Dillon from Broadacre Contracting yarns with Jimmy from Pitson Contracting about building a family-run...
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Legends, hope your day is treating you alright.
But if you need my help, there is a fair chance it is not.
As the boys on the Catch My Drift podcast say, a problem shared is a problem halved.
So if you have had a breakdown, need to hire gear or find a contractor in a hurry, give Dillon at Broadacre Contracting a call on 0439 300 380.
We will solve your problem straight away.
We generally say 6am to 9pm, but honestly, if it is urgent, it is urgent.
If you have a minute and you are not flat out in the paddock, jump on the Broadacre Contracting website and do it yourself by going to My Account > New Tender Post > Post the job.
An instant alert goes out and any available contractor can call you directly.
Make sure you come back to enjoy this yarn though.
Dillon Harrison and the film crew from Broadacre Contracting are out at Forbes catching up with Cal from Newells Contracting.
If you are not familiar with Forbes, it sits right in the heart of the Central West of New South Wales, on the Lachlan River.
I am going to say 70% of you reading this will know Forbes.
For our readers from Western Australia, the Newell Highway runs straight through it.
Just up the road you have Parkes, famous for the big dish that was used in the Apollo 11 moon mission.
About an hour north you will run into Dubbo.
The Dubbo Zoo is alright, and a few mates always ask how I broke out.
I will never tell them. That is a secret.
If you travel east you run into Eugowra and Grenfell, lovely country that starts getting into the rolling hills.
You will start to see a bit of grazing sorghum and fairly large mixed enterprises.
Then to the west we hit Condobolin, beautiful red country, flat with big paddocks.
Condo is known as out west, and it is in the wording, “out,” because when you are out west, you are out west.
It is like the outback QLD, but just the outback for NSW.
Pig chasers paradise really, and some good cod and yella fishing in the rivers.
Anyhow, the region overall is proper mixed farming country: cereals, canola, hay and a fair bit of grazing through there too.
A pumping region, a bit of mining, but mostly agriculture. The whole place thrives off ag and gold mines.
Now, I have to go on a quick Dillon side mission.
I drive the Newell a lot. Like sending it.
We are doing Corowa to Goondiwindi often, eyes hanging out of our head.
We are on a mission a lot, the Broadacre Contracting crew.
I know the road like the back of my hand, and I am going to say the best coffee on the whole run from Corowa to Forbes is at Narrandera.
Now this might hinge on what staff member is working, as I am normally rolling through at 6am, so I could be giving you the worst recommendation.
Anyway, just recently we zipped up to Goondiwindi and Moree to film some pickers and strippers for the cotton season.
On my way home, about halfway between West Wyalong and Forbes near the cameras at the Grenfell turn-off on the Mid Western Highway, I pulled up along the creek to cook a few snags and make a coffee.
On the ground was some demon-looking ritual sign, with some type of white powder.
Mate, I got the heebie-jeebies, loaded the ute and got going quick smart.
True story. Anyway, back to Forbes and the Newells crew.
Cal has a bit going on.
He runs a diverse outfit.
Trucks are the main game, but he is building into the hay side with a Massey Ferguson windrower, mower conditioner front, a Twin Star rake, flatbeds, a telehandler and hay forks.
Basically, a full outfit that can come in and do the whole job from standing crop to stacked in the shed.
Trucks and hay contractor infrastructure, pretty much.
Today we are having a yarn about how it all hangs together.
So before we dive in, if you are a grower needing a hand with your hay, mowing, windrowing, baling or grain cartage, or 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.
And if it is urgent, just ring, ring, and we will help any way we can.
Broadacre Contracting can get a bit confusing because we have a bit on, but essentially we provide a directory where you can find contractors, it takes 2 minutes, and the main core services are free.
We also provide marketing for growers and contractors.
Anyway, let us yarn trucks, hay and grain.
Cal tries to do a little bit of everything.
Trucks are probably the main thing keeping him going every day, and he is slowly trying to get into the hay side of things too.
He said he does not like sleeping too much, so it is probably a good fit.
It is just what he enjoys.
The hay complements the trucks a bit, and the grain gives him something different to do every day.
Mhhm, sleep.
You know, I would like to see some type of study based around how active we are as a sector.
I could be wrong, but I feel we are the most wired, highest performers going around.
My mum calls me often to check in and have a yarn.
We talk a fair bit, and she will ask what I am up to.
Recently the conversation was, “Yeah, I am just in the car working, pulled up on the side of the road quickly because a grower needs something urgent. I am just north of Griffith.”
And she goes, “It is 9 o’clock at night, where are you going now?”
In this instance, I was heading to Emerald, QLD.
Still getting checked in on at 34, I have to laugh, but I appreciate it.
We have lost Dad, Nan, Pop, a fair few family members and friends.
