Bread-and-butter crop also a world-beater

IT’S EINSTEIN: Margaret and Mike Solari broke their own world record this year.

14-04-2010 | Sandra Taylor

Mike and Margaret Solari, who farm near Gore, broke their own world record this year by growing a 15.637t/ha crop of Einstein wheat, beating their previous record by 0.277t/ha.

The couple first won the world title in 2007 with a 15.36t/ha crop of Savannah wheat.

Mike says weather is the biggest factor in growing a high-yielding crop and Southland's climate has allowed them to do it twice.

"We get sufficient rain and the right amount of sunshine, giving a long, slow, grain-filling period."

This season was a perfect one for growing high-yielding wheat crops as dry weather in November encouraged root development, but adequate rain in December and the first part of January, followed by still, warm clear days set the crop up to be a record breaker.

Mike stresses that growing a world record crop is a team effort and PGGWrightson agronomist Graeme Jones is an important part of that team.

Jones, who is based in Ashburton, saw the potential of the farm's Mataura silt loam soils when he first began working with the couple more than eight years ago.

He predicted the soils were capable of producing 15t/ha wheat crops and while this was a quantum leap from the 10-11t/ha crops they were then growing, Mike says he became caught up in Graeme's enthusiasm.

He is now thrilled to see Jones' predictions come to fruition and the average yield across all the wheat the Solaris grew this year was 14t/ha.

There are two tools Mike uses that he believes contribute to his success in growing high-yielding crops. The first is the sub-soiler which is used on soils twice in a nine-year crop rotation - after both peas and oil-seed rape - to help break up any plough pan, and the other is the chopping and incorporating of straw into the soil.

These two practices build soil organic matter and maintain soil health as does the two-year grass break which Mike believes helps the soil structure.

This year's record-breaking crop was sown in mid-April, about a month earlier than usual, following a pea crop. Mike says peas are a good break crop for wheat because they allow him to control Take All and other diseases.

The plough is used after every crop because Mike feels it suits both their soils and their environment and is part of the recipe for growing high- yielding crops.

Wheat is sown at a rate of 80 kg/ha, a long way back from the 140kg/ha he used to sow before Jones advised him to drop his sowing rate in order to increase yield.

This was the third year the couple had grown Einstein and Mike knew its yield potential having harvested 14t/ha crops off the cultivar in previous seasons, despite not usually drilling the crop until late in May.

Last year they deliberately got the Einstein crop in the ground early and Mike says it seemed to be a lucky paddock as every time he top-dressed the crop it rained within 24 hours.

They registered the paddock as a potential record-breaker towards the end of last year when the crop was shaping up to be exceptional.

Fortune also favoured the family when it came to harvesting. The weather on the day they chose to head the record-breaking crop was perfect, with no sign of the fog that had dampened the mornings on the days before and after.

They started harvesting the crop at 11am and Mike says he knew fairly quickly it was an exceptional crop - as proved to be the case.

Mike says they have to have two Justices of the Peace in attendance at harvest, one in the paddock monitoring equipment while the other is at the weighbridge keeping an eye on weights and moisture levels. The crop has to be harvested at 14.5% moisture.

He is now awaiting confirmation from the Guinness Book of Records that his crop has been accepted as a world record-breaker.

Mike says it is pretty special growing such an exceptional crop. The 65-year-old Welsh native has been farming in New Zealand for 35 years and knew from the outset the production potential of this country's soils.

"It's nice to realise that potential."

The couple farm 176ha of which 25ha is in permanent pasture and leased out for stock grazing.

His crop rotation is grass, wheat, barley, peas, wheat, oil-seed rape, wheat, winter barley and back into grass.

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