Moving away from Fallow

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By Dwain Duxson

Moving away from Fallow - We travelled from Central Victoria to Adelaide and back last week. Everything looks pretty good all the way. We went through some of the good Wimmera Cropping Country from St Arnaud via Minyip, Dimboola, Nhill and Kaniva. 

Boy, have the Farming dynamics changed in the Wimmera over the last 30-plus years. Back then, many had some Livestock roaming around the paddocks with channel-fed Dams. Nowadays, many of the fences are gone, and the dams and channels have been filled in and replaced with a pipeline. It's road-to-road (as opposed to fence-to-fence) Cropping now.

Another dramatic change in that time has been the use of Fallow. Many years ago, most Wimmera Farmers used long Fallow and were constantly tilling the soil to keep the weeds at bay and conserving valuable moisture. Today, long Fallow is rarely used. If there is any kind of Fallowing done, it's chemical Fallow.

Why have they shifted away from long Fallow? A couple of reasons that spring to mind are that they are now better managers of moisture, and the economics say that 2 Crops in 2 years is a better return than 1 Crop. There has been a massive investment in Machinery and Equipment. Therefore, they need every acre contributing each year to warrant that investment. Why did your family stop Fallowing?

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