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By Jonathan, September 6, 2011 7:52 pm

When I started this blog, I felt like I was the only one around blogging about rural life. If that was ever true, it certainly isn’t now. Here’s a list of people to contact if you ever want to learn something about rural life. I’ve pulled this list together from the contacts I have on twitter, and this fantastic list of Aussie farm blogs that Alison Fairleigh has put together. It’s by no means exhaustive, if you think I’ve missed someone feel free to add them in a comment!

• If you want to know how your steak is produced, you could ask: Angus cattle breeders Matt Cherry & Shelley Piper. Or send a tweet the way of Belle Baker.
• If you want to know why $1/ Liter milk is not all good and how milk gets to a carton you could read the blog: ‘The Milk Made Marion‘.
• If you want to know where your jeans, t-shirt and undies are grown. Have a ‘yarn’ to the cotton wife. Or send a tweet to Warraboy.
• If you want to know what a free range chicken is talk to Andy, or where to order some green eggs, speak to Shelly Green at Green Eggs.
• If you want to know how Australian sheep or cattle are & should be treated then get in touch with Grahame Rees.
• The folks at Mt Gnomon Farm can show you how they really bring home the bacon.
• What do the terms organic and biodynamic actually mean? They’ll tell you at Ruby Hills Organics.
• If you want to learn what life is like for a farmers wife, you’ll probably get a funny answer from wimmerachic. Wimmera chic farms about 50km up the road from me and has a blog here.
• Finally, if you want to known what goes into the wheat which goes into your pasta or the good and bad behind the GM Canola, you could ask me.

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By Jonathan, July 24, 2011 3:14 pm

Or Upgrade your HDD!

Around 12 months ago I decided to purchase my first ever laptop. The one I settled on was the Asus K52F with the following key specifications:

• An Intel Core i5 M430 processor. Runs at @2.27 Ghz
• 2Gb RAM
• 320Gb 5200 RPM Seagate Hard drive

It had a good CPU which was the main thing I was after. I have my Xbox 360 for gaming, so didn’t care about a graphics card. I had an OK laptop. But it wasn’t great. It didn’t have the 4Gb of RAM I was after and I wasn’t interested in paying big $$$ for a Core i7 processor. So I had every intention of upgrading my laptop from the moment I brought it. What I didn’t realise was how good I could make it via a simple hard drive upgrade. ‘

While the ultimate computer upgrade is always going to be to an SSD, again the expense and tiny capacity make SSDs restrictive, despite the awesomeness they offer. But through my favourite tech blog, I became aware of the Seagate Momentous XT. A mix of size and speed. Then after reading this quote a few months ago, I was sold:

Solid state hard drives are so freaking amazing performance wise, and the experience you will have with them is so transformative, that I don’t even care if they fail every 12 months on average! I can’t imagine using a computer without a SSD any more; it’d be like going back to dial-up internet or 13″ CRTs or single button mice. Over my dead body, man!

I wasn’t interested in playing Russian roulette with an SSD, so I thought I’d try the compromise hybrid hard drive. I lashed out and brought a 500Gb Seatgate Momentus XT and for good measure, another 4Gb of RAM. Best upgrade ever. Adding in the RAM improved performance modestly, but when I combined that with the Hybrid hard drive wonderful things happened. It has the speed & feel of a much more expensive laptop.

The only speed test I can offer you, is the boot-up times. Before the upgrade, it took my laptop a tardy 1:39 to power up and load windows and be ready to use. This is was the speed of a near new laptop. The boot-up time with the extra RAM & better hard drive is around 40 seconds. More than twice as fast, that’s a  60% improvement on the speed out of the box!

My laptop is now a much zappier:

• An Intel Core i5 M430 processor. Runs at @2.27 Ghz
• 6Gb RAM
• 500Gb Seagate Momentous XT

For a couple of hundred dollars I’ve been able to vastly improve my laptop. As a result I’ll get a lot more use and years out of it. Next time your computer is feeling a bit slow & creaky if it’s less than 4-5 years old you can probably extend it’s life with some more RAM and/or a better hard drive.

