Danny’s and Jim’s visit with Moree Mal* ...
(* Danny Ryan, Jim Scott and Mal McNiven)
What a great visit we had! We hope you enjoy some of the pictures we captured …
On the way, we checked out Copeton dam
Construction started in 1968 and it was completed in 1976.
It has a capacity nearly 3 times that of Sydney harbour.
That is some rock wall!
Copeton Dam was at 93% capacity!
According to WaterNSW “Cotton is one of the main crops to benefit from the availability of irrigation, as well as lucerne, cereals, oilseed, pecans, wheat and vegetables. The dam also provides environmental flows to the Gwydir Wetlands near Moree”.
We were met at Mal’s home by his daughter Eliza and her family who were staying with Mal for a few weeks as they embarked on an around-Australia caravan trip from their home in Orange NSW.
We also met his son Sam and (briefly) his wife when we went out to see Sam’s substantial Tallawanta feedlot with associated cropping north-west of Moree which benefits from Mal’s agronomic advice.
Mal showed us a few thousand acres of oats …
Fertilised with manure from the feedlot (5t/ha)
The agronomist showed us …
A few thousand acres of faba beans …
With Dan supervising …
Mal checked the emergence of some newly sown wheat …
Finding a coleoptile with a screwdriver …
The surface was drying out but they had just had 12 mm of rain to top up what was a full profile of moisture below …
Weed control …
With camera-activated spray nozzles saving lots of herbicide …
The weed control was what every agronomist would like to see …
In this paddock of a few thousand acres of barley …
A small piece of cultivation equipment (Brookfield chain bar)
for mulching stubble and weeds prior to sowing …
The sowing equipment (in towing mode)
The trailing grain bin holds 40 t …
A close up …
Look at all those sowing tines on this monster air seeder (again in towing mode) - made in Narromine …
Even closer …
Disk, press wheel and coulter …
A bit more machinery …
A grain truck, a couple of headers, a forage harvester and another view of that spray rig …
A sizeable manure spreader …
From the UK …
A tractor with low compaction …
For pulling all that big stuff …
A sizeable grain bin …
Holding 110 t, it can only be towed when it is empty …
A few silos …
for just a portion of the harvest …
Which gets mixed here …
at Sam’s Tallawanta feedlot NW of Moree
And fed out with an automatic feed delivery wagon …
with carefully mixed grain, hay and silage rations formulated by a specialist veterinarian - customised for each mob …
Explaining it all …
Danny enjoying the information being fed to him on the operations of the feedlot by Mal and his son, Sam.
Black cattle …
enjoying their feed with a large paddock of oats growing in the background.
Some more of the 8,000 cattle …
with cooled bore water - from 1000m deep - stored in the background. High quality water is essential for productive cattle.
Cross-bred cattle too …
Different breeds and times on feed allow for different brands of product to meet the needs of customers in different markets
The grain trucks …
get a wash!
At the end of the visit …
we saw the hot artesian water spa bath. But, unfortunately, we didn’t get time to try it out!
What a great visit and wonderful hospitality!
Our sincere thanks to Mal, Sam and Eliza and family!
Danny Ryan and Jim Scott