Herald 20221025

• Read the Herald FREE
online
www.highcountryherald.com.au
• Or subscribe for a
FREE email link
herald@highcountrynews.net.au
HIGH COUNTRY
FARMING
Heliothis grubs hammering wheat
and barley crops
By PAUL McINTOSH
Industry Development Agronomist - Northern region
For Pulse Australia and the Australian Herbicide
Resistance Initiative
NEXT SALE
This Saturday
October 29 – 10am
Rocky Dip Yards, CROWS NEST
Bookings:
The Groves family, Ravensbourne
15 mixed sex weaners – top calves
15 Angus Hereford calves a/c breeder
– top quality
5 Angus steer calves a/c breeder –
top quality
12 Euro x heifer calves a/c breeder
15 Euro x calves
For more info, Ph Rick 0428 879 531
Don’t forget we sell at Dalby every
Wednesday with Fitzgerald Livestock
For updates, watch for our email Thursday
night. If not on our email list, let us know.
If you have cattle, book early for advertising
BUYING ALL TYPES OF CATTLE
Mobile: 0428 879 531
Fax: 4698 2580
E: rick@zlp.net.au
Your local agent
We all realise it has been a great year for significant
rainfall events.
It is great for ground water replenishment, for
dam and river filling and of course great for growing
plants but it is also a perfect environment for all sorts
of insects and weeds to germinate and spread.
Unfortunately the insect we have an abundance of
right now in our grain crops is Helicoverpa Armigera
(Heliothis).
This pest has been giving us trouble in grain and
cotton crops for 60 years or more.
My own association only stems back 50 years
on the family farm in the South Burnett growing
soybeans and grain sorghum.
reporting on Toowoomba Cattle Sale
Sale Date: October 17, 2022 – 320 yarded
A yarding consisting of mainly feeder & weaner
cattle came forward on Monday. Prices held
up well with the previous week’s sale results.
Lightweight weaners are still receiving strong
support from both feeder operators and local
restockers. There was not a lot of cows on offer
or heavy steers to suit export operators.
reporting on Dalby Cattle Sale
Sale Date: October 19, 2022 – 5075 yarded
Wet weather and more western numbers made
up the yarding this week. Prime heavy cows
were just a shade easier while your store cows
sold to dearer rates. Feeder operators were
still very active as were restockers. Quality
was very mixed, but there were lines of cattle
on offer. All regular export buyers were in
attendance with some southern buyer added
support. This southern support was also seen
in the 2nd round cattle.
AUCTIONS PLUS – RURAL REAL ESTATE– CLEARING SALES
David O’Sullivan 0412 501 116
Paul O’Sullivan .... 0400 910 088
osullivanauctions@bigpond.com.au
Guess what - right now in many areas we have
Heliothis again in our winter cereal crops.
Sure, the Heliothis (or great white shark of dryland
I quote) is always present in flowering or podding
Chickpea or Faba Bean crops.
However, they are also hammering our cereal
crops in 2022.
I have witnessed this phenomenon in the 1983 and
1984 wet winters and low levels again in 1988 and
1989 wet years.
As always the tricky line is how many grubs or
larvae do you need in your paddock, before you
apply an insecticide.
We call this a spray threshold and is calculated
by numbers of larvae per square metre, cost of
insecticide and application, and of course, the $ end
price of the grain.
In those early wetter years I mentioned, there was
very little research on this part of growing winter
cereals.
Thankfully Dr Melina Miles and her team at
DAF did basic trial work in 2016 and came up with
threshold numbers that surprisingly are very close to
my own rough calculations all those decades ago on
Western Downs cereal paddocks.
Of course, I was using cereal grain prices of $130
per tonne. These days we need to calculate $350 to
Hay For Sale
RHODES GRASS BALE BARONS,
SMALL SQUARES, 4x4 ROUND
BALES & 6x4x3 LARGE SQUARES
AVAILABLE FOR SALE.
View what’s for sale at
www.toowoombahayfarm.com.au
or call 0429 097 152
10775 Warrego Highway,
Charlton
Heliothis grub on wheat
Photo from Millie Bach of Elders Dalby
$400 per tonne for grain and the cost of spraying
has also risen for both the registered carbamate
insecticide and the aeroplane.
So if you or your agronomist have not been
checking your grain paddocks, I strongly suggest
this occurs.
Guess where these larvae or grubs will be worse?
Yep, in the middle, most likely, or the corner that
is hard to get to.