We look out for each other.
We are a family who checks in on each other a fair bit.
One minute I could be in the office, and if a grower or contractor calls and needs us somewhere urgently because of the weather, we will be in the ute and inbound.
We really do move at Broadacre Contracting.
That is pretty much my life.
So in the future, if you are keen to be part of the Broadacre Contracting team and you like a life of moving quickly, you will love it, and we would love to have you involved, especially if you have a passion for the agriculture, cropping and farm contracting sector.
I wanted to bring it up because, reading what Cal says about not liking sleep too much, I feel we see things and do things differently than everyone else.
Our work is not actually work.
It is not get up, go do something 9 to 5, then go home.
Out here around Forbes, Griffith and right across the Central West and Riverina, we just seem to live for this life of farming.
Actually, not just out here.
All around Australia.
Farming.
I reckon we live to actually do it. It is our life, it is the life we want for our family, and I feel there is nothing else like it out there.
Every family needs a crack at farming.
Every family needs to be raised on the farm.
It is real life, it is honest work.
Anyway, once again you have ended up on a side mission with Dillon, much like a crop tour: it always ends up a booze cruise.
Back into it.
Cal explains that trucks are his main thing, what keeps the lights on and keeps him out of trouble.
Hats off to him, honestly.
Trucks are a hard game.
If you are reading this, Cal, we have a lot of respect for you, mate.
We have a lot of respect for anyone who can keep their head on in a freight business.
It is really such a shame the industry has gone the way it has.
Not too long ago I wrote a blog about truck pricing per kilometre, but I did not go near pricing.
I went down the route of who, what, when, where and why.
Give it a read if you want to see how I feel about the truck game.
The truck industry is just in a bad place at the moment, and to be in it and have it as your main game, you have to have some real tough skin and a lot of positive outlook.
Hats off to you, Cal, from the Broadacre Contracting team, and hats off to any freight and owner-operator businesses.
Moving into the hay game makes complete sense in Cal’s world.
He is leasing some country, a bit of it is in the family, and they are based around growing hay.
So if you can have the gear to do your own stuff, then venture out and build a reliable, respected hay contracting business, it is a strategic but needed move.
He hits the nail on the head.
If you are chopping and baling hay, then there is a good chance that hay is going on trucks and heading around Australia.
We all know that if there is a drought up in Roma, QLD, or over in Pinnaroo, SA, the hay in an area that has had a good season will be on the move.
So a hay contractor who also runs trucks is not just baling a paddock.
He is also moving that feed wherever the country has gone dry.
Smart business structure. Everything complements each other.
Then throwing the tippers on at harvest and sending the team north to south to give them a change is a great move.
We all love harvest.
We all want to be involved in it some way.
We are feeding the world, mate.
Everyone says it, but do we all really see how much we contribute to the world?
It is bloody big.
Today we had a look at Cal’s Massey Ferguson 9860.
On the front, it has a 16 foot RazorBar mower conditioner.
It has twin rollers, so a double conditioner setup.
Cal has been doing a lot of contract mowing at the moment, as well as his own country that he leases.
Just recently I had a proper yarn about windrowers in Episode 13 with Lach from LDV Agri Contracting.
In that one, I dived into the history of windrowing and pretty well stated that I feel MacDon has Australia locked in.
And I stand by that.
I like MacDon.
Well, actually, I like all gear by all manufacturers.
Every manufacturer and brand has negatives and positives.
On the MacDon talk, I like their draper platforms, their design is good, their windrowers are good, and they are a successful, established business that has got there through a lot of hard work.
That is business.
There are a lot of design points I could list that I feel have got the drapers to where they are, but that is not what I am here for.
So, moving on.
It was refreshing to step out and look at a different brand for once.
Cal is running a Massey, the 9860 with a 16-foot RazorBar mower conditioner front.
So let us have a gander at why it is a proper option for a hay contractor or Australian grower, another option outside of the famous MacDon units.
Being a hay contractor around Forbes, Parkes or anywhere through the Central West, time is everything.
It really is the difference between a premium crop and a mess.
There are a heap of factors to it all, but when I think deep into it, speed, efficiency and reliability really come to mind.
They do not completely fix all issues.
After all, we do not control the weather.
But if we introduce things to our business that speed things up, we are doing everything we can.
I feel this is where the Massey earns its keep.
First up, beating the rain in the only way we can.
Running a double conditioner setup with twin rollers aims to get the crop off the ground and dried down before the weather turns on us.
Instead of a single set of rollers crimping the stem every few inches, the double conditioning setup fractures it more often.
The aim is to bring dry-down time down, get baling happening sooner and keep that premium leaf instead of shattering it.
So Cal has once again identified a risk and probably gone, “How do I fix it?”
