Neroli Brennan: This is Seeds for Success, a show where we have
Neroli Brennan: a good yarn about ag life with producers who are
Neroli Brennan: having a go. On the show, you'll hear from farmers
Neroli Brennan: in New South Wales who are out there battling the elements,
Neroli Brennan: making tough calls, and getting the job done. You'll get
Neroli Brennan: a laugh out of some of their stories and also
Neroli Brennan: pick up some know- how along the way. I'm your host,
Neroli Brennan: Neroli Brennan. Today we're having a yarn with Sam Johnston.
Neroli Brennan: Sam helps manage his family properties alongside his father and
Neroli Brennan: family 20Ks west of Forbes. While primarily focused on trade,
Neroli Brennan: lambs and lucerne hay production, in recent years, the Johnstons
Neroli Brennan: have made a move into breeding composite meat sheep in
Neroli Brennan: order to maximize profitability. In this episode, Sam talks to
Neroli Brennan: us about how their high- performance pastures, including perennial grasses, lucerne, clover,
Neroli Brennan: and chicory help them trade between 3 and 4, 500 lambs
Neroli Brennan: on approximately 150 hectares of river country. You'll also hear
Neroli Brennan: how dry land and irrigated lucerne hay production is a
Neroli Brennan: large part of their operation, which sometimes conflicts with their
Neroli Brennan: lamb production. And as Sam explains, can disrupt cash flow
Neroli Brennan: depending on the season. Local Land Services mixed farming advisor,
Neroli Brennan: Rohan Leach, sat down with Sam in the middle of
Neroli Brennan: haymaking to bring you this episode.
Rohan Leach: Good day listeners. Today I'm with Sam Johnston from Forbes. Sam,
Rohan Leach: welcome to the Seeds for Success Podcast.
Sam Johnston: Thank you Rohan. Very excited to be here. I've listened
Sam Johnston: to a few of the podcasts and yeah, fired up
Sam Johnston: to be on today.
Rohan Leach: Great. Love to meet another fan. Mate, can you just
Rohan Leach: start off by giving us a bit of a rundown
Rohan Leach: of your operation here at Walla Wallah?
Sam Johnston: Yeah, so where dad and I run a family show here,
Sam Johnston: 20K is west of Forbes, which is where he and I are both based.
Sam Johnston: He's been in the Forbes area since the mid 70s, moved
Sam Johnston: up to Forbes from the western suburbs of Sydney, looking
Sam Johnston: for a viable irrigation farm and kept coming west until
Sam Johnston: he landed out at Corinella where he farmed for 35
Sam Johnston: years and then got a little bit tied up in
Sam Johnston: the corporate space for 3 or 4 years and then more recently
Sam Johnston: got out and relocated a little bit closer back to Forbes,
Sam Johnston: which is at Walla Wallah where he is now. Then
Sam Johnston: I've recently returned home to the farm after a stint
Sam Johnston: in Sydney for schooling, university and 3 years of work,
Sam Johnston: and recently in 2020, so 4 years ago now. But
Sam Johnston: we're at the moment, got about 570 hectares between 3
Sam Johnston: parcels of land or 3 different farms. The one we're
Sam Johnston: on today is dad's place, Walla Wallah, which is about
Sam Johnston: 80 hectares or 220 acres. I'm next door on 60 hectares,
Sam Johnston: which I've had for 4 years. And then we've got
Sam Johnston: another dryland block right next door to the east of
Sam Johnston: the Central West Livestock Exchange, which is about 430 hectares.
Sam Johnston: So that gives us 570 hectares all up and our
Sam Johnston: operation is a mixed farming enterprise, but probably more swaying
Sam Johnston: towards the livestock and the hay production. And whilst we run a
Sam Johnston: few cattle, we're mainly sheep so we trade or we're going to try and trade
Sam Johnston: now after recovering the flood, sort of anywhere from 3,
Sam Johnston: 500 to 4,500 trade stock and probably have about 1, 000 breeding ewes on
Sam Johnston: farm at the moment in conjunction with our hay production business,
Sam Johnston: which is trying to grow about 1, 000 tons of lucerne hay each
Sam Johnston: year and also a little bit diversified with a few
Sam Johnston: other off- farm business interests, which include rural property sales
Sam Johnston: and marketing, and a few other investment divisions that dad
Sam Johnston: runs as well. So something different every day, but makes
Sam Johnston: for an interesting week.
Rohan Leach: Got a bit on there mate. So roughly, rough figures, probably
Rohan Leach: about 150 hectares here on the river across the 2 places.
Sam Johnston: Yeah, so about 150 hectares here and then-
Rohan Leach: The dryland block. So can you talk me through the
Rohan Leach: differences basically in the two, we'll call this one farm
Rohan Leach: and then the dryland farm as well?
