While new innovations in farming technology and machinery offer growers incredible increases to productivity and profitability, many of these innovations are released without growers having any hands-on experience with how they work or understanding how they can add value to their farming systems. That’s why a GRDC National Grower Network investment for Live Machinery Demo Days was created. The first event was hosted the Western Australian No-Tillage Farmers Association (WANTFA) at Cunderdin, wi...
Nov 05, 2024•10 min
More about this podcast In this episode of the GRDC In Conversation podcast, Oli Le Lievre sits down with Ben White, a highly respected agricultural engineer, researcher, and extension specialist. Ben is known for his work at the Kondinin Group, where he has spent over 20 years testing agricultural machinery, developing cutting-edge research, and providing farmers with practical solutions to improve their operations. The conversation delves into Ben's early life growing up on a sheep and cattle ...
Nov 03, 2024•34 min
Long coleoptile wheat varieties have the potential to deliver increased yield and therefore profit to Australian growers. That’s why GRDC is investing in extensive research to future proof the crop. Steve Simpfendorfer from the NSW Department of Primary Industries is part of the nationwide project team, and his area of specialty is looking at how disease interacts with deep sowing. This four-year long coleoptile wheat project, made possible with GRDC investment, is being led by CSIRO along with ...
Oct 29, 2024•13 min
The GRDC’s National Variety Trials (NVT) new Variety Podcast series gives breeding companies the microphone to share their new releases for the 2025 growing season. This podcast focuses on lentil, field pea and lupin – there are separate podcasts in this four-part series for barley, canola, oats, sorghum and wheat. The varieties mentioned in this podcast have all been trialled through NVT – a program to help Australian grain growers make informed varietal decisions by providing comparative infor...
Oct 24, 2024•6 min
At Yuna, in Western Australia’s northern growing region, Jason Batten started growing vetch about three years ago, and so far, he’s been impressed with how well the crop grows in his corner of the world. As a member of the Yuna Farm Improvement Group, Jason is a part of the cohort of 'Legume Leaders' that has been established by the Grower Group Alliance, with investment from GRDC. In this episode, Jason tells us about how experimenting with serradella led him to growing vetch and how its stacks...
Oct 22, 2024•17 min
The GRDC’s National Variety Trials (NVT) new Variety Podcast series gives breeding companies the microphone to share their new releases for the 2025 growing season. This podcast focuses on wheat – there are separate podcasts in this four-part series for barley, canola, field pea, lentil, lupin, oats and sorghum. The varieties mentioned in this podcast have all been trialled through NVT – a program to help Australian grain growers make informed varietal decisions by providing comparative informat...
Oct 17, 2024•23 min
Since 2013, an unidentified weevil has been reported by growers and advisers to be repeatedly causing damage to canola crops in localised areas of Dongara and Mingenew in WA's northern grain growing region. As part of a two-year GRDC investment, the critter was recently scientifically identified and described as a new pest weevil species of unknown origin, representing a new genus of broad-nose weevil. In this podcast, Christiaan Valentine from WA's Department of Primary Industries and Regional ...
Oct 15, 2024•12 min
The GRDC’s National Variety Trials (NVT) new Variety Podcast series gives breeding companies the microphone to share their new releases for the 2025 growing season. This podcast focuses on canola – there are separate podcasts in this four-part series for barley, field pea, lentil, lupin, oats, sorghum and wheat. The varieties mentioned in this podcast have all been trialled through NVT – a program to help Australian grain growers make informed varietal decisions by providing comparative informat...
Oct 10, 2024•11 min
Assisting growers to work smarter with their inputs to increase profitability is the focus of many GRDC investments. Recently, Australian maize growers have found there's a peak in the nitrogen response curve, beyond which there is no measurable effect on yield. Meantime, irrigation discussion groups expanded into paddock scale demonstration, which provided growers with the opportunity to further investigate key management options. This podcast explores the outcomes of those recent trials into i...
Oct 08, 2024•14 min
The GRDC’s National Variety Trials (NVT) new Variety Podcast series gives breeding companies the microphone to share their new releases for the 2025 growing season. This podcast focuses on sorghum, barley and oats – there are separate podcasts in this four-part series for canola, field pea, lentil, lupin and wheat. The varieties mentioned in this podcast have all been trialled through NVT – a program to help Australian grain growers make informed varietal decisions by providing comparative infor...