Well, we can never fully fix it, but we can improve it.
I want to loop back to Talking Gear Tuesday Episode 9 with Customized Spreading, where I talked about controlled traffic and paddock compaction.
You know I need to loop this in.
This is not so much a side quest as an explainer mission.
I said in that episode our growers were facing the issue of soil damage from gear running over it, and of course crop damage and recovery, and we did not know how we were going to fix it.
Honestly, there was never a way to fix it unless we did not drive on the paddocks.
So we took the problem and gave it a home.
Literally, that is what controlled traffic is: the problem is allocated to an area and that area alone.
The reason I came here is that this is what Cal has done with his mower.
He has recognised a risk and gone, “How can I reduce it and improve it?”
He has given a certain bit of gear a home, a place to fix the problem to an extent.
After all, we can never completely remove these problems.
And look, if we do, I will be dead, and that is a long, long way from now.
To be honest, we do not want to solve all problems, because then we would be bored and find ourselves creating new ones.
One last thing I wanted to dive into here is the one thing that matters most: parts and dealer support.
The best specs in the world mean nothing if the machine is parked up in the middle of the paddock broken down.
I am out of touch with the Massey network, so I went on a side mission to learn it.
Massey is backed by the AGCO network, and through the Central West, Riverina and North West Slopes you have dealers in the big hubs like Wagga, Dubbo and Tamworth carrying the gear.
Right on Cal’s doorstep in the Central West you have JGW Harvest, with branches at Cowra and Wagga.
Run north and there is Michell Machinery at Dubbo.
Down in the Riverina hub of Griffith you have Serafin Ag Pro, and up around Gunnedah there is NFS-AG.
Righto, I reckon that answers what I was looking for. Hopefully it does for you as well.
Cal also has a draper front for the windrower for canola, and a 30 foot front over there as well.
He had recently done some drought wheat.
They flicked it to one side so they had two rows, 60 into one, and could flip it together.
Cal reckons it is a good option.
It might even work on light canola, and might get close enough for those big pickup fronts to pick it up.
I recently read an article by a grower in Western Australia.
I cannot remember who it was or where it was.
I just remember the article, and I suppose it will be much the same when you read this.
He was breaking down on-farm efficiencies, and at the end of it he said, “Efficiencies are like a drug. Once you get a taste for them, you cannot stop.”
That line has stuck with me ever since.
Growers approach contractors when they have had a bad run but can still make use of them, because a contractor can bring efficiencies like Cal mentioned above.
Throwing two rows into one to get a decent windrow is a good example.
This is exactly what we hope growers will start posting for in the Broadacre Contracting system, especially out in the dry country.
When it is bone dry around Condobolin, Lake Cargelligo, Hillston or out past Nyngan, the call goes out for a contractor who can double-windrow drought wheat and salvage what is left.
The grower is trying to claw back every dollar after a rough run, and honestly, that is just business.
Not just growers either.
Any outfit that has copped a tough year is hunting efficiency.
That is the whole point of Broadacre Contracting.
We are not here to be a race-to-the-bottom budget tool that finds you the cheapest bloke going.
We are here to help growers find contractors who actually bring efficiencies.
Reliable contractors who do it right and save you real money over the season, not just on the invoice.
That is the difference, and we will stand on it all day.
For raking, Cal is running a Twin Star.
He said it has been a good bit of gear.
What he rates most is that everything is done from the cab.
The older gear meant leaning out the back window, changing levers, sometimes knocking the pin, getting out and knocking the pin again.
Cal said we are getting too lazy these days, but it is all right there now.
He also said wheel rakes drag too much dirt.
I learnt on my trip to Cal’s just how important a rake is.
Fluffing up the windrow and not dragging dirt into it matters.
As Cal explained to me, a good rake creates a good bale.
It is quite interesting, the hay game.
Get your cut timing right, rake it with a good rake, and you will get a good bale and a solid feed test.
Now Cal’s “wheel rakes drag too much dirt” comment is more important than it sounds.
So I went and did a bit of digging.
A lot of this is probably going to be boring and common sense to some, but to others it is going to pack a fair bit of learnings.
That is what we are here for.
Have a look at any feed test and one of the numbers staring back at you is ash.
Ash is basically the dirt reading.
Grass hay naturally sits around a certain percentage and lucerne a bit higher, and anything above the natural level is contamination.
Dirt that has been raked in.
For anyone who had the same wrong thought I did, that a rake is just a rake, you are completely off the mark.
Wheel rakes can drag in more ash, while gentler rakes such as basket rakes, mergers and sidebar rakes can keep more dirt out of the hay.
A basket rake lifts and fluffs the windrow instead of scraping the paddock.
That helps keep the leaf, where the protein lives, and leaves the dirt on the ground where it belongs.