Sam Johnston: Well, at the river blocks, which is the stuff on
Sam Johnston: the Lachlan River, South Condo Road, we're primarily high performance pastures,
Sam Johnston: mixed pastures and lucerne hay production. So it's all mainly
Sam Johnston: that sort of heavier, darker alluvial river flats. We're very
Sam Johnston: lucky in this little pocket we have being upstream of
Sam Johnston: the Jemalong Weir that we've got quite a bit of
Sam Johnston: free watering seepage loosen flats, which keep the growth window
Sam Johnston: right open and save on having to irrigate. We get
Sam Johnston: about 17 hectares of irrigation on some of the weaker
Sam Johnston: country further away from the river, which just keeps obviously
Sam Johnston: the ability to irrigate open for us. So we irrigate
Sam Johnston: out of the river. And then the dryland block, which
Sam Johnston: is next to the sale yards, was probably bought about
Sam Johnston: seven years ago and it was set up as a wall to
Sam Johnston: wall cropping place that had been back to back cropping
Sam Johnston: for quite some time and we've spent the last probably
Sam Johnston: three to five years fencing that down into smaller parcels
Sam Johnston: and sort of setting it up as a livestock breeding
Sam Johnston: and fattening enterprise. So we put quite a bit of
Sam Johnston: new pasture in there, obviously done a fairly big tree
Sam Johnston: planting project there and yeah, just trying to subdivide it
Sam Johnston: up into more manageable paddock sizes, which has been a very
Sam Johnston: exciting project. Been on foot for three years now, which
Sam Johnston: is nice to be coming to the end of it.
Rohan Leach: So there's a few things there that I want to
Rohan Leach: circle back to. The seepage paddocks on your river blocks here.
Rohan Leach: You mentioned when I was talking to you last week
Rohan Leach: that they've actually been outperforming your irrigated blocks.
Sam Johnston: They have been, which is disappointing considering what water pumping
Sam Johnston: costs and what water costs are at the moment. But yeah,
Sam Johnston: the yields, we've been running at pretty decent in the
Sam Johnston: extensive Excel spreadsheet across all the paddocks here, which is
Sam Johnston: something dad used to do a long time ago. But
Sam Johnston: we've just re- engaged in doing and yeah, the yields
Sam Johnston: and I guess the profitability off the seepage floods has
Sam Johnston: been well above what we're doing on the irrigation country,
Sam Johnston: which is good in one way, but it makes a good
Sam Johnston: case for country along the Lachlan River, that's for sure.
Rohan Leach: Yeah. So how did you identify that those paddocks were
Rohan Leach: going to be seepage or is it sort of a
Rohan Leach: happy mistake?
Sam Johnston: Well, I think that dad being in this area for
Sam Johnston: such a long time, would've been driving past this area
Sam Johnston: for many, many years and thousands of thousands of time
Sam Johnston: each year, and he's always been a big lucerne hay
Sam Johnston: producer and land producer as well. So he always identified
Sam Johnston: an opportunity where there are self- watering seepage flats, just
Sam Johnston: making sure that you're using that land for the right
Sam Johnston: purposes and obviously through trial and being here for 12 or so years
Sam Johnston: now he's been able to demonstrate that this lucerne does
Sam Johnston: grow significantly well, obviously being able to tap into that
Sam Johnston: water aquifer underneath it and obviously it's yielded good hay
Sam Johnston: cuts for us over that period.
Rohan Leach: The other thing you'd mentioned was that you're trying to
Rohan Leach: cut down your blocks on the dry land property, cut
Rohan Leach: down your paddock size. What's your optimal paddock size that
Rohan Leach: you're going for there?
Sam Johnston: We're sort of looking at 20 to 30 hectare as opposed to
Sam Johnston: 60 hectare paddocks, which is probably better for us in
Sam Johnston: terms of our breeding mobs. Obviously being part breeders, part traders,
Sam Johnston: we're buying in a lot of lambs each year, which
Sam Johnston: makes induction and drenching programs really important, especially when you've
Sam Johnston: got small paddock sizes. Also being able to rotate our
Sam Johnston: grazing and evenly graze paddocks as opposed to I guess
Sam Johnston: overgrazing one area and under- grazing another, as well as
Sam Johnston: being able to run our breeding ewes in multiples and singles and
Sam Johnston: different mob sizes like that. So it just gives us a
Sam Johnston: bit more flexibility. And then also mob size as well,
Sam Johnston: so 4 to 500 head mobs as opposed to 800
Sam Johnston: head or bigger.
Rohan Leach: And you also talked about pastures, which I love getting into.
