A YouTube segment (Over The Fence West) describing the Plaza plough, a modified Chamberlain one-way disc plough developed by Ben and Sean Plaza to invert non-wetting sandy/gravel topsoil and incorporate lime at depth. The clip includes farmer testimony from Mr. Brown (who crops about 2,000 ha) reporting expectations that yields (previously ~3 t/ha wheat and ~2 t/ha lupin) could be restored after Plaza ploughing. The plough has been trialled alongside other amelioration techniques in a Department of Agriculture and Food WA and GRDC-funded trial and is presented as a low-cost, robust middle-ground between rotary spaders and mouldboard ploughs.
Questions this video answers
November 8, 2016.
2,000 hectares.
About 3 tonnes/ha for wheat and 2 tonnes/ha for white lupin (historical high yields).
Chapters
A farming innovation by the name of the Plaza plough could offer Western Australian grain growers a new way to alleviate severe non wetting soil issues. Developed by Iniaba brothers Ben and Sean Plaza, it's made up of a one way disc Chamberlain plough with Market Garden style discs to invert the top non wetting sandy and gravel layer of the soil while also incorporating lime at depth. We got lucky and found the secret that made it work, which was basically pulling out every second disc and then rejigged the plough to suit. And we got a big surprise when all of a sudden we could invert soil far deeper, far more emphatically than we could previously in any way. Will Brown, the owner of this property, he realised the value and got the local grower groups involved, or the grower group that we're involved with and trials were organised and then that gave us incentive to try significantly harder. So I put quite a bit of time into developing disc. Mr. Brown, who crops 2,000 hectares of wheat, barley, canola and Aleutins at Waradaji Hill on the property next door to the Plazas, believes the plough has the potential to pay yield dividends. It's very tangible, the benefits of the Plaza plowing, I guess this paddock that we're standing in has, when it was first cropped 20 years ago, was growing good, nice, high yielding, maybe 3 tonne wheat crop and 2 ton lupine crop, which just as the non wetting got worse petered out to, you know, one and a half or sort of half that. So I'd be hoping that will return to those 3 tonne wheat, 2 ton white lupin sort of yields. The plough has been tested along with other soil amelioration techniques as part of a jointly funded Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia, Australia and Grains Research and Development Corporation trial assessing options for managing water repellent gravel soils. According to Mr. Plozer, the very low cost modified plough is similar to other machines designed to alleviate non wetting, with an advantage of its greater ability to handle more paddock impediments, including rocks, loose tree roots and stumps. This sort of in my mind sit largely in the middle between a rotary spader and moulboard in effect. So mouldboard definitely does the nicest, prettiest job. And a rotary spade no doubt mixes probably better than the others, but this sort of sits in the middle and if you put a shovel through it and have a look where your topsoil's gone, it's pretty good. So you get a pretty even distribution from top to bottom and quite adequate levels of subsoil brought up and spread out over the top the following year. The soil condition of the paddock is completely different. You go from complete non wetting to complete sponge wetting. It's very emphatic and very good. Germination is really good strai. I guess it doesn't really do anything special that the other two processes do, but it can handle pretty ugly conditions if you are sensible and give it a chance.
