LUCERNE and oat crops are coming out of the ground at Longway Station, Longreach, in the
Subscribe now for unlimited access to all our agricultural news
across the nation
or signup to continue reading
lead-up to summer – thanks to a centre pivot watering system and an outsized water storage
dam on the property.
Local contractor Marc Coates is working with
Warwick and Rosemary Champion to tend to two
crops – oats and lucerne – each 20ha in size.
“He approached us to trial the oats and we asked him to put some lucerne in for us in return,” Mrs Champion said.
“We had the water there, thanks to the season, so we thought we’d give it a go.
“Most say our climate is too hot for lucerne so this is a bit of an experiment.”
In the past few weeks Longreach has been very dry
and the crops may not now reach the stage of baling.
Mr Champion said they had already put 50 head of
young cattle on to graze areas of the crop, ready for marketing by the end of the year.
All this has been made possible by a $180,000
investment back in 2003, when a decision was made to set up the watering system instead of buying another block and expanding.
“It’s also instead of spending money on lotfeeding for 100 days,” Mrs Champion said.
“We thought valueadding at home was a better way to go.”
The Champions run 500 to 600 Santa Gertrudis breeders on 8000ha at Longway, and constructed Warrigal Waters in the 1980s.
After losing the dam wall in the deluge that followed
Cyclone Aivu in 1989, they rebuilt and doubled its
holding capacity.
Near the dam wall, the water is up to 17m deep,
running back to a 10m depth in the creek that fills the dam.
The water covers 100ha, but there is a lot of evaporation in summer.
Good seasons in the past few years have filled the dam and given the Champion family more feed options.
“We do it on and off depending on the season and
need, and it’s normally a winter cropping thing,” Mr
Champion explained.
“There hasn’t been a lot of need in the past few years.
“This was a case of having the water and someone
wanting to try something different.”
The centre pivot, the largest of its type in the
Central West, has a 700m diameter and puts on
anywhere from 12.5 to 25mm an hour, depending on the speed it’s set to travel at.