Rohan Leach: What's your sort of general mix on your river blocks
Rohan Leach: and on the dry land?
Sam Johnston: So on the river blocks we've been running a mixed
Sam Johnston: pasture species, which fortunately after losing a lot of the
Sam Johnston: good stuff after the flood, we've been able to reestablish
Sam Johnston: again with a pretty reasonable last 12 months. So we
Sam Johnston: generally try and get feed all year round, which includes
Sam Johnston: having a lucerne, so we've got L70 lucerne, Cavalier Medic,
Sam Johnston: origin fescue, and then a couple of clovers in there
Sam Johnston: as well. So dalsa , arrowleaf and balansa clover. And then on
Sam Johnston: our dryland block, which has got a little bit of
Sam Johnston: gilgai country on it, we've just got lucerne and a couple of
Sam Johnston: clovers and obviously the clovers do well in the wet
Sam Johnston: areas where the lucerne doesn't make it and that sort
Sam Johnston: of gives us a bigger feed window than what we
Sam Johnston: would have just with straight lucerne, especially in those wet
Sam Johnston: areas and wetter years.
Rohan Leach: So why no perennial grass on the dryland block? Why
Rohan Leach: just the lucerne and clover?
Sam Johnston: There's still plenty of perennial grasses over there and we probably
Sam Johnston: have some weaker pasture paddocks over there that are maybe
Sam Johnston: 4 or 5 years old now that are coming to
Sam Johnston: the end of their tether, which we might look to
Sam Johnston: rotate out and put a dual purpose weed or something in
Sam Johnston: in the next 12 months. But we sort of like
Sam Johnston: to have a little bit of a balance between straight lucerne
Sam Johnston: and some paddocks with lucerne and clover and then
Sam Johnston: some paddocks with some lucerne clover and grasses and then
Sam Johnston: obviously some more paddocks for locking ewes up before joining whatnot.
Rohan Leach: Some unimproved paddocks with some native grasses-
Sam Johnston: Sort of hedging our bets each way I'd say.
Rohan Leach: Cool. So I also wanted to talk about your lamb
Rohan Leach: trading enterprise as well as your breeding enterprise. So can
Rohan Leach: you talk me through those a little bit?
Sam Johnston: So might start on the breeding ewes first. It's probably
Sam Johnston: something that I've had a bit more to do with
Sam Johnston: as I only came back four years ago. We got
Sam Johnston: probably more involved in the breeding side just because of
Sam Johnston: what the profit margin were in the trade lambs at
Sam Johnston: the period when I was coming back. So we got
Sam Johnston: onto this composite breed of ewe, which is a meat
Sam Johnston: plus breed bred by Tony Rutter. Basically we've been building
Sam Johnston: up our numbers and we're now sitting at about 1, 000
Sam Johnston: breeding ewes and basically that the reasoning behind going after
Sam Johnston: that breed was the dressing percentage or the meat yields.
Sam Johnston: So I think MLA's average dressing percentage is about 47% and these
Sam Johnston: meat plus lambs sort of aiming for that 50 to 52%,
Sam Johnston: which obviously probably goes a little bit unnoticed in the
Sam Johnston: sale yards, but selling over the hook. And we send
Sam Johnston: quite a few to breakout river Meats over at Cowra,
Sam Johnston: which they love them. So I think Tony Rutter, he's
Sam Johnston: had a few different career ventures, one being a meat buyer, had
Sam Johnston: a big feed lot, obviously MLA commentator and obviously a
Sam Johnston: breeder of the meat plus sheep. So they've been very
Sam Johnston: good for us. We've found their fertility's been great, we've found they're very sound,
Sam Johnston: they've handled a couple of very wet years. We've found
Sam Johnston: their good mothers and their temperament is good, which is
Sam Johnston: important for us handling them in the yards and that sort of thing.
Sam Johnston: So we're sort of getting anywhere between 1,200 to 1, 400 lambs out
Sam Johnston: of those each year, which is good. And then in
Sam Johnston: terms of trading, we've probably been taken out of the
Sam Johnston: trading space for the last two years with the floods
Sam Johnston: here in Forbes, but we're just looking back into trying
Sam Johnston: to get some repeat buying opportunities now that we've invested
Sam Johnston: a little bit more into ag tech and we've got
Sam Johnston: ourselves a handler. So being able to measure what weight
Sam Johnston: gains we're getting from said producer might give us the
Sam Johnston: opportunity in the future to go and make repeat purchases of those
Sam Johnston: guys year round and in the future.
Rohan Leach: Yeah, cool. So diving into your trade enterprise a bit more,
Rohan Leach: can you tell me what are your goals when trading lambs?
Rohan Leach: What are you after?
