Across the Ditch: Derrick and Kerry Barnes - taking the heat out of volatile crops

Australia is the world’s largest exporter of chickpeas, with around 790,000 tonnes sent offshore last year - worth about $600 million to the local economy.

Getting machine hygiene right is all important when working with volatile crops.

But while its nitrogen-fixing properties make chickpeas a good option as part of a rotation, it’s fair to say chickpeas are one of the least popular crops to harvest for both contractors and farmers alike.

Chickpeas are considered high risk, with more header fires during harvest than with any other crop.

The problem is around the amount of dust and chaff produced which can build up on the machinery or stick to oil around hydraulic motors, especially around the exhaust, where it can start smouldering. If not cleaned off, the header may catch fire.

Derrick Barnes first came across chickpeas seven years ago on his first stint driving headers around the Clermont area in Queensland.

Having done several years of header work on local cereal crops around the Bordertown area of South Australia, Derrick admits he was startled to find the header - the same model Case IH 2188 machine he had used without issue on other crops - was smouldering a couple of times every lap of the chickpea paddock.

It turns out all header brands are prone to the fire issue, especially when there has been low rain fall close to harvest. The rain washes off some of the malic and oxalic acid the plants produce, which can make the dust stick together inside the header. Bearing failures, low humidity, and high wind speeds also add to the problem, as does cutting close to the ground, which increases the risk of the cutter hitting rocks and causing sparks.

Ten or 12 headers burn to the ground every season while harvesting various crops across the country. With an operator tragically dying from burns in the Goolhi district NSW in December last year, this reinforces the need to take extra care during harvest especially around volatile crops.

Insurance woes

About eight years ago, during a bumper harvest season, 16 or 17 headers burnt out nationally, with at least five in Queensland while harvesting heavy chickpea crops.

This caused some concern for insurance companies and has led to a continued tightening up around header insurance for contractors, putting significant pressure on them to find affordable insurance, if they could find itat all.

“For someone without backing, or a farm for collateral, it’s almost impossible to get insurance now,” says Derrick.

He was fortunate, he reckons, that his wife Kerry’s farm was already insured with Elders, who were still giving out contract insurance for existing customers. The insurance issue led some contractors to opt out of harvesting volatile crops.

Coming clean

“I used to be scared of chick-peas and lentils because of that fire issue, but it all comes down to the cleanliness of your machine. Although if you’ve got a banger that’s on its way out, it’s going to catch fire.”

Good hygiene around the machine is needed, including blowing out dust regularly, along with not operating when risks are high.

This preference not to harvest volatile crops has been something of a windfall for Derrick, with more work on offer.

His headers are cleaned religiously every two hours, blowing them down with a big diesel compressor, and sees him with no qualms about taking on the volatile crops.

His 2018 Case IH 8240 had no issues this year during harvest, although the older 2015 model 8240 had some smouldering under the exhaust, if cleaning happened any time after two hours.

More South Australian farmers are moving away from canola and have gone into wheat/lentils or barley, he says. Changes to his fronts have seen more lentil work come his way and now makes up around a quarter of the work.

“Lentils are worth quite a lotof money and yield pretty good, when they yield,” he says.

“But they’re a low crop and the paddocks have to be rolled. You also need a specialised harvester for them.”

When a worker wrote off one of his fronts a couple of years ago, Derrick found it was a blessing in disguise as he replaced it with a flex front.

“Since then, I’ve had many people ask if I can come and do their lentils.

“Farmers who approach us have often tried to harvest them with a normal rigid front and they just can’t get them all. At $1000/tonne they can be leaving 250kg on the ground - that’s $250 on the ground per hectare.

”He has since sold another rigid front, replacing it with a flex, so is open to doing more lentil work.

“Because lentils are a lot higher wearing, putting sand in your header, ruining your knife and guard pretty quick because you’re literally licking the dirt, I charge $100 more a rotor hour to do them.”

Safe harvesting is one of the messages pushed by the nation-wide Australian Custom Harvester Association, where Derrick is now treasurer. Getting involved with the group has also seen him able to pick up a lot of useful information about crops or varieties he hadn’t tackled before.

“That’s why people get contractors in – there’s a lot of different crops and different conditions; it’s not the same thing all the time.”

The association encourages the use of a harvest agree ment the client signs giving certainty for both parties. This stipulates the terms of the contract can’t be changed part way through, and covers things like damage to equipment.

There has been a lot of new country cleared in the last four or five years in NSW, Derrick reckons. This often results in poorer prep work on some new paddocks - to get a crop in the ground quickly.

Being careful with the machine sees Derrick going slower, so it costs more.