Oct 03, 2024•7 min
Widespread frosts on top of a very dry season mean that southern growers are having to make some tough decisions. We speak to consulting agronomist, Martin Culbert, who is traveling across the southern region and helping growers with their post frost decision making. Martin advice is to approach the situation logically, and to get out there and conduct an assessment of the entire paddock in order to get a grasp of where the worst impact is – before making a salvage decision. There may be areas w...
Oct 01, 2024•14 min
Today's 'GRDC in Conversation' podcast interview is with Belinda Cay. Belinda Cay is an experienced agricultural communicator. Across her career she has had a breadth of experience that has uniquely put her in the position to “put others in the spotlight” in a way that has supported them and in turn the broader agricultural industry. She grew up on a family farm and was influenced by her father, who was a plant breeder. Belinda's early connections to agriculture included riding bikes around the ...
Sep 29, 2024•43 min
Blackleg is the most serious disease in Australian canola, and while fungicides are commonly used to help manage this disease, there are concerns that an overreliance on fungicides could encourage fungicide resistance. In order to explore this further, GRDC is making a significant investment into fungicide resistant management strategies in blackleg in canola. Extensive research is taking place at the Grains Innovation Park in Horsham in Victoria's Wimmera region. We catch up with Dr Angela van ...
Sep 24, 2024•17 min
Today's 'GRDC in Conversation' podcast interview is with Ross Kingwell Ross Kingwell has had a long and distinguished career as an agricultural economist, with over 150 published journals and book chapters and 350 conference papers and major policy and industry reports. In this GRDC In Conversation episode with Oli Le Lievre, Ross shares years of wisdom in research, science, agro-politics and some pivotal moments that shaped who he is today. His early years were influenced by family exposure to ...
Sep 22, 2024•32 min
Neil Smith farms at Merredin in Western Australia and after dabbling in chickpeas in the early 2000s, he has now been growing the crop continuously for the past four years. As president of MADFIG, the Merredin and Districts Farm Improvement Group, Neil is a big advocate of peer-to-peer learning and is a part of the cohort of 'Legume Leaders' that has been established by the Grower Group Alliance, with investment from GRDC. In this episode, Neil shares the challenges and benefits of growing chick...
Sep 17, 2024•8 min
🎙️ Today's 'GRDC in Conversation' podcast interview is with Ben Single Ben Single, founder of Single Ag, discusses his journey from studying aerospace engineering to developing a weed mapping system using drones. This GRDC In Conversation episode with Oli Le Lievre explores the importance of controlling chemical-resistant weeds in agriculture and the challenges of implementing new technology on the farm. Ben highlights the role of his family in the business, the need for clear communication and...
Sep 15, 2024•25 min
Shane Boardman and his family moved from Victoria to northern New South Wales in the late eighties. Not long after their move, they started dabbling in precision agriculture technologies. In the mid-nineties he commissioned an electromagnetic survey of one of his paddocks. At the time, he didn't have the machinery to take the EM data and apply VR technologies. It was when Boardman Ag took over Glen Ayr properties south of Goondiwindi, that they embarked on the next steps and turned their attenti...
Sep 10, 2024•12 min
🎙️ Today's 'GRDC in Conversation' podcast interview is with Loretta Serafin Loretta Serafin is a research agronomist with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries. In this GRDC In Conversation episode with Oli Le Lievre, Loretta discusses her work in the summer grains industry and her passion for providing quality research results to growers. She talks about her love of plants, the challenges and rewards of working in agriculture and the importance of access to reliable information....
Sep 08, 2024•37 min
Instances of spot form net blotch in barley crops across the low rainfall zones of Western Australia have been increasing in recent years, mainly due to the increased area of barley on barley, and the use of more susceptible varieties in these areas. A GRDC investment with the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development is aiming to quantify the yield impact of spot form net blotch in these low rainfall environments, as well as provide growers critical info on the disease's respons...
Sep 03, 2024•12 min
🎙️ Today's 'GRDC in Conversation' podcast interview is with Jan Edwards Jan Edwards is the Director of Agronomy and Ideation at Incitec Pivot Fertilisers. In this GRDC In Conversation episode with Oli Le Lievre, Jan talks about her varied upbringing in different areas of regional Australia and her following career journey. Jan has worked in both the private and public sectors and was part of early climate change research. Today, Jan is occupied by team management, planning and improving decisio...
