Dillon from Broadacre Contracting yarns with Henry from Perry Farming at Goondiwindi QLD about...
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Legends, hope your day is going alright.
But if you need my help, there is a possibility it probably is not.
Anyway, as the boys on the Catch My Drift podcast say, a problem shared is a problem halved.
Need an agricultural contractor?
If you need an agricultural contractor in Culcairn, Coolamon, Ganmain, Ardlethan, Barellan, West Wyalong, Young, Boorowa, Cowra, Hay, Darlington Point, Carrathool or anywhere across the Riverina and Central West NSW, give Dillon at Broadacre Contracting a call on 0439 300 380.
We will solve your problem straight away.
Whether it is silage cutting, headers, earthmoving, clearing, dams or grain cartage, we connect growers with verified contractors who actually turn up and do the job properly.
We generally say we are available from 6am to 9pm, but honestly, if it is urgent, it is urgent.
I have had growers baling with a breakdown at 3am. It is part of the game. We understand it, so we are available if it is urgent.
Broadacre Contracting connects growers directly with verified, accountable agricultural contractors.
We are not middlemen taking a cut. We remove the guesswork about who is reliable and who is not.
We vet the operators, we know the gear, and we know the regions.
If you need a contractor in the paddock, we are your first call.
If you have time and you are not chasing sheep back through a gate, feel free to make an account on the Broadacre Contracting website and post a tender yourself by going to My Account > New Tender Post > Post the job.
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Make sure you come back to enjoy this yarn about building something from nothing with your family beside you.
For this episode of Talking Gear Tuesday, Dillon from Broadacre Contracting is back with the Pitson Contracting crew at Dirranbandi on the Queensland border.
If you caught our first yarn with Jimmy in Episode 12, that one was all about downtime, maintenance and keeping headers rolling up at Dirranbandi.
This time, we are talking about how the whole thing started.
How a family farm turned into a diversified contracting operation running silage, headers, road trains, earthmoving and feedlots.
If you are not familiar with Pitson Contracting, the team is based in Culcairn in the Riverina.
Culcairn sits between Albury and Wagga Wagga on the Olympic Highway, right in the heart of some of the best mixed farming country in southern New South Wales.
You have Coolamon and Ganmain to the north, Matong and Ardlethan further northwest, Young and Boorowa to the northeast, and the western Riverina stretching out through Hay, Darlington Point and Carrathool.
This is prime cropping and grazing country, and it is where the Pitson family has built their operation from the ground up.
This yarn is about more than one machine or one job.
It is about family, risk, growth, social media, staff, old gear, new opportunities and knowing when to pull the trigger.
So before we dive in, if you are a grower needing a hand with silage, harvest, grain cartage, earthmoving, dams or clearing, or you are a contractor wanting to build your reputation and relationships with growers, give Dillon a buzz on 0439 300 380 from 6am to 9pm.
Fair warning, he loves a yarn.
Let us talk Pitson Contracting, Culcairn, family support and the line that stuck with me most.
Pull the trigger and let’s go.
Pitson Contracting started on the family farm.
It is still family-run and operated.
Jimmy was at uni when his old man got pretty crook back in 2018.
He came home from uni, and in his own words, he was basically only partying there anyway.
He got home, cracked in, started silage contracting and began cutting a couple of thousand acres with the first mower.
From there, they bought a baler.
Then that year it started raining in the spring, and they jumped into an air seeder.
At that stage, they were pretty small operators and mostly doing their own stuff.
This somewhat hits home, and hats off to Jimmy for coming home.
I suppose sometimes you have a choice, and other times you do not.
I am not sure what exact position Jimmy was in, but he came home either way.
It hits home for me because we have pretty well lost one side of our family, Dad’s side.
Nan, Dad and Pop, all gone.
It makes you grow up.
It changes your perspective.
You grow up real quick.
Although Jimmy has not quite gone down the route we did, thankfully, I would say Jimmy and I have both experienced similar decisions in life.
Good on him for going home.
There are a lot of negatives in all of it, family going downhill or leaving completely, but there is always a positive.
We do not see it at the time.
We do not know it.