Sam Johnston: I would say good quality lambs that require as little
Sam Johnston: work as possible. We're pretty diligent on our induction trenching
Sam Johnston: vaccination programs. So we've bought about nearly 2, 000 lambs
Sam Johnston: in the last 10 days, obviously following this wet spell
Sam Johnston: here in Forbes where we've got 200 mils in a week
Sam Johnston: or so.
Rohan Leach: In late December, 2024.
Sam Johnston: Which is a massive rainfall event. So we want obviously
Sam Johnston: as little outgoings as possible and to have them on
Sam Johnston: farm for as least as possible. So obviously we're guided by
Sam Johnston: our agents a lot there and they know what we sort
Sam Johnston: of expect and what we want, but obviously weight gains
Sam Johnston: are important. We haven't been able to measure that to
Sam Johnston: date as much as we would've liked and we've always been ...
Sam Johnston: Dad and I share the same view that you can't manage
Sam Johnston: what you can't measure and hopefully now that we can
Sam Johnston: measure it, we can make better purchasing decisions. But at the
Sam Johnston: end of the day, second cross lambs are probably our
Sam Johnston: sweet spot and with a bit of mixed pasture and
Sam Johnston: some high performance lucerne paddocks, generally just looking after weight
Sam Johnston: gains and that sort of thing is important to us.
Rohan Leach: So just buying them in at 30 odd kilos and selling
Rohan Leach: at 50?
Sam Johnston: Yep, that's the rough plan. The stuff we've been buying
Sam Johnston: at the moment, sort of that 32 to 34 kilos, and we
Sam Johnston: want to sell at 42 to 50 kilos depending on
Sam Johnston: where they're selling and where they're going to.
Rohan Leach: Yeah. You mentioned that you're finishing these lambs on lucerne
Rohan Leach: a fair bit. That must conflict with your lucerne operation.
Rohan Leach: Can you sort of talk me through the trigger points
Rohan Leach: that you decide, right, we're locking this paddock up for
Rohan Leach: hay or this is going to be used for lamb production?
Sam Johnston: So all the river country here, Walla Wallah and surround,
Sam Johnston: we've got about 65 hectares that's locked up at the
Sam Johnston: moment purely for hay. Obviously with that 200 mils, the
Sam Johnston: demand over the December, January period for hay's pretty much nonexistent.
Sam Johnston: So there's seasonal triggers for us as well as obviously
Sam Johnston: if there's a buying opportunity where the trade will net
Sam Johnston: us a better result than what the hay will, we'll
Sam Johnston: go after that opportunity. But it's a really ... You play
Sam Johnston: it on the run and if you've got consistent buying
Sam Johnston: from the hay and you can move the hay, that's
Sam Johnston: all good and well, but what I've learned this season is, and
Sam Johnston: I said to dad, I said, " There's one thing about hay.
Sam Johnston: Whilst it might make really good money for you if
Sam Johnston: you can sell it, if you're not selling it it's
Sam Johnston: not like sheep where you can just take them into
Sam Johnston: the yards and get rid of it like it's on
Sam Johnston: your farm and in the shed." And you might not
Sam Johnston: sell any hay for two or three months, which can disrupt cash flow
Sam Johnston: and cause additional challenges. So if we get to a
Sam Johnston: stage where all our sheds are full and no one's
Sam Johnston: buying hay, we might forgo the fifth cut this year
Sam Johnston: and say, " Look, we're going to go and put lambs
Sam Johnston: on those paddocks," or maybe there's some paddocks, we go say, "
Sam Johnston: Well look, it's been a challenging cutting season and the
Sam Johnston: fourth cut in a few paddocks we might not go for."
Sam Johnston: So we generally aim for five cuts per year. Obviously
Sam Johnston: this 200 mils came right when we wanted to go
Sam Johnston: for our second cut, which has meant second cut's been
Sam Johnston: a little bit overgrown, but we still think it's going
Sam Johnston: to make good hay and it's been hot and windy
Sam Johnston: and good hay making weather. So hopefully we'll get stuck
Sam Johnston: in and bale quite a bit of it tonight.
Rohan Leach: So talk to me about hay making. What's your process?
Sam Johnston: Well, my goal for 2025 is to learn more about hay.
Sam Johnston: We're very fortunate that most of our tractor and contracting
Sam Johnston: work is done by contractors. We've got very minimal gear.
