Bertini

The main reason for staying in Rosario is to visit Bertini no till seeders. I've been wanting to go zero till with discs for years but I haven't been able to find one that I think will do the job at home. A friend put me onto this place and senior Bertini showed me around and explained the whole system. One of the biggest innovations is the plates holding down the stubble so the discs cut it and not hair pin the stubble. The other is the parallelogram placing the weight over the centre of the disc forcing it down while cultivating a seed bed with the front coulter at depth while place the seed with great accuracy. If you've made it this far reading this you will understand what I'm saying. I love the system but the only thing I don't like are the seed boxes on the top, but again it's all part of the system because you need the weight to keep the disc in the ground. I want one, lets hope we have a good year.

Rosario and other stuff

Rosario is one of Argentina's oldest cities. The National flag came from here and many of the locals still believe it should have remained the capital. Argentina is very different to other countries in south America, in that it's incredibly nationalistic with flags every were even more so that the US. They have only one political party, the Peron party, which is like in Australia having only the Liberals to vote for and then having factions inside that party forming government.

Agriculture is one of the only industries making money here so the government put 35% tax on wheat to cross subsidise other industries, thus very little wheat was grown this year which was one of the driver's in the surge of the wheat price. Crazy place!! Oh and in case your thinking of driving, their all mad, they drive like lunatics. You go to love this place, it's never dull.

Mendoza Red

I have to confess, I'm a bit of a fan of the red stuff. So when the opportunity came to visit one of Argentina's largest and most prestigious wineries came up, I was there. Bodegas Lopez produces 50 million litres of wine every year with 95% consumed locally. They use traditional Spanish wine making techniques, aging in oak for up to 6 years their reds and producing dry "easy drinking"wines. The signature wine for the region is Malbec, a dry red grown at altitude. It contributes 60% of the red wine produced and it's very good.

Getting high in the mountains

Traveling from Uruguay to Argentina I couldn't pass the opportunity to visit the Andes. So i traveled to Mendoza for a two day break to indulge in two of my favorite things, mountains ( I you'd to teach outdoor education before farming) and wine (mostly school kids!).

The Andes where spectacular to say the least, we traveled to 3,100m ,above sea level on the road to Chile stopping at the boarder before the tunnel through the mountain. This pass has been used since the late 1800 and in 1910 the first narrow gauge railway was put in which only stopped in the 70's when Argentina and Chile built the existing road and trucks took over the transport. Looking at the rail line, I'd take the road any day.

The Andes have always been a place of recreation and there are ski resorts and thermal springs along the road, which are closed this season because there was no snow. Normally there would be 1m of snow on the mountains but due to the La Nina weather patten it's been very dry, all of the rain has been in the east coast of Australia instead.

Show day

Uruguay's National agricultural show is like any other in the world, except maybe Iowa's state fair. The sheep and cattle are prepped to show, machinery's out for display, there's the show ring and of coarse there's plenty of food.

This is my last stop in Uruguay and I just want to thank Roberto (standing with me by the Argentinian BBQ) for all the help in putting the trip together and all the others that have made this part of the trip so memorable. It's the second time I've been here and I don't think it will be the last, the people are great and always go out of there way to make you feel welcome and most speak English, which is great when if like me your hopeless at Spanish.

Adios Uruguay, Muchas Gracias.

SUL

Ignacio Abella took me to the Sul research farm about two hour out from Montevideo. SUL is the Secretariado Uruguayo De La Lana, in other words, Uruguay's wool Board. Ignacio studied in Australia at Amidale UNE and knows many of the people I'm involved with in the sheep CRC. We had a great day looking around the farm as Ignacio explained the pasture and systems and showed me some of the differences between our two systems. One being the bales of wool. Many years ago, Australia started trialing plastic bales instead of nylon or jute ones, well it caught on in Uruguay and but not Australia and they now baned them with wire. Another difference is in Australia if your going into a wet paddock you take a 4x4 and not a small front wheel drive car! Cheers Ignacio, thanks for the great day.

