02 June 2004: Three time winner of the Premer Shield, Keith Norman is a long time grower of Pacific Seeds grain sorghum varieties. The crop which won him the 2004 shield, was no exception. Mr Norman said the winning crop of Pacific MR43 yielded 9t/ha.

At "Romney Vale" Quirindi, zero till and traffic minimisation are key management techniques.To this end, the dryland crop that was planted zero till in late November was fertilised at planting with a blend of 200kg/ha of urea and 50kg/ha Gran-Am plus 40kg/ha StarterZ which meets the crop's sulphur requirements.

"It was all done in one run, the only time the tractor is on the paddock is at planting," Mr Norman said.

In the 2003/04 season, Mr Norman planted the majority of his ground to MR-Buster (350ha), with 150ha planted to MR43. He said MR43 performs on a par in most years with MR-Buster at his property, "Romney Vale". "It's just as good as Buster at our place," he said.

Elite® treated seed is also a feature of the operation, although the winning crop was planted with seed left over from last year’s plant and treated at the property with Gaucho® and Concep® insecticide treatment.
"It was a pretty exceptional crop," he said. "It was planted at the end of November, and the later crops didn't suffer in the heat the way early ones did, it definitely handled the heat better (than crops planted earlier)."

Across the 500ha of sorghum planted, Mr Norman said they were expecting an average yield of around 7.5t/ha.

Evidence of the effectiveness of his farm management techniques, is the fact that part of last season's sorghum crop was the eighth year of sorghum planted back to back.. The winning crop of Pacific MR43 was the fourth straight year of sorghum back to back on that ground.

Caption: Keith Norman with the 2004 Premer Shield awarded for his crop of Pacific MR43 which yielded 9t/hectare.