With talk of slugs running rampant across the state of Victoria and high weed burdens off the back of the wet end to the 2022 season, it’s more important than ever to make sure you don’t fall into the trap of getting busy ‘just’ getting the crop in the ground. Leading to not making time to monitor and protect the crop that’s establishing now or getting those essential double knock programs completed to set the business up for the best possible outcomes come years end.
To most farmers, seeding is the most important time in the growing season calendar. It’s the first quarter in the farming business. Setting the business up well in the first quarter, like in a game of footy, is paramount. Remembering to make sure the effort that was put in, in the first five minutes isn’t undone by ‘dropping the ball’, so to speak, in the last five. Especially when fatigue starts to take its toll, it’s incredibly important.
The cost to re-sow the likes of Canola, for example, is expensive in both dollars and costs you time, mainly when you could have used it doing other things for your business! This is an example of where those small costs across a year can find their way into a business, ultimately affecting the operating efficiency at the year’s end and the amount you have as profit at the end of your 2023 game.
Although they seem insignificant at the time, these costs can add up quickly. Identifying the cost of targeted intervention to protect against risks, i.e., double baiting for slugs vs hoping for the best and potentially having to re-sow, would be a worthy analysis to do while in the tractor seeding, as it will highlight that prevention is always a better approach, and timely prevention needs to be prioritised just the same as you prioritise getting the last of the crop in the ground.
Writing this from the perspective of a coach on the bench who can’t go out and impact the game like you can, think of this article as a message from the runner to keep up that effort in the next few weeks, as you and your business will thank you for it when you’re heading into the last quarter later this year.
