Podcasts

We’re excited to officially launch the ticket sales for not one, but two WeedSmart Week events in 2019 in this podcast. Our extension agronomists Paul McIntosh and Greg Condon join us this week to provide overviews of our events in both Emerald and Horsham (co-organised by Birchip Cropping Group) in August. An event which is just around the corner though is the Australian Local Government Association Conference where one of the topics will be roadside weeds. This is taking place from June 16-19. Andrew Storrie ‘Agronomo’ joins us on the podcast to explain how roadside weeds can directly impact farmers and provides some options for effectively controlling them. Two glyphosate tolerant species – doveweed (Croton setigerus) and fleabane (Conyza spp.) taking over the road shoulder in the WA cropping belt. Ticket sales are open for both of our WeedSmart Week events. Click the below links to find out more and purchase your tickets: Emerald WeedSmart Week – August 13-15th Horsham Weedsmart Week – August 27th-29th

Soil compaction is an issue farmers face in regions across the country, however, there are some unique differences between management approaches in the Western/Southern regions, compared to the Northern region. DAFWA researcher Bindi Isbister is part of a GRDC-funded project delving into the use of deep ripping and other soil compaction amelioration tactics with CTF to address deep subsoil compaction. PHOTO: DAFWA In this podcast, we chat with Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development WA Agricultural Development Officer, Bindi Isbister (pictured above), who is based in Geraldton, WA, to get a Western/Southern perspective. Agronomy professional & crop nutrition specialist, Bede O’Mara, gives us the Northern perspective. He works at Incitec Pivot Fertilisers in Toowoomba. Bede O’Mara is based in Toowoomba and chats to us about dealing with soil compaction in the Northern region Soil compaction leads to aeration issues and reduced water infiltration rates. This impacts negatively on a crop as its roots have less access to water and nitrogen. Compacted areas reduce water movement and decrease plant growth, leading to a less competitive crop and potentially more weeds. Take a listen to the podcast to learn how to prevent soil compaction and how to deal with it if you do have compacted soils.

This week on the podcast, we look into how to utilise weather forecasts and get the latest information on crop competition trials conducted by YP AG. Agriculture Victoria Seasonal Risk Agronomist Dale Grey provides an excellent overview of what weather forecasts to take seriously and those which you should probably take with a grain of salt. Dale has a real knack for simplifying this complicated topic, so if you want to get a good overview of the weather, he’s your man! Dale refers to no breaking rains yet in the interview but since the interview, there have been some breaking rains across parts of southeast Australia. You can check out the latest map for May rain thus far here. Also on related climate topics, the ‘Climatedogs’  🐶 🦴 animations (key climate drivers) were updated for a national audience recently and you can check them out here. And if you’d like to keep up-to-date with all of Dale’s weather forecasting, you can simply hit a button to subscribe to The Break here. We’re also excited to have Agriservices Agronomist Chris Davey (pictured up top) on this podcast talking about crop competition at seeding time. Chris is based in Kadina, South Australia and he recently wrote a great article in YP AG’s agronomy newsletter, where he said ‘weed seed reduction starts at seeding’. There are multiple benefits of crop competition, including increasing crop yield in weedy situations, reducing weed seed set, and improving the efficacy of Harvest Weed Seed Control. Chris has kindly given us access to his article if you’d like to refer back to it after the interview on the results from YP AG’s recent trials and some tips on crop competition. You can download it here. You can find out more about YP AG here. Join your hosts Jessica Strauss and Peter Newman and…  

Did you know you can bale your chaff dumps? South Australian farmer Andrew Ridgway, who is based in Pine Hill, has baled his chaff dumps this year to provide additional stock feed in his area. Andrew tweeted about this novel way of managing chaff dumps, so we followed up with him to find out more about the process. We also caught up with WA farmer Rod Messina about how he’s managing his chaff this year. Rod also talks to us about his recent trip over east where he was introduced to strip and disc farming systems. He talks about how some elements of the system could potentially be applied in WA farming systems.   The chaff dumps before baling. Photo by: Andrew Ridgway   Chaff dump bales ready to go! Photo by: Andrew Ridgway.

Technology in agriculture is rapidly evolving and being adopted by farmers in Australia. In this podcast, we catch up with the University of Sydney Associate Professor and Director of Weed Research Dr Michael Walsh to find out what his recent test results were on the vertical iHSD. He looked at the efficacy of the machine killing weed seeds and also looked at the effectiveness of the kill rate as the harvester increased its speed. We also caught up with Dalby Rural Supplies Precision Ag Specialist Jeremy Jones to find out more about the WEEDit and how it’s performing in the marketplace. He also shares with us what ag tech has got him excited! Join your co-hosts Jessica Strauss and Peter Newman to learn more!

Our new free course is here! In this podcast, you’ll hear from your co-hosts Jessica Strauss and Peter Newman, who are joined by course presenters, Dr Chris Preston and Mark Congreve. WeedSmart Content Creator Cindy Benjamin also provides an update on what’s new on the WeedSmart website. Pre-emergent Herbicides 101 will take you through the in’s and out’s of pre-emergent herbicides. The course is taught by Dr Chris Preston (Uni of Adelaide) and Mr Mark Congreve (ICAN)and the course covers why pre-emergent herbicides are an important tool in Australian cropping systems and how pre-emergents help you to manage herbicide resistance in crop weeds. (Especially in a world where 11 of the 17 modes of action have documented resistance.) If you’re an agronomist and you’d like to deepen your understanding of how pre-emergent herbicides work (in both winter and summer cropping systems), this is the course for you! You can register for the course (for free!) here. Mark Congreve also chatted about workshops he’s running on effective use of pre-ems. You can get all the details here.

In our last podcast we heard from weed seed impact mill company representatives, so this week we’re hearing from farmers on the ground and finding out about how they faired over harvest with both the Seed Terminator and iHSD. Farmers Kim Slarke and Scott Walton both share their experiences. We also hear from WeedSmart Southern Extension Agronomist Greg Condon on what he has been presenting at GRDC Updates this year. He gives an overview of the benefits of crop competition and diverse rotations, as well as providing an overview of some of the hot topics at Updates this year. Join your co-hosts, Jessica Strauss and Peter Newman to learn more. Take a listen

We’re so excited to be back for 2019! This is our first podcast for the year and we look at how both the Seed Terminator and iHSD fared over harvest. Seed Terminator research and development director Dr Nick Berry gives insights into how the Seed Terminator went and talks about new models which are now available. McIntosh and Son Katanning branch manager Devon Gilmour tells us about how the iHSD went and talks about the now commercially available vertical mechanical iHSD. We also hear from DPIRD’s Research Officer Catherine Borger about the benefits of lime application on crop-weed competition. Your hosts are Jessica Strauss and Peter Newman.   The Seed Terminator in action.   A close-up look of the Vertical iHSD.

On the last podcast for 2018, we spoke with Dr Haydn Kuchel, who is CEO & Head of Breeding at AGT Breeding. AGT Breeding develops new field crop varieties. Haydn Kuchel,wheat breeder,AGT Rosworthy. 0428 817 402. Haydn talks to us about AGT-run crop competition trials and how they influenced their breeding programs. We also learn about crop varieties coming online in the future. Finally, we checked in with AHRI and WeedSmart extension agronomist, Greg Condon. He gives an overview of crop sequencing and rotation, as well as providing some tips on post-harvest spraying.