Sam Johnston: So we're very fortunate in the fact that our contractors
Sam Johnston: are all very hardworking people with lots of experience and
Sam Johnston: I'm very good at breaking things as dad would tell
Sam Johnston: you from this week, I've wrecked about two things. So
Sam Johnston: we try and stay out of the machines if we can,
Sam Johnston: but in terms of making hay, I'd like to learn
Sam Johnston: a lot more about it. And obviously when you're not
Sam Johnston: in the machine and you're not on the baler at
Sam Johnston: three o'clock in the morning, it's hard to learn from
Sam Johnston: the house when they're all out there working. But we
Sam Johnston: try and pick it all up and get involved as
Sam Johnston: much as we can.
Rohan Leach: No, that's a great segue into Local Land Services. Probably
Rohan Leach: going to be running some top fodder, silage and hay
Rohan Leach: making courses in late February.
Sam Johnston: I'll be there for sure.
Rohan Leach: So grazing your lambs on some of your hay country
Rohan Leach: during winter and when it's not locked up, is there
Rohan Leach: anything to consider there with lambs grazing on the lucerne
Rohan Leach: for your hay?
Sam Johnston: Not particularly. We're very diligent. We supply a lot of
Sam Johnston: hay to a big racehorse stud up in the Hunter
Sam Johnston: region and with such high value animals and product users,
Sam Johnston: we've got to be very diligent with our foreign material
Sam Johnston: in paddocks. So we're very much on top of, we
Sam Johnston: control making sure that there's no foreign material. If an
Sam Johnston: animal dies, which sometimes that happens where you've got livestock,
Sam Johnston: you've got dead stock. So making sure that we're on top
Sam Johnston: of picking up carcasses, bones, any foreign material, sticks, rocks,
Sam Johnston: we're always out there picking up things that a lot
Sam Johnston: of people probably wouldn't. But that all makes for clean paddocks.
Sam Johnston: And clean paddocks means happy contractors and happy contractors generally
Sam Johnston: means good hay. So we're very diligent on our paddock biosecurity,
Sam Johnston: very diligent in when we bring stock onto the farm
Sam Johnston: and that sort of thing with our induction programs. And
Sam Johnston: probably one of the game changes for us in the
Sam Johnston: last probably three or four years has been purchasing a slasher.
Sam Johnston: So we had a little one before that, but we've just
Sam Johnston: got a 15. 5 foot batwing slasher, which we use to
Sam Johnston: top our pastures following grazing events. And it's just like
Sam Johnston: when you mow the lawn, it just goes berserk after that.
Sam Johnston: So the slash has really replace the need for cattle
Sam Johnston: for us, especially on a bit more of this fragile
Sam Johnston: country where you've got irrigation channels, levee banks and that
Sam Johnston: sort of thing. Cattle can make a bit of a
Sam Johnston: mess when it's wet. So that's why we like to stick
Sam Johnston: to sheep and we can get most places without slashes.
Sam Johnston: So just pasture topping, even mechanical management of weeds. When
Sam Johnston: I took my place over, it had quite a few
Sam Johnston: scotch thistles and we're slowly getting on top of those.
Sam Johnston: Obviously chemical control is one thing, but mechanical controls been
Sam Johnston: another string in the bow for us, which we've found, yeah,
Sam Johnston: yield very good results.
Rohan Leach: Yeah, good. So just on that, with purchasing of machinery,
Rohan Leach: you're obviously consistently making hay year in, year out. Can
Rohan Leach: you talk me through the decision for employing contractors rather
Rohan Leach: than getting your own machinery?
Sam Johnston: Well, when I touched on the fact that I wreck
Sam Johnston: everything I'm in, I meant that. Dad's always been probably
Sam Johnston: more in favor of someone else owning the machine. Anything
Sam Johnston: with steel wheels is not for him. We find that
Sam Johnston: with the contracting space, it's very hard to get people
Sam Johnston: to come in and work in small paddocks. Obviously a
Sam Johnston: lot of the contractors have had to get big or
Sam Johnston: get out. So to get someone to come in and
Sam Johnston: spray three hectares of oats or a seven hectare paddock with a
Sam Johnston: heap of trees in it, they just go, " It's not
Sam Johnston: even worth the effort of us decontaminating the tank." So
Sam Johnston: that sort of probably pushed us into a position where
Sam Johnston: we've had to buy a bit of our own gear.
Sam Johnston: So in the last 12 months we've bought a 15- meter 3-
Sam Johnston: point linkage croplands sprayer, which also meant that we had
Sam Johnston: to go ahead with GPS for efficiency's sake. We didn't
Sam Johnston: have to, but we thought that if we want to go down
Sam Johnston: the line of getting into chemical application ourselves, we should
Sam Johnston: be doing that. That's probably given us the opportunity to
Sam Johnston: make better in production year decisions and be more efficient
Sam Johnston: because we can get on it and do it when it needs to happen and not
Sam Johnston: when the contractor can get here. But in terms of machinery,
Sam Johnston: all we've really got is attractor, slasher and a boom spray,
Sam Johnston: a couple of front- end loader attachments and otherwise we're
Sam Johnston: run pretty lean on that space. We find that obviously
Sam Johnston: as technology's evolving and products are getting better that a
Sam Johnston: contractor with a modern machine with better tech in it
Sam Johnston: is probably better than us buying something that we'd want
Sam Johnston: to keep for 15 or 20 years to get a return on
Sam Johnston: investment on as opposed to having that outlay on equipment
Sam Johnston: finance and whatnot.