My positive is that from losing Dad, we got the opportunity to own a house, build Broadacre Contracting and have a family.
None of it can heal or replace what we have lost.
At times, it makes it harder because I want him to meet my family.
But after it is all said and done, we end up with a real purpose.
It sounds like Jimmy has much the same story.
My question for Jimmy would be this: if you did not come home from uni, would Pitson Contracting exist?
While we are on this, at some point in life you are going to find yourself going through something very similar.
Take the time and allow it to make you a better person.
When these things hit us, we can only go two ways.
Downhill or uphill.
Climb the hill is my advice.
Do not let it ruin your life.
It is too short.
Jimmy came home.
Pitson Contracting is now widely known throughout agriculture.
Their contract harvesting arm and agricultural business cover regions from Dirranbandi QLD, Coonamble and Walgett NSW, down into their local region around Culcairn, Young and Carrathool.
That is just some of their service areas.
Their reputation and name are known Australia-wide.
Welcome home, Jimmy.
Pitson Contracting bought the neighbour’s secondhand New Holland TX64 Plus.
Jimmy said it was not real fun.
But that was where he learnt headers because he nearly fixed the whole thing.
What a way to learn.
It is the only way.
Swinging spanners.
I have spun thousands of filters, I service all my own utes and all that sort of thing.
Time and time again, I still have a moment where I do not realise I am spinning them the wrong way to get them off.
And look, I am not the smartest tool in the shed, but I am pretty handy.
I do not reckon you ever stop learning.
I do not reckon you ever stop making mistakes.
I am a firm believer there is no such thing as a dumb question.
Most of the time, we need to learn with our hands and experiences.
As the host of Broadacre Contracting, I often find myself involved with gear I have never been around.
I ask some pretty dumb questions, some would think.
They probably are self-explanatory to people in that game, but 80% of the people who are not, like myself, are asking the same questions.
Are they still dumb questions?
At the end of the day when it comes to Talking Gear Tuesday, there are no dumb questions.
We are there to learn and share.
Simple as that.
Having a TX64 do your head in, constantly giving you grief and needing attention, is a good opportunity to learn what is going on and why.
Probably a good reason why Pitson Contracting has managed to grow the way they have.
For anyone reading who does not know the TX64, it was a conventional New Holland header from the mid-90s to early 2000s.
Jimmy says he nearly fixed the whole thing.
That is how you learn headers.
You do not learn headers by jumping into a brand new S790.
You learn headers by having something break every second day and working out how to fix it.
Feeder chains, sieves, concaves, belts, bearings, the works.
That old TX64 would have taught him everything about a header’s internals.
We talked about this in Episode 12 with Pitson Contracting when we discussed their maintenance systems.
They run a workshop setup based on mining-grade systems with mechanics, fitters and boilermakers.
That knowledge had to come from somewhere.
I would bet a decent chunk of it came from fixing that TX64 Plus every other day.
If you are a young bloke reading this thinking you need new gear to start contracting, you do not.
You need gear that works, and you need to know how to fix it when it does not.
After the TX64 Plus, Pitson Contracting ended up jumping into the first John Deere 9770.
The one seen in the previous yarn is still the pride of the fleet.
The John Deere 9770 bullet rotor.
Almost every farm has had one on it or still does.
I cannot speak for every farm, but most farms I have worked on have had a 9770 around.
It is interesting.
I have seen and had a fair few conversations about 9770s.
These things are bloody handy for windrowed canola.
That is where the conversation seems to go a lot of the time.
What capacity are you getting out of your Class 8s and 9s in windrowed canola?
I would love to know.
Maybe some understand where I am going here, and others might be questioning it.
But hats off to John Deere. The 9770 is a true workhorse.
Now we are talking.
This is one of the most well-regarded rotary headers to come out of Deere’s lineup.
Big single rotor, plenty of horsepower, and a proper capacity machine that can handle what the Riverina throws at it.
Wheat, barley, canola, pulses, you name it.
I see a lot of businesses have a pride of the fleet.
A piece of gear that has sentimental value.
A piece of gear that really looked after them.
We all have that one thing that has helped get us to where we are.
