We spent the weekend helping out on the farm. For those who missed it – my in-laws are on a property outside Dalby that flooded twice in the last month. The flood destroyed a crop – and a bunch of stuff that was kept in storage around the place, some electrical bits and pieces in the sheds, but mercifully spared one crop and the house.
The crop that didn’t fare so well presented a problem – it doesn’t really have any value, and is now in the way. The good side of the flooding is that all the soil on the farm has a full water profile (which means it’s wet to about ten inches or something and great for growing stuff). Farmers these days like to plant on top of the stubble of the old harvest because that provides nutrients for the new crop. To cut a long story short – the decision was made to burn the old crop (which actually didn’t go so well – it didn’t want to burn) before it turned out that it was actually fairly easy to take the planter through the ruined canary, planting new stuff over the top of it. The canary should shed its seeds on the field – which will then grow next winter…
Our biggest job while we were there was moving the massive centre pivot irrigator from one field to another.