“If you put a stick through the machine and it breaks some-thing, the farmer pays for it. If you go to a job and they say they won’t pay for any damage - you don’t do the job.”

Other benefits include getting good discounts from their sponsors, which sees cheaper repair bills.

Derrick and Kerry have taken the hurdles of building their contracting business, while also farming and raising a young family, in their stride. It has also seen them enjoying an adventurous new life.

Having their first child Harry, five years ago, was the catalyst for the change to contracting for the couple.

Both had grown up on sheep farms with Derrick’s parents farming a 1000-acre farm at western flat near Bordertown. Expanding that business had seen his parents buying trucks and moving into transport – something his father loved.

Derrick started taking over the farm when he was old enough, with his parents eventually moving to Adelaide where his father still drives trucks.

Kerry’s grandfather was one of the original pioneering farmers 300kms away in the Riverland area. While the area is famous for its vineyards, the land is fairly marginal for farming and more prone to droughts.

Kerry grew up on her parent’s 7000-acre farm, where they had share-croppers on 5500 acres and ran sheep on the rest. She and her mother now own the farm since her father died.

Despite not having been involved with cropping before ,since getting to know Derrick, Kerry is now an old hand at spraying, driving the header, chaser bins and trucks. While she may not have the same mechanical background, they make a good team with Kerry also doing the books, helping with the treasury work for the association, as well as running around after the kids.

Along with harvesting for other contractors as well as farming, Derrick had been truck drivingf or a few years and wanted to be closer to home once Harry was born.

With the growing season going particularly well that year they decided to try their luck and see if they could pick up some harvesting work. They invested in a newer $25k header and BarnesAg Contract Harvesting began.

Being a bit strapped for cash after buying the header, and to keep costs down that first year, rather than hiring a truck, they drove the header for four days to get to their first interstate job in NSW. An adventure in itself, this also meant they had to stop every four hours to feed Harry who was only six months old. Since then, the whole family has been going on the road each harvest season with their two headers including young Olivia, who is nearly two.

The kids also enjoy the lifestyle, travelling in the headers and trucks - it is an adventure for them, says Kerry.

“For the majority of the jobs there’s usually a house or dongas to stay in and sometimes other kids to play with,” she says.

One of the highlights of the harvesting season has become work on Kangaroo Island, where they load the headers onto a ferry at Cape Jervis, for the 45 minute ride to the island. They work in with ferry owner Sealink to see what days are going to be best and need to book early.

After issues with overhanging trees when the headers are delivered to the ferry on trucks, this year they drove the headers down. While there wasn’t any damage and they had escorts, Derrick admits there were still some impatient drivers in smaller vehicles around.

Being a popular tourist destination close to Adelaide, the header gets a lot of attention both getting on and off the ferry and while operating, with tourists often stopping their cars to take photos.

The island is all rolling hills with beautiful sea views from the paddocks.There is also a lot of wildlife there, which is one of the biggest issues for farmers on the island, with little wallabies eating a lot of the crops. Wallaby-proof fencing is going in more now, which helps a lot, Derrick reckons.

But the close proximity to the sea does have its challenges.Dew coming in off the water can see starts as late as 11am, with early finishes also common for the same reason. But being able to go out to breakfast every morning helps give the work a holiday feel to it, Derrick reckons.

“Everyone told me before going over there to take a deck of cards or some games because you’ll be sitting around all the time. But the farmer has a drier so it’s not too bad. We can put the grain in the drying silo so we can harvest with a bit higher moisture.”

Changes ahead

With Harry just starting school and Olivia going to kindy, this regular nomadic lifestyle is coming to an end for Kerry and the kids.

With the contracting business going well, Derrick has just traded in the older Case IH 8240 for a newer 8250. He likes to buy machinery with 800 rotor hours on it as it can be considerably cheaper. There are plans over the next few years to expand further and buy another couple of headers.

Other changes to make life less hectic will see Kerry’s farm sold with crop farming moved closer to home on a block of land with better soil and rainfall in Mallee, which they picked up a couple of years ago.

Sheep numbers will drop to around 700 animals and everything will be within 150 km of home.

While Derrick will continue on the harvest migration each year from mid-September, the plan is for Kerry to stay closer to home and for the children to have a more settled school life, travelling to see Derrick in the school holidays.

This will also give Kerry more time with the other passion in her life which she shares with her mother – Australian stock horses. A regular at eventing when younger, and having competed at the Melbourne and Adelaide Royal Shows, Kerry now does showing and dressage breed shows when she gets the chance.

It seems it won’t be long before Harry and Olivia will be having as much fun in the saddle as they do in a header.