Not long ago I was having a yarn with the BB Harvesting crew about something similar, using Uncle Don’s truck to run header combs up the eastern seaboard.
For the John Deere dealer readers and the Deere fans in our community, it is worth noting.
When a contractor who runs a fleet of headers still calls the 9770 the pride of the fleet, that is as good an endorsement as you will find anywhere.
As the contracting grew, the farms grew as well.
Pitson Contracting now has a couple of feedlots and does a lot of containment feeding.
They have road trains up at Dirranbandi and Moree, and road trains still at home.
This year they went up a bit extra with the headers and jumped into a few more.
They have also got into the earthmoving side of things back home.
They do a bit everywhere.
They jump through a few government jobs, do a lot of clearing and dams, and look after clients as best they can.
Keeping good clients and good client relations is a big part of it.
Bit on.
Harvesting, trucks, feedlots, cropping at home, earthmoving.
Pretty big really, especially when earthmoving is ramping up as we are harvesting.
Neither go in winter.
Both go in spring, summer and start to wind down at the end of autumn.
Harvest gets busy from the first to second week if you are starting up in the Clermont region, and it can continue all the way through until May or June down in Tasmania.
Most headers are pulling up in February after knocking over the Victorian stuff.
And the earthmoving is all go from October until May.
Everything is building up at the same time. Everything is getting busy and peaking at the same time.
You get the point, and the point is valid.
What Pitson Contracting is building is a proper powerhouse, if it can all be managed and grown the right way.
Juggling all of that cannot be done by one bloke.
You have to have a team you can trust.
For growers around Coolamon, Ganmain, Barellan or Young who need an agricultural contractor that does more than just headers, the Pitson crew covers the lot.
From one silage mower in 2018 to feedlots, road trains running up north and at home, a fleet of headers stripping crop from St George through to Howlong NSW, and now earthmoving doing government jobs, clearing and dams.
That is silage, harvesting, livestock feeding, transport and civil works.
Five different revenue streams built in eight years.
From one mower.
This is proper diversification, and it is something I think more contractors should think about.
But my question is, we cannot be experienced at everything, so how did Pitson Contracting scale to this?
Was it a team member who came over from civil and Jimmy let him build something alongside?
Did Jimmy have experience cleaning dams out from a younger age?
How did this all come to be?
If I am asking these questions, hundreds out there are asking it too.
Pitson marketing team, get the story out. It will pull some big weight.
When you are only running headers, you have a window of maybe 3 to 5 months to earn money.
The rest of the year you are spending, maintaining gear, preparing, but not earning from that gear.
Diversifying the business and not just relying on contracting and farm income is the way to do it, I feel.
When a drought hits, a drought hits.
Off-farm income is a serious thing to think about.
If you need an agricultural contractor in the Hay, Darlington Point, Carrathool or West Wyalong region for earthmoving, dams, clearing or harvest, give Broadacre Contracting a call on 0439 300 380.
If you want to see what diversified contracting looks like across different regions, have a read of our yarn with Customized Spreading out at Wycheproof or Fithall Ag down at St Arnaud.
Different operations, same principle.
Diversify, keep the gear earning, keep the crew working.
I asked Jimmy what he reckons is one of the biggest things that helped him get to where he is.
His answer was family.
Mum and Dad have been huge.
Support from the sisters and families.
The girlfriend has been amazing too.
You cannot do it without your family at home and the support network.
It is not easy every day.
Headers broken down, trucks broken down, stressed to the max, stuff happening everywhere.
It is a busy time of year.
Your family is probably your biggest one.
Then you have your good mates and your workers that prop you up.
You might be getting down with a breakdown, then one of the boys runs around helping you fix it, and it gives you a bit more energy.
As we say, risk is reward, but there is a reason why the reward is so big.
The risk really hammers you, and over time it chips you down.
I am speaking for myself here, by the way.
As I have moved through business, I have had to make myself so vulnerable.
I have invested in different businesses just to get kicked in the guts.
I have had some really good wins, but overall it is a constant storm.
I am lucky to have a partner who allows me the time to build our business.
Drew keeps the house going and raises our little girl.
I am also there as the dad and family man, but I am also the one who keeps the lights on somehow.
