr Michael Widderick joins us to explain research which found that narrower row spacing in sorghum leads fewer weeds – in some cases halving weed seed production!
Dr Michael Widderick
We also are going to get a WA grower perspective in follow-up to our podcast last fortnight which looks at soil amelioration. Brady Green (pictured) from Yuna area of WA joins us to talk about what made him think seriously about implementing soil amelioration and the benefits he’s seen since doing so.
Brady Green, Farmer, Yuna, WA
WEBINAR
We’ve got a timely webinar coming up on Group Gs on Friday, Feb 26. Uni of Adelaide’s Dr Chris Preston & our Southern Extension Agronomist Greg Condon will be hosting this webinar aimed at growers. If you’ve got any specific questions about this, let us know on Twitter, and make sure to join us on the day where you can ask them live.
You can register here.
ARTICLES
Our latest news piece looks at making seedbank management your priority this year.
Another recent article looks at taking resistance into account when planning tank mixes.
PODCAST LINKS
Soil amelioration article.
Sorghum article.
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Podcast Producer: Jessica Strauss
Podcast Hosts: Jessica Strauss & Peter Newman

This is our first Regional Update for the Western Region in 2021. Planfarm Agronomist, Nick McKenna joins us to give an overview of how harvest went for his region in and around the Geraldton area. He also provides some tips on how to control weeds given the likelihood of some rain falling due to a tropical low tracking down the WA coast.

In this episode, we’re focusing on soil amelioration.
Western Australian Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development Research Scientist, Dr Stephen Davies joins us to explain what’s involved with soil amelioration and the benefits of this approach.
Dr Stephen Davies conducting soil sampling in Mingenew.
We also hear from Daridyn Haywards from Lameroo in the South Australian Mallee.
He was involved in a project called: “Spading header rows for grassy weed control, improved crop yields and better soil protection”, led by Chris Donohue and has been continuing to adopt the practice of using soil amelioration for both soil improvement and weed control benefits.
Three years after Daridyn’s first treatment of header spading.
Daridyn’s initial main focus was to build up the organic carbon levels in the soil for improved soil health, water holding capacity & hopefully overcoming the Rhizoctonia issue he faced. The weed seed burial was part of that process as we’ll hear.
SA Mallee farmer, Daridyn Haywards in a spaded row of hay crop.
Peter Newman has been an advocate for soil amelioration for a number of years and has contributed to this article on the subject here. We also have a great Case Study on Andrew Kenny who uses this approach too. You can read it here.
New content
Over the Christmas period our content producer Cindy Benjamin was very busy. There’s a range of new articles and videos available to check out.
You can learn all about how to weaponise sorghum crops to take out Feather Top Rhodes and Awnless Barnyard Grass here.
And we’ve also got a new article on running down the summer grass seedbank in mungbeans. Check it out here.

Welcome back to the Regional Update! This is our first podcast for the year.

We’re kicking things off in the Southern Region, with Elders Agronomist Chris Toohey joining us to give an update on his region. Chris is based in Albury, New South Wales.

Welcome to the last WeedSmart podcast of 2020! What a year it’s been.
In this episode we take a deep dive into spot spraying. We’re joined by Bilberry CEO, Guillaume Jourdain who provides us with an update on their green on green spot spraying technology. WA Farmer Andrew Messina also was part of trial work Bilberry did on this technology and he joins us to share his experience.
As this is the final 2020 podcast, we’d like to thank you – our listeners – for listening over the year. We love bringing you the latest information in the weeds space and look forward to sharing more stories with you in 2021.
On the podcast we mentioned that even though things are winding up, we do have some new content filtering through. Our latest Ask an Expert is with our Northern Extension Agronomist, Paul McIntosh. Paul answers the question: What alternatives are there for desiccation and crop topping? Check it out here.
Have a lovely break over the festive season! We’ll see you in the new year!
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Podcast presenters: Jessica Strauss & Peter Newman
Podcast producer: Jessica Strauss
Photos: Fiona Mann

This is our last Regional Update for 2020. This was a new concept we brought about initially as a way to connect with you more due to COVID-19 disrupting in-person events, but it went so well we decided to keep it. So you can expect more Regional Updates in 2021!
In this episode, we caught up with Total Ag Services Agronomist, Paul Nelson, from Croppa Creek in NSW. Paul gives us an update on the Northern region, with a focus on how they’re dealing with weed burdens over the Summer period.

Today on the podcast we chat with WA farmer Clayton South about his experience with grazing chaff dumps. We also hear from Bayer’s Australian Field Leader of Integrated Weed Management, Craig White about their new herbicide product “Mateno Complete” and how to use it effectively and sustainably in your farming system.
As mentioned on the podcast, our latest Ask an Expert on soil degradation can be found here.
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Podcast presenters: Jessica Strauss & Peter Newman
Podcast producer: Jessica Strauss

WA farmer Ben Webb joins us on the Regional Update to give us an update on how his year is panning out. He gives some insights into how he’s gone using chaff carts and talks about a few other novel approaches he uses on his farm.
If you’d like to find out more about Ben’s farming system, you can check out the case study on him we did here.

On this week’s podcast we take a look at a different approach to double knocks. WA-based Farmanco agronomist, Mark Lawrence (pictured) shares with us the benefits of double paraquat and other strategies his clients in the medium to high rainfall zone in WA’s south west region are using.
We also find out more about BASF’s new Group G herbicide, Voraxor. BASF Technical Development Manager Ian Francis joins us to tell us more about their new Group G pre-emergent broadleaf weed herbicide and how it can fit into farming systems.
BASF Technical Development Manager Ian Francis
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Podcast presenters: Jessica Strauss & Peter Newman
Podcast producer: Jessica Strauss