Your best year ever.
What would it take to make 2025 your best farming year yet? It’s a big question, but one worth asking as we kick off another season. I’m always curious about how each farming business sets itself up for the year ahead.
Farming is never a straight line. it’s a constant balance of risk, reward, and making the best call with the information and resources at hand. I often joke that keeping an eye on the neighbour can be one part of your business strategy.
What, then, would it take to make 2025 the best cropping season you’ve ever had? Taking as read the wish list of rain at the right time, no frost, no disease, and a grain price that holds when you need it, success will come down to a few key things.
I feel sometimes as if I am repeating myself and, indeed, preaching to the converted. Even so, I believe that it doesn’t hurt to reemphasise the four crucial elements: tightening nitrogen-use efficiency, retaining stored soil moisture, fine-tuning sowing dates and selecting varieties that balance yield potential with frost and heat tolerance.
If the first couple of months are any indication, keeping weeds in check without blowing the budget will be critical. And, of course, knowing when to hold fast to your established plan and when to adapt as the season unfolds.
Are there other critical factors? No doubt. That’s where BCG comes in: trialling, testing, questioning and, we hope, offering solutions. The best farming years aren’t always the easiest, but they’re the ones from which you walk away knowing you made the best decisions with the information you had.
This newsletter includes the program for BCG’s Members-Only Trials Review Day on February 21, an event which offers the opportunity to gain insights that could make all the difference this season. If you’re not already a member, now’s the time to join ($500 well spent) and support BCG in bringing valuable research dollars back into our region.
So, here’s to 2025. Your best farming year yet. And if your neighbour’s crop ends up looking just as good as yours … well, maybe copying you was part of their business plan. 😊