If I did not have the support I had, I do not believe I could do this.
This business of ours, Broadacre Contracting, has really taken its toll on my family.
My family signed the deal on the dotted line.
We can handle growing a business.
We are committing.
We will put all of our financials into this.
It is easy to say it, but to get into it and walk it is a whole different game.
Any business owner will be reading this and relating.
Any family who is a business-operated family will be agreeing.
The risk can equal reward.
I am bloody glad to hear Jimmy answer the question with family.
It really is big.
Family.
I wish I could say friends also help for myself, but literally they are gone.
I still tried to keep contact and maintain the relationships, but since building our business I have lost friends I would never have thought I would lose.
If you come into business, you are going to get a shock.
You can never be ready, but get prepared.
This is a nasty world, but such a rewarding world.
With the family stuff, Jimmy said there are a lot of big decisions to make.
Your family has to be there to support those decisions because they could be make or break for your life.
His old man basically gave him the reins when he was 20.
That is a big call, to be honest.
It could go either way.
His old man stepped back a bit, and Jimmy knows some of the decisions probably pushed harder than his old man would have preferred.
His old man might have preferred to gradually build.
Jimmy is a bit more:
“Pull the trigger and let’s go.”
He thought they might as well try to do it while they were young, while they had the crew around them and the family support around them, and see where they ended up.
Here it is.
The title of this episode and the line that stuck with me the most.
Pull the trigger and let’s go.
So the real question is, to you as the reader, what are you?
Are you a pull-the-trigger-and-let’s-go person?
Or are you a let’s-slowly-build person?
Neither is always right.
Neither is always wrong.
But you need to know which one you are, and you need the right people around you to keep you honest.
Jimmy had family support, a crew, a farm base, a willingness to learn and a high tolerance for risk.
That combination matters.
If you have the risk without the support, you can get buried.
If you have the support but never take a swing, you can spend your life wondering what could have happened.
That is the balance. Knowing when to pull the trigger, and knowing who is standing beside you when you do.
Broadacre Contracting operates a verified contractor directory that connects growers directly with agricultural contractors across the Riverina and southern New South Wales.
Here is how it works.
You post a job on the Broadacre Contracting website.
An instant alert goes out to verified contractors covering your region.
Your phone rings.
Direct contact between you and the contractor.
We do not take commissions, we do not get in the middle of your pricing, and we do not broker the deal.
We connect you with accountable operators and let you sort the rest out between yourselves.
We cover agricultural contractors across Culcairn, Coolamon, Ganmain, Matong, Ardlethan, Barellan, West Wyalong, Young, Boorowa, Cowra, Hay, Darlington Point, Carrathool, Narrandera, Leeton, Cootamundra and anywhere else in Australia.
Whether you need silage cut, headers in the paddock, earthmoving for dams and clearing, or grain carted on road trains, Broadacre Contracting is your first call.
Give Dillon a call on 0439 300 380 from 6am to 9pm.
We would love to have a yarn about what you need and connect you with the right operator.
These resources may help growers and contractors watch the episode, understand Pitson Contracting, post a job, or read related Broadacre yarns.
If you are looking for agricultural contractors, harvest contractors, silage contractors, earthmoving contractors, grain cartage, dam cleaning, clearing or broadacre support around Culcairn, Coolamon, Ganmain, Ardlethan, Young, Boorowa, Cowra, Hay, Darlington Point, Carrathool or anywhere across the Riverina, Broadacre Contracting gives you a clearer place to start.
Watch the Pitson Contracting episode, browse equipment listings or post a tender so verified contractors can see the job and contact you directly.
Call Dillon at Broadacre Contracting on 0439 300 380. Broadacre connects growers with verified agricultural contractors across Culcairn, Coolamon, Ganmain, Ardlethan, Young, West Wyalong and the wider Riverina. You can also post a job on the Broadacre Contracting website and receive direct responses from contractors in your area.
Pitson Contracting is a family-run agricultural contracting business based in Culcairn NSW. They operate across silage, harvesting, earthmoving, road transport, containment feeding and other rural contracting services across NSW and QLD.