Rohan Leach: That's a very well- thought- out answer, but I still
Rohan Leach: keep coming back to you are just a crap tractor
Rohan Leach: driver mate.
Sam Johnston: I think that's exactly right and that's probably why dad
Sam Johnston: hasn't taken on any of my business cases about getting any
Sam Johnston: other gear. In saying that though, we have just invested
Sam Johnston: in a fair bit of ag tech, obviously GPS being
Sam Johnston: one of those, which has been fantastic and we've used it
Sam Johnston: for a lot more things than what we thought we
Sam Johnston: would use it when we're slashing, used it ripping all
Sam Johnston: the tree lines for the LLS project over at Westwood,
Sam Johnston: and there's just so many things we've used that for
Sam Johnston: as well as the sheep handling. The sheep handle that
Sam Johnston: we've just bought as well, that was only purchased as a
Sam Johnston: part of a rebate program, which was offered through the RAA.
Sam Johnston: So that's all been something that we've been investing heavily
Sam Johnston: in the last 12 months or 24 months.
Rohan Leach: So your auto steer guidance on your tractor, was that
Rohan Leach: just a retrofit or you've gone out and bought a
Rohan Leach: new tractor or what's-
Sam Johnston: No, no, we just went and retrofitted to the existing loader,
Sam Johnston: which was pretty straightforward. Obviously came at a cost. But yeah,
Sam Johnston: when we started thinking, well look, we're going to be
Sam Johnston: spraying high value crops as in for us, high value
Sam Johnston: lucerne and pasture paddocks right next door, you've got to be pretty careful,
Sam Johnston: and over- spraying and under- spraying are big no nos
Sam Johnston: in paddocks. So we just thought, oh well if we're going
Sam Johnston: to go and get this boom sprayer , we'll go into
Sam Johnston: the GPS.
Rohan Leach: Yep. Just before we move onto the last topic I just thought,
Rohan Leach: and I probably should have started with this, but just
Rohan Leach: your fertilizer and soil sort of strategy for your lucerne?
Sam Johnston: Probably, the lucerne countries generally pretty good, like the Alluvial
Sam Johnston: River flats are pretty healthy soils.
Rohan Leach: No acidity there really that you have to manage with lime .
Sam Johnston: Not as much so as some of the scalded areas
Sam Johnston: on the place, like some of the higher ridges on,
Sam Johnston: especially my place and dad's place. When we first got them,
Sam Johnston: we spent a lot of time putting lime and gypsum in,
Sam Johnston: cow manure as well. And we've found we've been able to manage
Sam Johnston: those scalded areas and those weaker areas of paddocks better.
Sam Johnston: I'm not an expert on soil, like you would be,
Sam Johnston: but you've seen a few of the soil tests, so
Sam Johnston: obviously the weaker areas when you're running livestock you're at
Sam Johnston: risk of overgrazing. So I think through a bit of
Sam Johnston: fencing and the lime, gypsum and cow manure, we've been able to
Sam Johnston: reclaim those areas and get them back to as close
Sam Johnston: to balanced as we can. So that's an ongoing program
Sam Johnston: and something that we're still trying to work out with
Sam Johnston: soil tests and whatnot and we're just waiting for some
Sam Johnston: more to come back for a low patch in one
Sam Johnston: of dad's lucerne paddocks that wasn't doing as well as
Sam Johnston: it should be, which was a bit of a head
Sam Johnston: scratching moment because it was the lowest point of the paddock.
Sam Johnston: And when you see the ridges outperforming the low patch,
Sam Johnston: you sort of go, I wonder what's happening there, but
Sam Johnston: we're still waiting for those results to come back.
Rohan Leach: That's it mate. Test and measure and we'll make a
Rohan Leach: soil scientist out of you yet. Something else that I wanted to talk to you
Rohan Leach: today about was you've had obviously had quite a bit
Rohan Leach: of involvement with LLS through various sort of conservation projects.
Rohan Leach: Can you just quickly talk me through your replanting efforts
Rohan Leach: here at your property?
