Comment

Comment by Michaelng Clayton on January 17, 2012 at 6:49pm

Just imagine if we pulled out of the United Nations and scrapped The Carbon tax. We would save and have to spend ONE Trillion dollars over next 10 years. We could use this to help farmers restore the land and help others on the land. We could easily give neighboring countries food, fertilizers or cattle free and still be miles ahead. We could have our own canning and value add to many products and export them

Comment by Rory Donnellan on January 11, 2012 at 6:16am

Let's not be too hard on anyone sucked in by the government's carbon tax fraud, and their lies about managing the world's climate from their offices in Canberra. Some good people have been scammed by the relentless propaganda campaign.

Comment by Rob Moore on January 10, 2012 at 7:44pm

Below - my uncle in about 1952 in front of the huts here. Many fine young aboriginal men and ex service men who my grandfather was always very supportive of after surviving the trenches in france and Belgium in the great war.

Comment by Rob Moore on January 10, 2012 at 7:37pm

Too true Tony,

                      The first and only a  few black and white photos- that I found in the cupboards here tell exactly the same story- in fact if there weren't a few landmarks as datum points -I wouldn't believe they were from here.

                      Good history from you too Donald. Alan Yeomans wrote a very heavy book and  I think even joined agmates as Alan M said- he was leaning a bit towards the climate change theme and a few of us lost the enthusiasum. I guess we tossed the baby out with the bath water lol.

 

M 

Comment by Tony Howard on January 10, 2012 at 5:21pm

Talking about blade ploughing.. I was in Winton in the early '90's, either a field day or the show, and there was blade plough contractor displaying his wares there. He was planning a demonstration Field Day down around Tambo somewhere, and there 3 gents there, obviously graziers and spanning 3 generations. The "old " fella was certainly well on in his 80's, but was very excited about the property where the Field day was being planned and I heard him say "I want to go to that". The younger fellow asked  'Why do you want to go down there Pop?" " Well " he replied "I worked on that place when I was about 15 or 16, and it was all open downs country". 

I was fascinated to hear this testimony from the senior gent... just imagine , in his lifetime that country had gone from open downs, to a situation where clearing was necessary,and now a demonstration of blade ploughing to clean up regrowth. No doubt , Rob , DERM would say he was a liar and flatly deny the possibility that the landscape could change. More fools them.  

Comment by Donald Woods on January 10, 2012 at 3:06pm

Thank you Colin. The word Keyline above immediately caught my attention.

I was born and raised in the Hawkesbury valley (Windsor, Cornwallis,Richmond, The Lowlands, Kurrajong) and used to travel past Nevallan on my way to work from Kurrajong.

Much of 'Nevallan' and his other adjoining property 'Yobarnie' are now the subject of the Sydney urban sprawl. Also Nevallan, or part of it, is owned and forms the headquarters of Rural Press including 'The Land' newspaper.

I have a copy of his original book 'The Keyline Plan'.1954. Perce had a wife Rita who wrote the foreword in his book and three sons  Neville Allan and Ken hence the property name Nevallan.

The principle of his development was to retain as much water in the soil as possible. To this end he used a Graham Holme chisel plough to successively rip deeper  each year for several years with the lines of rip running slightly off the contour from the valley lines out to the ridge lines. Reason being that the valleys had the concentration of water whilst  the ridges, being the larger area got the least. The general drift of water along these lines meant a much more even watering of the whole paddock.

One of the sons, I think Allan, carried on his consultancy work for many years but I haven't heard of them for a long while now.

Cheers

Don

 

Comment by Rob Moore on January 10, 2012 at 10:46am

Good link Rory.

                     Barry Homan evolved his plough to be the  single most valuable tool from any wiewpoint.  Productivity, soils profile , water retention, erosion control, sucker-woody weed control- it ticks every box. It is so brilliant that no doubt it would be in the gangrene's cross hairs.

       I was fortunate enough to be Dry Hiring  a 300hp dozer of Bevan Flemings of Fleming's Earth Moving (Brisbane). A true gentleman and he was very good to us here. He virtually lent us a plough($20 per day or something ridiculous) and it enabled me to do 1500 acres which virtually saved us throught the  75 cents per kg live that we were recieving in the mid 90's. Extra weight made the difference.

                    Interesting that Dick O'Connell ( another legend) - bought the same dozer from Bevan and a new plough from Barry (now passed on) and took it out to "Wombula" and proceeded to do this-

 

http://www.homan.com.au/Homanploughs/oconnell.html

This is very similar to the country Trent Hindman was treating. DERM - they make me sick!

Comment by Rory Donnellan on January 10, 2012 at 8:09am

Some testimonials and field trials on the effectiveness of the blade plough...

http://www.homan.com.au/Homanploughs/testimonials.html

Can't be long before the greenie extremists in our government make blade ploughing illegal - as it is known to damage the woody weeds they hold so dear.

Comment by alan mikkelsen on January 9, 2012 at 9:24pm

Very worthwhile post, Col. as you would know (as you were a major contributor), there was a lot of interest in keyline farming and the Nevallan project dating right back into the earlier AgMates days. This post by Ray Jamieson from 2010 was typical, but the discussion started well before then, and I remember that it included posts by Yeomans Snr's son. I think he got a lot of Agmates offside when he linked the keyline technology to the AGW threat of CO2. ie, as an important potential component of the "solutions" wheelbarrow. Well, that's my recollection but I might be wrong.

I tried a little research on where the Nevallan project stands now, if it still exists, but got nowhere in the time I spent. Others might be more successful / patient.

Cheers  bro' al

Comment by Beverley Prescott on January 8, 2012 at 10:24pm

What a great video - I remember when contouring came in around our area on the Tableland.

Bit nostalgic.

Thanks, Colin for sharing.

Gee I must come to the main page more often.

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