Sep 01, 2024•32 min
Variable rate technology falls under the umbrella of precision agriculture and it includes a range of tools that are not only becoming commonplace, but also constantly evolving. New South Wales grower, Mike Smith has been using variable rate technologies for more than 20 years and has some valuable insights. We visit Mike on his property just southeast of Moree, and he explains how technology and the data it provides helps him increase yields and profitability. Download the transcript for this e...
Aug 27, 2024•11 min
🎙️ Today's 'GRDC in Conversation' podcast interview is with Tom and Melissa Andrews Tom and Melissa Andrews, founders of Connected Farms, discuss the importance of connectivity in agriculture and how it can improve technology adoption, operational efficiency, farm safety and overall well-being. In this GRDC In Conversation episode with Oli Le Lievre, The Andrews highlight the role of connectivity in enabling the adoption of AgTech and data-driven decision-making on farms and emphasise how conne...
Aug 25, 2024•39 min
Wanting to incorporate more legumes into the rotation, West Cranbrook grower Mark Preston has found faba beans were suited to more soil types on his farm than what lupins has been. He did a lot of research before starting to grow the new crop and has found they fit into the operation relatively seamlessly. Mark is a member of Stirlings to Coast Farmers and is a part of the cohort of 'Legume Leaders' that has been established by the Grower Group Alliance, with investment from GRDC. In this episod...
Aug 20, 2024•10 min
🎙 Today's 'GRDC in Conversation' podcast interview is with Maurice Hayes. Maurice Hayes pioneered a lot of spray machinery and was involved in the evolution of farming towards zero-till practices. In this particularly insightful GRDC In Conversation episode with Oli Le Lievre, Maurice, or ‘Cutter’ as he is well known, shares his remarkable journey in the grains industry, which started off after High School driving tractors and living in a caravan with no electricity. Back in his day, R&D wa...
Aug 18, 2024•46 min
What images or themes come to mind when you think Australian agriculture in 10…20….50 years’ time? In this podcast Futurist at Work Futures, Reanna Browne, offers up new perspective and practical advice for the grains industry to approach the future as something in the present, not a distant concept. Reanna was the keynote speaker at the recent 2024 Victorian GRDC farm business updates and encouraged the audience to challenge their assumptions about the future and think about change in practical...
Aug 13, 2024•12 min
Agriculture and plants have been ingrained in Georgie Pengilley’s life since the beginning on a farm in Tasmania. In this GRDC In Conversation episode with Oli Le Lievre, Georgie talks about how her career progressed into agronomic research with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, a PhD and to now as the CEO of the Rice Breeding Australia. Georgie, her father and her husband have all been involved in GRDC panels across eastern Australia. She discusses the importance of building...
Aug 11, 2024•30 min
The Australian soybean industry has received a boost with a new online soybean manual and a series of workshops. The initiatives are part of GRDC’s investment which aims to reinvigorate the soybean industry, particularly in the northern region. The investment is also supporting growers to optimise the production and reliability of soybean yield and also identify the key agronomic practice and future opportunities required for the sustainable growth in the Australian soybean industry. GRDC has pa...
Aug 07, 2024•15 min
🎙Today's 'GRDC in Conversation' podcast interview is with John Woods. John is a business owner and farmer at his home property ‘Booroola’ in Northern New South Wales. He is well known to many in GRDC circles as the Chair of the Grains Research and Development Corporation. He is a fun, charismatic person known for his ability to get things done and have a laugh along the way. In this chat we chat to him about his tenure as chair of GRDC, his farming business, how he has seen Australian Grain Pro...
Aug 04, 2024•36 min
GRDC invests in many different approaches to the control of weeds, pests and diseases, including crop protection products. The world of chemical regulation can be complicated, and GRDC’s role in it is something many growers would like a better understanding of. In this episode, Bencubbin grower and GRDC Western Panel Member Nick Gillett interviews GRDC Manager Chemical Regulation Gordon Cumming about GRDC’s role in chemical regulation. Download the transcript for this episode Contact Gordon Cumm...
Jul 30, 2024•12 min
At Ravensthorpe in Western Australia, about 200km west of Esperance, field peas seem to grow well on the high pH, high clay content soils of Peter Daw's farm. While getting the legume established in the farming system involved a bit of trial and error, after more than ten years, they are now often Peter's highest gross margin crop. Peter is a part of the cohort of 'Legume Leaders' that has been established by the Grower Group Alliance, with investment from GRDC. These leaders are sharing their i...
Jul 23, 2024•9 min