The episode discusses silage contracting, harvesting, baling, air seeding, road trains, feedlots, containment feeding, earthmoving, clearing and dams. Pitson Contracting’s wider business is built around diversified rural contracting services.
Jimmy talks about starting with a silage mower, then a baler, then an air seeder. On the harvest side, he talks about buying a secondhand New Holland TX64 Plus from the neighbour, which became a major learning curve for fixing headers.
Jimmy describes the John Deere 9770 as still being the pride of the fleet. In the article, Dillon talks about why certain machines become sentimental workhorses that help a business get to where it is.
Agricultural contractors in the Riverina can offer harvesting, silage cutting, hay and baling, sowing, spraying, grain cartage, earthmoving, dams, clearing and livestock support. Services vary by operator, which is why Broadacre helps match growers with the right contractor for the job.
Pitson Contracting has attracted workers from Tasmania, Queensland, Walgett and the Northern Territory through social media. Showing your crew, gear, culture and lifestyle can attract workers who want to be part of what you are building. Broadacre’s marketing services can help contractors build that presence.
Broadacre Contracting is based in Corowa NSW and operates across major agricultural regions in Australia. Broadacre has verified contractors and users covering Culcairn, Coolamon, Ganmain, Ardlethan, Barellan, West Wyalong, Young, Cowra, Hay, Darlington Point and the broader Riverina region.
Talking Gear Tuesday is Broadacre Contracting’s video series where we sit down with growers, contractors and ag operators to yarn about gear, businesses, risks, lessons and the real stories behind Australian agriculture.
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Social Media Built This Crew: Workers From Tasmania, Queensland, Walgett and the NT
Jimmy says they get good staff.
The crew is amazing.
They have never had trouble with workers.
It is always mates and mates who want to come and do a harvest with them, and then they keep coming back.
The social media side of things has been huge.
People are applying left, right and centre.
Everyone wants to come and do a harvest with them.
They have a couple from Tassie, one on the chaser bin and the other in one of the trucks.
They hit Jimmy up off TikTok and have been great.
They have people from Queensland, Walgett and a fellow from the Northern Territory who came from Kununurra in the wet season.
The broad spectrum of people they are getting off socials is amazing.
Where staff interest is coming from
Dillon and Broadacre Contracting’s interpretation
I always say we only know what we know.
It is impossible to know everything.
If you go through our Talking Gear Tuesday sequence, you will see when I am around headers, I know what we are talking about.
Around sowing time, it is the same.
But I jump around clay spreading and cotton strippers and I do not have experience with it because I have not been around it.
Where I am going here is that Jimmy is putting out something he knows.
That is how powerful social media can be.
The staff game is an interesting one, and there are all different businesses that connect staff with employers.
Some provide a really good service and we need them in our industry, but I am really seeing a market become flooded.
The connecting-staff game is huge now.
Everyone is trying to do it.
I am even seeing websites and apps being built that offer services similar to ours at Broadacre Contracting, and they are doing the staff side as well.
It is crazy how big it has become, yet the issue of finding good staff still exists.
Very interesting.
I am going to leave that there.
But social media, and your own internal marketing, can provide an unreal system to filter quality staff and lock them in.
It seems like Jimmy understands the flow to some extent.
What I want to really highlight here is the why.
Why are all these people reaching out to Pitson for work?
Because Pitson Contracting is visible.
They are on socials.
They are showing the crew, showing the gear and showing the lifestyle.
They are building culture.
Essentially, instead of them wanting staff, the staff are wanting them.
Young couples watching them from Tassie, Walgett or Kununurra think, “That looks like something I want to be part of.”
That is exactly what farm marketing does.
It does not just sell your service. It sells the opportunity to be on your team.
We wrote about this extensively in Marketing for Harvest Contractors.
The staff angle is one of the biggest wins from social media that contractors do not expect.
They think marketing is about getting more growers calling.
But the reality is, one of the first things that can happen is you get good people wanting to work for you.
Good people are worth more than any single client.
If you are a grower or agricultural contractor reading this and you are struggling to find staff and opportunities, give Broadacre Contracting a call on 0439 300 380.
We can talk about how marketing can help you attract what you need.
It is working for Pitson, it works for others in our community, and it can work for you.