Farmer and grazier Hamish Thompson grew a robust and resilient pasture crop on his property in the Eglinton district in 2022. Hamish applied TM Ag and Fulvic Plus with a knockdown herbicide to the paddock before planting the oat, rye, clover and radish crop which was seed treated with TM Germination. The pasture crop received a second in-crop application of TM Ag and Fulvic Plus six weeks after being planted and in September the pasture was treated with 2kg/ha of Best Foliar Fertiliser and a Booster pack top up of Molybdenum, Boron and Zinc.

The district experienced an extremely wet winter with around 600mm of rain resulting in the whole of the Bathurst and surrounding areas crops/pastures being heavily infested with rust, except for Hamish’s crop that did not show any signs of rust which was confirmed by his agronomist who commented that Hamish’s pasture crop was not only one of the few that were rust free but was also the best pasture crop that he had seen in the Central West that season.

Hamish also noted when inspecting the radish plant’s taproots in the crop that they were able to push down through the hard clay pan and grow to an impressive depth of around 12 inches that year (see photo) where as the radish plants grown in the paddock in the previous year were only able to push their taproot down 3 inches into the soil due to the hard clay pan.

This is the second year that Best products have been applied to this paddock and Hamish has noted recently that the paddock still has plenty of soil moisture where the other paddocks that have not been treated with Best products are really dry. Hamish also commented that a neighbour who like Hamish has cut out the application of synthetic fertiliser in their crops were still badly impacted by the rust during the winter which has convinced Hamish that the stimulation of the native microbes in his soil from the TM Ag applications is what has made the difference and enabled him to grow robust and resilient plants while also improving the soil health and structure by the soil microbes breaking down hard clay pans which is evident by the depth and size of the radish taproots. Hamish remarked that in the two years that he has been following the Best Farming Systems Program on his farm that the crops have performed far above the previous three years of using synthetic fertiliser.