Agronomists Ashley Wallace and Frank Henry think the Longy Challenge is well named; for five years their Departmental entries in the crop growing competition based at Longerenong College, (known as Longy) near Horsham, were close to the best but not close enough to get the winning score.
But now, as the competition comes to a close for the final time, figures show that the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources' five years of effort has come up trumps.
"After five years our team finally had a win growing the highest yielding and most profitable faba bean crop in the 2014 Challenge," Mr Wallace, pictured right with Steve Drum and Frank Henry, said.
"The Department also achieved the highest five-year gross margin, narrowly beating the Longy students followed by Victorian No Till Farmers Association."
Mr Wallace said keys to the success were careful variety selection and containing costs with simple, conservative chemical and fertiliser applications.
"Soil testing at the start of the rotation gave us plenty of confidence to run with a conservative nutrition program and input from leading pathologists made for strong disease management choices.
"Our main aim was to ensure that we grew a crop."
Fellow Department team member Frank Henry said the Longy Challenge was initially established by Rob Christie from Nuseed in 2009.
"In more recent years it has been organised by Steve Drum and Bryan Matuschka, agronomy lecturers at Longerenong College," Mr Henry said.
"The challenge site was host to canola in 2010, wheat in 2011, chickpeas in 2012, barley in 2013 and faba beans in 2014.
"While 2014 was the challenge's last season, it has certainly provided many lessons for those involved over the years."
"We would like to thank those from within the Department who had input over the years and also the organisers of the challenge for doing the hard work of making it all happen."
For more information see http://anz.ipni.net/topic/longerenong-cropping-challenge
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