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By Jonathan, September 22, 2010 9:22 pm

They play me on the radio,
and that’s the way I like it. – Ben Lee

Last Friday morning, I was thrilled to be phone interviewed by am ABC rural journalist from Tasmania. He was doing a story on farmers who use twitter and was given my (twitter account) name by the organiser of #agchatoz, our weekly twitter chat about all things agriculture related. It was really cool to be able to share on my two career passions, web technology and agriculture. The story was broadcast today on the Tasmanian ‘Country Hour’, the ABC radio’s rural news and current affairs show. It was really positive & will hopefully encourage more farmers & people involved in Ag to start tweeting & telling Ag’s story.

Check it out and find out how farmers are using social media to keep track of current industry news, sell produce & (in my case) chat with politicians:

Check out the ABC Rural news story: “Farmers turn to Twitter to market their produce”

The ABC Rural blog: “Farmers don’t really use Twitter….. do they?”

You can also listen to the podcast of the original radio article at the above location on the ABC rural blog.

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By Jonathan, August 18, 2010 12:00 pm

Something new and exciting has started happening in Australian Agriculture over the past few weeks. For the first time, Australians interested in all things farm and agriculture related are getting together on Twitter to discuss their trade.

It’s been called ‘agchatoz’ and happens every Tuesday night from 8pm EST. This twitter chat was started by a small group of us Aussies who decided that we could copy the tweeting success of the American based ‘Agchat Foundation‘. The format of the chat is that there will be a moderator who poses questions around a particular theme to all who are following. These questions are used as conversation starters and allow different viewpoints to be heard and issues raised. ‘AgchatOz’ has been growing in popularity every week since its debut, with tonight’s chat being the best yet.

‘AgchatOz’ was particularly topical this evening because it featured an appearance by Tony Burke, who is our Australian Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry as well as Minister for Sustainable Population. He was an active participant in the conversation and also responded to many questions, including my own. Just to really emphasise this let me restate: I was able to ask questions and receive instant responses from a member of federal cabinet just 4 days before a federal election*. Read that last sentence again and think about how social media is changing our world. The Internet has such potential to improve and revolutionise the democratic process. It makes the sharing of information so easy that one can instantly ask questions, share ideas and solicit feedback.

Tweeting with Tony Burke

Our national broadcaster has also been getting in on the act, with a couple of twitter chats being hosted at other times by ABC Rural. I’ve found all of these conversations great. They offer opinions and dialogue that would otherwise never occur. Conversations that aim to educate and share can only be a positive thing. So please, if you are all interested in farming, have any questions at all about agriculture, or just want to join in and learn via observation, then hop over to twitter and search for, or use the hash tag #agchatoz or even simply #agchat.

*Oh yeah, and I didn’t have to get off my couch to do it.

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By Jonathan, July 13, 2010 2:19 pm

Farmers aren’t stereotypically known for their ability to adopt and embrace new technologies. Which is often unfortunate because business and farming practice in agriculture is constantly changing and evolving, as it always has done. This is one of the several things I’ve found that IT & Agriculture have in common: The need to constantly improve and stay informed of industry trends and, dare I say it, ‘best practice’. To this end I’ve been fortunate enough to attend 2 industry development events since our busy time of seeding has finished.

The first one, (that I tweeted about) was a two day conference in Adelaide focusing on ‘precision agriculture’. The conference was hosted by a group called the Southern Precision Agriculture Association (SPAA). SPAA’s website states that:

SPAA is a non-profit and independent membership based group formed in 2002 to promote the development and adoption of precision agriculture (PA) technologies.

Our mission is to facilitate research, extension and the adoption of precision agriculture.

The idea behind ‘Precision Agriculture’ is that with the arrival of new technologies like GPS guidance, satellite imagery, and remote sensing, farmers can allow for and farm according to the natural variations within paddocks. This has numerous potential applications, but it means that farmers can do things like decrease fertilizer application in areas of a paddock that continually under-perform. Wikipedia contains a more in-depth intro to precision agriculture.

The second event I attended was put on by a non-profit farm research organisation called the Birchip Cropping Group. ‘ It was a one day event called the ‘Grains Research Expo‘ and featured all manner of agriculture related seminars and exhibitors. Some of the things I was able to do on the day included:

• Meet a professional weather forecaster.
• Hear about industry experts in grains marketing.
• Learn about the potential of gene technology to produce more drought tolerant types of wheat.
• Hear about the issues faced by other farmers where multiple generations are working together on the family farm.