Miguel's farm

I traveled not far out of Montevideo to Miguel Jimenez De Arechaga's (second from the left) farm. He had 165 ha's under irrigation with half in crop to corn and soy and the other half to Oats, rye grass and lucerne for grazing his 1600 ewes. The rotation was 3 years of pasture then 3 years crop. This is the first time in my travels of 4 months that I have seen a mixed farming enterprise where they rotate crop and livestock. You may also notice that the sheep still have there tails. Uruguay doesn't have the Lucy fly, so they don't get breach strike, thus they haven't needed to mules their sheep.

One of the other things we discussed was the affect the Australian wool politics has on Uruguay. While Australia leads the world in wool it's actions also affect other nations and their sheep flocks. The more I travel the world and talk with other farmers, the more I realize that we all share the same problems and we all need to work closer together.

Mercedes

I stayed in this very typical town over night. It's on the river Negro and it must be beautiful l in the summer. It's a very rural town in the centre of the largest aricultural area of Uruguay.

Montevideo to Mercedes

I spent all of today traveling though the centre of Uruguay directly north of Montevideo to Durazno and then across to Mercedes. This area is traditionally grazing but is being pushed into by large companies looking for more ground to crop. Seen as poorer soils to those on the western half of Uruguay farmer in this area have never tried growing crops. So some large companies from Argentina are coming in and share cropping and purchasing land. The country is much like what we farm in Australia and the crops grow well.

The hole in the system seem to be the amount of Soy beans grown. It's 70% of the crop every year and thus not a lot of rotation between crops and soy leaves very little ground cover and the soils are prone to wash away even under no till. The Uruguayan government has now stepped in and asking for agronomic plans prior to planting and in time may insist on three years of pasture and only two crops on the more fragile soils.

Montevideo

Arrived today in Montevideo, Uruguay, to start my South American trip.The city centre is built on the ocean front and thus miles of high rise along the coast. I had to go shopping tonight for cloths as I arrived without my bag thanks to AA again having lost it mid trip. The shops are open 7 days till 10 pm and most of the restaurants don't open for dinning till 10pm. It's no wonder they need a rest between 12 and 2pm each day.

Boston

I've spent the past week in Boston with family recovering from the past three and a half weeks and 6,500 miles of travel through the Midwest. It was great to catch up with Shirley, Sam, Jake and Emma, in fact it was the first time I had met the kids in person and it was great it be able to spend so much time with them . The Blond women is Aude, she's french, enough said.

Austin Texas

I spent the last two days of my trip though the mid west in Austin Texas. Austin is the live music capital of the US, it's also the home of Stevie Ray Vaughan who died 20 years ago on the 27th August 1990 and the town was in tribute mode when I arrived, which was great as I'm a SRV fan and every second place was playing the blues.

I also got to see Hot Hot Heat and Rooney at Momo's one of Austin best live music venues as well as about 15 other acts around the city both during the day and at night. Austin is unlike any other city in the US, it's very liberal and open and it celebrates it's culture and the fact it's different, in fact their saying is "Keep Austin Weird"

Noble Foundation

I spent two days at the Noble Foundation in Oklahoma and it was one of the highlights of the trip. There doing an amazing amount of work with some of the best ag research facilities I've ever been in. I had a look over some of their transgenic work including in lucerne and Tall fescue. Josh showed me some forage soy beans that looked great and Dave to kiwi showed me around the green houses which are some of the largest in the country. If bugs aren't your thing, then it would be a good place to avoid as their huge.

Driving

If there one part of the trip I've enjoyed the most it's the driving. The roads are great, the traffic move fast without ever stopping and the drivers are the most courteous I've ever encounted. Not once did I hear a horn, when you stop at a all ways stop ( which is like a round about, with out the round part) people all gesture at each other to go, the traffic merges without slowing down and the cars are big and fast.

Included in the collection of photos are some of the cars I would like to take home with me and the endless interstates that are so great to travel on. Also and most importantly is being able to turn right on a red light, Brilliant!

Oklahoma Livestock Exchange

I was traveling through Oklahoma when I saw a sign leading to the Stockyard Livestock Exchange. Firstly it's just outside the city's CBD due to the fact it's been there for more than 100 years and secondly it's a major tourist attraction. There's great places to eat and lots of western wear shops and if that's not enough you can see the cattle being auctioned. The livestock exchange is one of the largest in the country and auctions cattle nearly every day.