Righto, I am going to tell you to pack your compass, because we are going on a side mission to talk dollars, and that is where it really lands.
Dirty, ashy hay costs you twice.
First, the feed test and visual grade drop, so on a graded hay marketplace, buyers discount it.
Second, that dirt is dead weight.
If a bloke is buying per tonne, he is literally paying to cart your topsoil, and he knows it.
So he pays less.
A good rake is not optional if hay quality is the goal.
Say you are putting up a thousand tonnes a year.
If a clean rake saves you even a meaningful amount per tonne in grade and ash penalties, that can add up very quickly.
Those numbers will vary with the season, hay type, buyer and region.
So do not take back-of-the-envelope figures as gospel.
Plug in your own tonnage and your own penalty and have a play.
The logic does not change.
Good hay is great hay.
When Cal goes away mowing or windrowing, he is happy to send the rake, baler and everything out with it.
If need be, he has the telehandler, hay forks and flatbeds, so the crew can do the whole job.
They are doing one out the road where the grower might stack it in the paddock, but Cal’s crew will go out with the loader and bring it into the shed for him.
They also work in with other contractors if those contractors do not have one thing or another.
Cal really breaks down their flexibility here.
Pretty much my take on it is that they are happy to put one bit of gear out on a job, or the whole show.
They are also happy to work in with contractors if they need a hand.
It is really good to see contractors working in with contractors.
We do have internal issues with this at Broadacre Contracting and it is complicated.
We have had issues where a verified contractor has given his mate the job, and that mate just put his windrower in, did not do any of the controlled traffic and was laying rows pretty much in the wheel tracks.
So at Broadacre, we are really against any subcontracting of work that comes through the system unless it is clear, approved and accountable, because of these things.
But in terms of contractors working alongside contractors, it is good to see.
It is good to see crews get along with each other and grow together.
There is a difference between passing off responsibility and working together properly.
One causes headaches.
The other solves problems.
Cal and the Newells crew are based at Forbes in the Central West.
They work through New South Wales and are happy to head down into Victoria for the right job.
If you are farming around Parkes, Condobolin, Eugowra, Grenfell, Cowra or anywhere through the Central West and the local crew is already committed, that is exactly where Broadacre Contracting comes into its own.
We have verified contractors right across the country.
Whether it is mowing, windrowing, baling, grain cartage or a full hay outfit, you post the job, an instant alert goes out, and whoever is available and local gives you a bell.
Made by farmers, for farmers.
We have a very unique system here at Broadacre Contracting.
We work on core values of respect, reliability and responsibility.
We want to be part of your success story.
If you want a yarn about finding a reliable hay, mowing, windrowing, baling or grain contractor, whether you farm around Forbes, Parkes, Condobolin, Eugowra, Grenfell, Cowra, Dubbo or anywhere across the broadacre belt in Australia, give Dillon a call on 0439 300 380 from 6am to 9pm.
Please remember, we are made by farmers for farmers.
Broadacre Contracting is here to help growers’ and contractors’ bottom line.
These resources may help growers and contractors watch the episode, find hay contractors, post a job or understand how Broadacre helps contractors build trust and visibility.
If you are looking for hay contractors, mowing contractors, windrowing contractors, baling contractors or grain cartage around Forbes, Parkes, Dubbo, Condobolin, Eugowra, Grenfell, Cowra or anywhere across the broadacre belt, Broadacre Contracting gives you a clearer place to start.
Watch the Newells Contracting episode, browse hay and silage contractors or post a tender so verified contractors can see the job and contact you directly.
Newells Contracting is a contracting outfit based around Forbes in the Central West of New South Wales. In this Talking Gear Tuesday episode, Cal talks through trucks, hay, mowing, windrowing, grain work and building a full contracting outfit.
Newells Contracting is based around Forbes NSW, in the Central West, with nearby service areas including Parkes, Condobolin, Eugowra, Grenfell, Cowra and Dubbo.
The episode discusses trucks, a Massey Ferguson 9860 windrower with a 16 foot RazorBar mower conditioner front, a Twin Star rake, flatbeds, a telehandler and hay forks.
Yes. Cal explains that he can send the mower, rake, baler, flatbeds, telehandler and hay forks where needed, meaning the crew can help with the full job from standing crop to shed.
A rake affects hay quality because poor raking can drag dirt into the windrow, lift ash readings and reduce hay value. A better rake can help make cleaner hay, protect leaf and improve feed-test outcomes.
Hay often needs to move long distances when seasonal conditions change. A hay contractor with trucks can cut, handle and move hay, which creates a more complete service for growers and buyers.
You can browse hay and silage contractor listings through Broadacre Contracting, watch contractors through Talking Gear Tuesday or post a tender so verified contractors can see the job and contact you directly.
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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