Heliothis moths know no boundaries, so check
everywhere.
How to check is a challenge and beat sheets and
sweep nets are best ways to go with varying success,
picking up the smaller size of Heliothis grubs.
Thanks again to the team at DAF Toowoomba,
what they also found was Heliothis likes wheat and
barley grain more than chickpeas or sorghum grain.
So the 2.4 grams per larvae of grain consumed in
sorghum and chickpeas is more like 4.2 grams for
each larvae in barley and wheat.
With current grain prices, our spray thresholds
are more like 2.4 larvae per square metre. Not too
different from my 1980s threshold numbers.
However growers and agronomists can be more
confident in the current threshold numbers than my
rubbery ones from 1983 and 1984.
Check out the online DAF beatsheet site for
applying your own costs and deciding on spray
thresholds for your paddocks of grain.
The 26th Annual
T.A.D.O.M.S. .O.M.S.
T.A.
Old Machinery Expo
presents . . .
Life of the Bush Contractor
FEATURE THEME FOR 2022!
ENTERTAINMENT FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!!
The story of early pioneering machinery advancement and
living conditions through period 1920’s to 1950’s
Grand Parade, Earthmoving Gear,
Blacksmithing, Metal Casting,
Damper Making, Vintage Cars,
Motorcycles, Trucks, Tractors,
Stationery and Steam Engines,
Threshing Machines and more!
Feature Display – Sprawling 1920’s Construction Camp!
Oakey Showgrounds
Saturday, 29th & Sunday, 30th October, 2022
POSTPONED TO A DATE
TO BE ADVISED!
Enquiries – Theme Coordinator – John Reis 0407 582 116
Adults: $10.00 Saturday, $5.00 Sunday
Children under 14 FREE when accompanied by an Adult
This project is supported by Toowoomba Regional Council
TOOWOOMBA CATTLE & PIG MARKET
Harristown Saleyards, Monday, October 17, 2022
Yarding: 218 Change: +9
Despite wet weather, numbers improved along
with demand over all categories.
• Best Bull A/C Pidgeon Co weighting 1355kgs
returned $4149 with same supplying heavy
feeder steers that returned $2340
• Heavy heifers A/C Bourke Bros, Glencoe
returned $2236
• Trade weight Angus steers sold to 606c/kg to
return $1987
• Mickey bull calves returned to the paddock for
$1836, ex Thornville
• Hereford cross heifers A/C Carmel Galvin sold
for 590c/kg with bull calf companions realising
610c/kg
# Bookings for next week recommended #
DESCRIPTION
Hartwig
& Bliss
trading as
CATTLE SALE
Crows Nest Showgrounds
October 29 – 11am
Bookings:
45 Droughtmaster charolais x
steers 300-400kg
20 Angus x steers VGQ
10 light weight weaned Speckle &
Speckle Park cross steers
30 lightweight weaned cross bred
heifers
10 Brahman cross backgrounder
heifers.
5x5 Angus x cows and calves
10x10 crossbred cows and calves
All cattle to arrive by 6pm Friday.
Contact us if you have any
questions on the cattle listed or
wish to book any cattle in.
For bookings:
Phone: Wade Hartwig 0447 174 071
Haden King 0458 138 272
Caroline Cook 0427 134 636
10 - HIGH COUNTRY HERALD - OCTOBER 25, 2022 To advertise phone 4615 4416 or email herald@highcountrynews.net.au
Steers
Cows
Heavy Heifers
Bulls
Feeder Steers
Restocker Steers
Restocker Heifers
Weight
500-700kgs
520+kgs
>400kgs
>600kgs
400-500kgs
200-280kgs
200-280kgs
Range
c/kg
410-428
316-342
460-468
306-322
12-548
558-618
498-590
Bobby Calves
Average
c/kg
419
330
464
314
479
588
554
Change
c/kg
-10
-13
+7
+3
+6
+20
+45
Grass Eaters $620-$1020 Beef x Dairy $280-$400 Dairy $45-$290
Prime Pork
Prime Bacon
Sows
NIL
NIL
$270
Weaners $148
Pigs
Prime Light Bacon
Boars
Forward Stores
Suckers
NIL
NIL
$164
$102
Livestock, 429 South St, Toowoomba 07 4690 7777
Darren Hartwig - All enquiries 0428 736 470
Mark Gersekowski - Pigs/Calf/Cattle 0427 761 099
John Padman - Dairy Specialist 0417 802 543
Rural Products, 397 South St, Tmba 07 4636 8888