Willow Tree farmers produce winning wheat crops

The Quirindi Show Society ran the ASC/Suncorp Bank Championship Dryland Field Wheat Competition this year, with the farmers winning out of all others in their district.

Hudson Farms won the durum wheat competition with their janderi wheat. This was planted on June 7 on 50mm of in-crop rain into long fallow ground.

It was sown at 60kg per hectare with 40kg of Z starter and 80kg of NH3.

Meanwhile, Yarrabah Pastoral Company won the bread wheat competition with their sunmax wheat. This wheat was planted on May 15 as zero till into long fallow ground, following sorghum.

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Yarrabah's Neil Barwick said he was "thrilled to bits" with the result.

"We had a real good stubble cover from the previous sorghum crop and we made sure that there was no weeds that got away, so we conserved all the moisture during the fallow period," Mr Barwick said.

"We had some useful falls of rain in the fallow period and we had some reasonable fallow moisture when we planted but we only got 100mm of rain during the growing period.

"This was in about 17 different falls of rain so some of the rain that fell was totally ineffective because it was just such small amounts."

Mr Barwick was very proud of his crop.

"We've got a wonderful crop and it looks like it's going to average about 4.5 tonnes per hectare. We're absolute amazed and it's incredible at how it's done it," he said.

"It's all weighing 80-81kg per hectolitre.

"We haven't got a sample tested yet so we don't know what the protein is like but i'ts all extremely dry, there's no moisture in it."

The two companies' crops have also been judged for the state competition, but won't find out the result until January.

An awards presentation night will be held in Dubbo to crown the winner of this competition.

Mr Barwick said he would definitely be attending "just in case they call our name out", but until then he would be "working early and late until the harvest is finished".