Sam Johnston: Yeah, so I guess dad's been a big fan and if you have a look at that
Sam Johnston: photo behind you there, that's him and I, when he did
Sam Johnston: a planting out at Marymount , his old place out at
Sam Johnston: Corinella and he reckons he's planted about 15,000 trees in his time and
Sam Johnston: I'm trying to catch him. We've planted 2, 000 in
Sam Johnston: the last 12 months, so I've still got a little
Sam Johnston: way to go, but that recent tree planting project was part
Sam Johnston: of the Swift Parrot Habitat Enhancement project through the LLS
Sam Johnston: or the Healthy Landscapes Project Initiative, which has been sort
Sam Johnston: of a little bit of an ongoing thing that we've
Sam Johnston: been doing with you guys in terms of, I guess,
Sam Johnston: improving grassy woodlands and box habitat for this critically endangered
Sam Johnston: swift parrot, which I'm told there's only 2, 000 of
Sam Johnston: them left in the wild. And that's basically meant that
Sam Johnston: on that wall- to- wall cropping place, we've re- fenced
Sam Johnston: about 9Ks of laneways, planted 1, 850 trees plus and put a lot
Sam Johnston: of shrub in. So that's all been gray box, yellow box,
Sam Johnston: mild river red gum and casuarina. So all conducive to
Sam Johnston: the swift parrot's habitat and what they like. Yeah, so far
Sam Johnston: so good. It's been good with this last lot of rain.
Sam Johnston: We haven't had to do too much watering over the summer,
Sam Johnston: which has been nice with some hot days, but dad's
Sam Johnston: always been a big fan of planting trees and I can see the
Sam Johnston: value in it in terms of I've seen what he
Sam Johnston: did when I was very young, as a young kid and when
Sam Johnston: there's no trees, stock do better with shade and water
Sam Johnston: and wind breaks and this is all part of that
Sam Johnston: as well. So as well as obviously enhancing the riparian
Sam Johnston: areas on the river blocks here at home, we've done
Sam Johnston: quite a bit with LLS over the last five years
Sam Johnston: in terms of removing some invasive species like the Osage orange,
Sam Johnston: which has reclaimed a lot of country for us. And
Sam Johnston: through fencing off the waterways, it's meant that we've been
Sam Johnston: able to manage our river banks and that vegetation area
Sam Johnston: which would generally get over grazed, especially in summer months
Sam Johnston: and therefore degrade the banks. So it's been an eye-
Sam Johnston: opening experience for me to see how quickly we can
Sam Johnston: return that area of our place, which is a significant
Sam Johnston: amount to what it would've been 150 years ago or longer.
Sam Johnston: So it's been certainly a couple of good projects there.
Rohan Leach: My next question before I can even ask it, and
Rohan Leach: it was sort of more of a personal question about
Rohan Leach: what conservation or replanting and that sort of stuff means
Rohan Leach: to you. But it really sounds like you are, kind
Rohan Leach: of apart from the nice fuzzy feels that you get
Rohan Leach: from it, that it's a fair bit of production performance
Rohan Leach: increases from the work that you're doing in terms of
Rohan Leach: fencing off and managing the landscape better?
Sam Johnston: For sure, and I think it all comes back to
Sam Johnston: we like seeing things grow and obviously we're very fortunate on
Sam Johnston: some of the soil types here that stuff grows very
Sam Johnston: quickly and if we can leave the landscape a little
Sam Johnston: bit better than we found at the end of our tenure,
Sam Johnston: at the end of the day, that's what it's all
Sam Johnston: about for us. I get great satisfaction of reclaiming areas of places that
Sam Johnston: were little to no use and people would write off
Sam Johnston: as basically a wasteland to have it back as part
Sam Johnston: of a productive part of the land, whether that be
Sam Johnston: for stock production, cropping production, or just native habitat for animals.
Sam Johnston: It's nice. I love birds and I love seeing all
Sam Johnston: the native animals that are flying around and I know when
Sam Johnston: a lot of our friends come up from the city
Sam Johnston: and come and visit, they just cannot believe how peaceful
Sam Johnston: it is and how much habitat, native bird life there
Sam Johnston: are flying around the house. So it's very exciting to
Sam Johnston: show them that and show them that that's why we
Sam Johnston: love it out here so much.
Rohan Leach: Yeah, we live in a pretty special part of the world. Mate,
Rohan Leach: I've had a great time today, but before I let
Rohan Leach: you go, I'd just like to ask a couple of questions about what your opinions
Rohan Leach: of ag at the moment. So what do you see
Rohan Leach: as the big issue in Australian ag at the moment?
Sam Johnston: I think for us and the greater ag industries is definitely the labor.