No Till in Kansas

Josh Lloyed and Doug Pallen are from Kansas, are two of the best no till farmers I've met. Their both pushing the limits of the system and in seems to me the harder they push the better the results. They've fired me up to re look at our no till system in both the equipment and techniques we use.

No Coast Derby Girls

On the Saturday night I decided to get a bit of American culture and go watch the roller derby in Lincoln. It was the Mad Maxines up against the Pikes Peak Roller Dames. Anna Wrexx-it and Flash Gloria assisted by Lt. SlamHer and Princess Lay Ya Flat dominated the game against Count Smacula, Slaughter Than Hell and Fanny Fister.

There was a mix of people from the hard core fans with posters and T shirts through to Families and people like me just curious to have a look. I have to say it was entertaining, they really put their bodies on the line and take each other out and there is allot of skill in the game. Check it out.

Anyone for free fertilizer

I spent the weekend with a friend of mine Bart Ruth from Rising City, Nebraska. After two and a half weeks and 4,000 miles of traveling through the mid west it was great to spend time with Bart and his family looking around his farm and generally relaxing.

Bart runs a great operation with his son Geof, growing soy bean and corn, no till with most under centre pivot irrigation. But the most interesting part is that a large amount of the water comes from a dairy next door. They need to get rid of the water and it's loaded with nitrogen, phosphors and potassium, a win win for every one. The dairy has about 6000 head and they cut corn silage on Barts place for the feed. A model example of nutrient recycling.

Iowa State Fair

I went to the Iowa state Fair today and had a great time. There was the usual Giant vegi comp, produce display and the butter sculptures.

There were the livestock displays featuring all sorts of breeds including giant boars, miniature Hereford cattle, giant cattle, giant sheep (230kg) and recent inductees to the klu klux klan of sheep. In case your wondering what the lady is doing with the hose, she blow drying them after their shampoo and grooming.

But it was the food that was the standout at the show. If it can be deep fried or covered in cheese, it's for sale here. For the record I didn't sample any of it, any one of those plates contain enough calories to feed a small African village for a month.

There is a serious side to the show and I'll blog about that later. All in all it was a very good show and the people of Iowa are always so welcoming and friendly.

Bailey Yard

Union Pacific's Bailey Yard is the largest train yard in the world. 10,000 cars per day are handled 24 hour a day 365 days per year with over 2500 workers. It's situated in North Platte, which is in the centre of the US. It's 8 mile long and covers 2,800 acres. Rail transport in the US caries everything from frozen peas to coal. When traveling through Wyoming, where the coal comes from, the railway runs along the the side of the road. The coal trains are 130 cars long and are about 5 minutes apart from each other both full and empty. In other states cars, ethanol, fuel, corn and every thing else is frighted by rail, but even with this efficient system 5,000 trucks pass North Platte on the I80 every day.

Traveling through Nebraska

The lack of trees and the wide vistas are the hallmark of the prairies. If all you did was drive down the interstate you would miss the rolling hills and the vast diversity of agriculture.

ARS Akron

Merle Vigil showed me round the trail plots at Akron, Colorado. They run a 20 year rotation trial displaying no till and conventional systems. The no till and variable rotation systems show the best margins long term but most of the farmers still use the wheat fallow rotation and are now moving to corn as the varieties improve.

DNA storage

On Monday I visited Phil Purdy at USDA ARS in Fort Collins, Colorado. We talked about new research in sheep AI and their storage of the DNA of all the animal breeds in the US. The DNA is stored in these Liquid N tanks in a room that is water tight with 1m thick walls. Just in case.

Wyoming

I spent the day traveling around Wyoming with Ken Hamilton, Executive VP of Wyoming Farm Bureau. From snow caped mountains to wide open space with no trees and vistas spreading for hundred of kilometres. There are 500,000 people and 4 million cattle. The main enterprise is breeding stock for the feeder markets going in to Nebraska. Like so many farming areas profitability and farm succession are the main problem areas, but like WA, Wyoming is rich in resources so the economy is booming.