Avery family, Cadoux assesses benefits of SE14 soil moisture agent

He wants even paddock production across the board and after improving farming practices in recent years, added another element this season that appears to be achieving just that.

It will also provides confidence to sow earlier into more marginal country even on small rainfall events and is expected to improve average paddock yields.

It's already looking like its achieved a 300-700 kilograms per hectare yield gain in canola and 200-600kg/ha increase in lupin yield this season.

Mr Avery and his wife, Kylie, who have a three-year-old son, Max, farm at Manmanning, near Cadoux, with Stewart's parents, Duncan and Betty, and are supported by farm assistant Rhylee Holmes, who hails from Hyden.

They grow wheat, barley, canola, oats, export hay and lupins across more than 4000 hectares including leased land and run a flock of 850 mated Merino ewes, which is expected to be reduced in the future.

Mr Avery said most of the land featured good loamy sand soils, however there were patches of white sand and poor non-wetting sands with conglomerate gravel underneath.

To improve soil health, they have been deep ripping, retaining stubbles and transitioned to controlled traffic farming (CTF) five years ago to reduce compaction, and this season they added the soil moisture attraction and retention agent, SE14, at seeding on some of the poorer soils to assess its effectiveness.

"We applied it with canola over 720ha, including some pretty good country, and it worked out that we also applied it with 370ha of lupins, including some sandy areas," Mr Avery said.

"But it didn't matter where we applied it really - there was a good response even on sticky white clay.

"The focus was to get the canola up and out of the ground, which helps increase yield straight away, and it definitely did that.

"Our canola is more advanced."

SE14 manufacturer, DKSH Agrisolutions (formerly SACOA), is co-ordinating a trial on the Avery's property featuring different rates of SE14 applied with Flexi-N liquid nitrogen in canola.

In the same paddock, the Averys have lupin seeding strips with SE14 applied at 3 litres/ha and 4L/ha, with the higher rate "looking far better".

The family added some Friction Flow tubing from Furrow Management Systems Australia and taps to deliver the SE14 with the canola and lupin seed at the back of splitter boots on their Ausplow DBS and Multistream seeding system, which at this stage has capability for just one liquid system.

For the canola, MAP fertiliser is deep banded at 50 kilograms/ha and Flexi-N is normally deep banded at 60L/ha, however it was applied at 20L/ha along with the SE14 at 3L/ha with the seed, combined with 37L/ha of water for a total solution of 60L/ha.

In February, sulphate of ammonia was applied in preparation for the canola at 100kg/ha, while urea was applied earlier at the post-emergent timing at 110kg/ha.

For the lupins, superphosphate was topdressed in February at 100kg/ha and the lupins were sown at 90kg/ha.

The canola was sown at 1.8kg/ha.

Rainfall recorded included 33 millimetres on April 1 before just 4-5mm was received through most of May.

Events at the end of May and start of June dumped 70-97mm over the farms.

Due to dry seeding conditions, canola sowing was delayed until April 18 and lupins until May 5, and seeding was completed on May 24.

Interestingly however, Mr Avery said considering the subsequent benefits seen with SE14, they recognised they did not need to delay.

"We were still nervous and didn't want to seed into it due to the dry conditions, but it went well," he said.

"With the lupins, we lost less than five per cent and I think we could have lost 30pc without the SE14, so we were very happy with the result.

"Looking at the canola with SE14 underneath it, 80-90pc germinated after seeding and it hasn't looked back, so we should have sown at the start of April following the rain.

"With what we have seen with SE14 after the dry start this year, we will now go early into marginal country even on small rainfall events with confidence.

"Our past two years have been the best yields with canola and we started from late March/early April.

"You also see the benefit in weed competition - they have been some of the cleanest crops we have had.

"Yield is king and getting the crop up in April and early May is key."

While it was a small investment to add the liquid kit to the bar this season, Mr Avery is looking forward to adding a secondary liquid system to their air cart so they can continue to reap the benefits of banding Flexi-N in addition to applying SE14.

Comprehensive soil testing to a depth of one metre every 4ha also will allow the Averys to vary the rate of product applications across the property, including of SE14.

However, Mr Avery said next year they would apply it at 4L/ha (2L/ha each side of the splitter boot) and would definitely assess it in wheat and barley.

"The SE14 is brilliant," he said.

"I like to treat farming similar to a vegie garden and if we are going with CTF to not compact and free-up our soils, why aren't we adding these agents."