Sam Johnston: One of the big challenges we have is the intermittency
Sam Johnston: or the intermittent requirement of labor. Like daddy's getting to an
Sam Johnston: age now where he reckons he's drenched a million sheep
Sam Johnston: and he doesn't want to do another million. And I said, " Oh,
Sam Johnston: you might get 200,000 or something." But to go and find someone that
Sam Johnston: wants to spend three or four hours in a day
Sam Johnston: coming to help you do some work in the sheep yards,
Sam Johnston: you just can't get those people. And I think it's
Sam Johnston: a challenge because you've got so many other industries competing
Sam Johnston: for those people and if someone can go and sit
Sam Johnston: in an air- conditioned office or a machine on the
Sam Johnston: same sort of money, why would they want to come
Sam Johnston: and stand out in the sheep yards with me in
Sam Johnston: 40 degree heat? It's just I know which one I'd be taking,
Sam Johnston: but I think it is just a challenge that I don't know what the
Sam Johnston: solution is and how we get more people involved, but
Sam Johnston: as machinery gets bigger, obviously labor requirements aren't as much
Sam Johnston: and when you've got that intermittent requirement, it's always going
Sam Johnston: to be a challenge.
Rohan Leach: Yeah, I think a mix of technology there that you've
Rohan Leach: already said you bought a handler. I think we're going
Rohan Leach: to be forced into that more and more and maybe
Rohan Leach: a bit of old technology in the form of a good Kelpie.
Sam Johnston: I think that's exactly right and that's probably one of
Sam Johnston: the big reasons we went ahead with that purchase was
Sam Johnston: the fact that both my sister and I, which we're 33%
Sam Johnston: of the workforce at that stage, we both got hurt
Sam Johnston: in the sheep yards and both ended up in the
Sam Johnston: Forbes Emergency Room together side by side. And I said, " Oh,
Sam Johnston: well can you save us a seat for dad? We
Sam Johnston: might have our office meeting in here today." If you've got
Sam Johnston: such a small workforce, if someone gets hurt or injured,
Sam Johnston: how can we be safer? How can we be more efficient?
Sam Johnston: And whilst I wouldn't say the handler is necessarily quicker,
Sam Johnston: but I know we did 800 sheep through it, I double drenched them,
Sam Johnston: clicked them and vaccinated them all by myself, like doing
Sam Johnston: the application. Dad was there helping push up, but it
Sam Johnston: wasn't overly labor- intensive for him. He was just making
Sam Johnston: sure the dogs were doing the right thing and opening and closing
Sam Johnston: the gate so that the sheep had come up to me in
Sam Johnston: the handler. But at the end of the day I wasn't completely buggered
Sam Johnston: and I was happy to go back and stand in
Sam Johnston: the sheep yards again the next day. Whereas if I
Sam Johnston: had to do that on my own without anyone else there,
Sam Johnston: I'd probably need a spell for a month. I'd go
Sam Johnston: on a holiday somewhere and don't know if I'd come back.
Sam Johnston: So yeah, whilst it's not as quick possibly, it's certainly
Sam Johnston: a good decision for our business and we're reaping the
Sam Johnston: rewards of that already.
Rohan Leach: The second part of this question, what do you see
Rohan Leach: as the big wins for agriculture?
Sam Johnston: I think ag tech is a space that we've been dabbling a bit.
Sam Johnston: I've always been a big fan of technology and I
Sam Johnston: think it's certainly come a long way. It's still got
Sam Johnston: a long way to go and it is a bit of
Sam Johnston: a double- edged sword. Connectivity is a big issue that
Sam Johnston: comes with ag tech and whilst it might work in
Sam Johnston: an office in a larger regional center or a city,
Sam Johnston: that doesn't necessarily flow down to the farm if people
Sam Johnston: can't get connectivity and whatnot. But I think it's one
Sam Johnston: solution to the first question, which was labor shortage. If
Sam Johnston: I can do the drenching, and the vaccinating, and the drafting,
Sam Johnston: and the weighing as one labor unit and it takes
Sam Johnston: me an hour and a half, or we can do
Sam Johnston: it with two people without the handler and it takes
Sam Johnston: us an hour, whilst it might be a little bit longer,
Sam Johnston: if it's one person for an hour and a half,
Sam Johnston: that's better than two people for an hour. So that's
Sam Johnston: what we did this week and that's where we've said, "
Sam Johnston: Well look, that actually was a beneficial decision because I
Sam Johnston: was there for longer, but it allowed dad to have
Sam Johnston: an hour that he wouldn't have to go spraying or
Sam Johnston: do something else or have a meeting with someone."
Rohan Leach: Yeah, great answer mate. I've had a cracker today. We'll
Rohan Leach: leave it there. Thanks for joining us, Sam.
Sam Johnston: Thanks for having me on. Had a great time.
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