Farm in Focus – Ben Merritt, Ultima, Vic

By: "Farm Tender" News
Cattle News
Aug 29, 2018
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By Louisa Ferrier - BCG

Ben farms with his wife and parents at Ultima. He has been farming full time since 2006 and has implemented new enterprises and farming practices to adapt to Mallee weather conditions and emerging business opportunities. Merritt Farms have also hosted GRDC National Variety Trials (NVT) for the past three years.

Listen to this podcast interview with Ben Merritt https://soundcloud.com/bcg-birchip/farm-in-focus-ben-merritt-ultima

Farm enterprise name: Merritt Farming

Farming partners: Ben and Leah Merritt and Ben’s parents, Chris and Vickie Merritt

Farm enterprise mix: Wheat, barley, lentils, peas, canola, oaten hay.

How is the season shaping up? Are you considering cutting for hay?

The season is set to be a rollercoaster ride. I think we will get some grain to harvest not sure about hay yields, our grain and hay should be in high demand with livestock producers.

We’ve only had 94mm rain to date (21 August) and crops look good but will need rain to finish.

We have 1000 ha oaten hay planted and we’ll consider cutting some wheaten hay as well in the ryegrass infested areas, if the crop bulks up enough.

10 years ago, we had a very dry finish to the year with very hot weather starting late August and cereal hay was successfully made for drought affected dairy farmers. Cutting started late August with draper fronts making bulky rows, but the bulk just isn’t there this year.

What N application strategy have you adopted given current climatic conditions?

Despite the season, we try to apply urea as fast as we can because we simply don’t get the follow up rains in the Mallee.

We start spreading urea as early as possible, our urea requirements are worked out from a combination of yield maps, soil testing and soil type with our local agronomist. We can start spreading as early as March if we have some tillage to cover it with soil before sowing and let the tynes cover it with soil and the rest gets spread post emergence.

We try and spread very close to rainfall, usually finishing the last load in the rain. Urea is also delivered in a blend fertiliser mix through the air-seeder.

I’d say 90% is already out. We’re just holding off spreading urea on one heavy paddock of wheat that was late sown.

How do you manage your on-farm storage and are you ready for harvest?

We try to avoid storing much grain (with the exception of lentils) opting to use the bulk handling system instead. We harvest quickly and deliver quickly. This is easier for staff management where we could have 6 or 7 employees over harvest, we run three trucks which gets a lot done quickly.

We were first-time oaten hay producers with building of an Export Hay facility in our local town. Last year we built a hay shed to accommodate that new enterprise.

What are your biggest challenges on the farm at the moment?

Compliance is starting to be a big drain on our time. There are always compliance considerations around transport, the farm (including employment) and the farm business itself.

Keeping costs down is a major challenge and we are constantly looking for ways to be more streamlined and minimise our overheads.

We want to get through this year and we’ve started working out rotations for next year, including how much seed we’ll need to salvage for sowing in 2019.

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