These industry events are great for hearing about new things and networking with other farmers. As a new guy in the industry I’ve been able to learn a lot from them an hope to be able to attend more in the future!

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By Jonathan, June 2, 2010 5:15 pm

As I sit in the tractor driving it, the cultivator and connected air-seeder while listening to Day 3 of the Hamish and Andy ‘Caravan of Courage’ tour, I’m pondering a couple of different questions:

1. Who owns the ‘Clarkson – The Ultimate Collection’ DVD I just found behind the passenger seat? Yep, this tractor has a passenger seat.
2. How can it be that I’ve made so few posts recently?

Not something you expect to find in a tractor.

Fortunately, I can answer both of these questions quite easily. As I alluded to at the top, I’m on the tractor, and as well as myself there are only 2 others who drive this tractor regularly. One of them Is my dad, the other is my uncle. One is a car buff, the other probably doesn’t know who Jeremy Clarkson is. One has a PS3, the other doesn’t. Uncle Jack, if you can’t find your DVD it’s because I’ve borrowed it.

Q2: We are about 2/3rds of the way through seeding. Seeding, as the name suggests is where we plant all our crops to start another growing season. Along with harvest, it is one of our two really busy times for the year. It is busy because the ideal planting time is only a 4-6 week window around now. The possibility of weather delays and the inevitability of machinery breakdowns only add to the urgency.

An idea of what I spend most of my days seeing.

However as simple as seeding is, we have some pretty cool technology helping us do it. Our tractors are all fitted with GPS guided ‘auto-steer’, which means they can supposedly steer accurate to 2cm. Our is experience is that while it isn’t quite that perfect, it is still brilliant! It is much more accurate than a human operator could be and it allows us to plant in between the rows of last years left over crop stubble. While this gives our crops many agronomic benefits, the coolest thing for me is sitting in a machine that can drive itself! I can’t overstate how cool that is! The future is here!

The seeding depth is also automated via four infrared sensors along the front of the cultivator. These sensors measure the height of the cultivator from the ground and the controller in the cabin directs the cultivator up or down. Likewise, once I set the hand throttle the tractor will travel at it’s set speed until I shift it. Which brings me back to the DVD. A DVD is useless without a DVD player. Yes, we’ve installed a 7″ LCD DVD player, which usually displays the inside of our air-seeder so we know when to fill up. But of course, it can play DVDs, which can be watched because everything is automated in this tractor while seeding. Which gives me the ability to write blog posts or watch DVDs. I only need to be sure that I steer around trees, and at the end of a pass!

View of the Cultivator & Air Seeder at night

So that’s a little bit about seeding and my lack of posts recently! Anything surprise you? Any questions or comments?

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By Jonathan, May 9, 2010 6:46 pm

I achieved something close to nerd farming nirvana for a short while on Wednesday afternoon. This very rare and beautiful state was achieved as  I was sitting on the tractor and planting canola. For you see, this tractor was driving in gun-barrel straight lines courtesy of the 2cm accurate auto-steer that was steering it. At the same time as I was being directed by these invisible satellites, I was on my phone participating in an online Twitter discussion hosted by @abcrural. This was farming I could handle! Sometimes, technology is just awesome.

To repeat: I was participating in a live twitter discussion using my iPhone 3Gs over the Next G network while sitting on a tractor that was steering itself with 2cm satellite guided accuracy while pulling planting equipment weighing several tonnes. Farming has come a long way.

When I first started back at the farm I discovered an entire network of farmers using social media. This group was headed up by the folks over at Ag Chat & was linking together farmers from all over the world. I’ve found it really interesting ‘following’ American farmers, and reading about the totally different challenges they have and the way they farm. However this Twitter chat that I participated in on Wednesday was fantastic as it’s the first Australian based one that I’ve come across. It was started by the rural reporting arm of the Australian ABC. This is great because it provides a way for Aussie farmers and ruralites to connect and discuss issues online through social media. Hopefully it will grow and thrive as it’s American equivalent has and farmers from all around can engage both with each other and the consumers around them.