The beercan boat set to travel 3700kms - overland!

[onetrack]

Well, things must be a bit slow in the Northern Wheatbelt of W.A. - because a couple of blokes in the tiny town of Wyalkatchem (Wy-al-katch-em) have built a beer can boat out of 8,500 beer cans - and built it specifically to take part in the upcoming 50th Anniversary of the Darwin Lions, Beer can Regatta! To do so, they have to transport the boat 3,700kms overland to Darwin! 😮

 

I trust they have a lot of cushioning sorted out to sit the boat on, on it's trailer - because 3,700kms of roads is surely going to test the strength of those beercans!!

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-24/darwin-beer-can-regatta-ss-wyalkatchem-boat-wa/104102708

[willedoo]

When asked about the four keel design, one of the blokes said - wait for it - " That's why I'll catch 'em ".

[Litespeed]

I noted the emu lager was donated.

 

Not even saleable in hot WA.

[willedoo]

I remember when I worked in the Kimberleys in the 1980's we used to drink Emu Bitter. It was strong, almost 6% from memory. I can also remember the next morning you would feel like you'd been kicked by an emu.

[willedoo]

22 hours ago, onetrack said:

the tiny town of Wyalkatchem

I've got a cousin who lives just south of there near Tammin. Those blokes with the beer can boat would know him for sure. He moved over there in the early 2000's to run his wife's family's property as well as his cropdusting business. They farm about 11,000 hectares. I still can't get my head around the type of soils in that wheatbelt compared to the black soil plains I'm used to. I guess at the end of the day, the soil is just a medium to hold the plant up and the W.A. farmers put a fair bit of fertiliser and additives into it.

[onetrack]

Yes, the soils are pretty marginal and so is the rain - but they take every opportunity to use every drop of moisture and use every trick in the book to keep the soil productive. Alkalinity and thin topsoil are the main problems there.

In the heavy clay country (mostly the flats) where the big trees grow (or grew), soil packing is their enemy - and in the lighter scrubby soils, it used to be trace element deficiency, which meant crops were extremely poor when the country was first cleared and they weren't aware of the extent of the problem. The old timers just regarded the "light country" as useless and avoided clearing it.

 

But it took a clever W.A. University researcher and a few wise farmers to figure out that the lighter sandy soils were deficient in trace elements, which made the crops unable to take up nutrients.

Once trace elements were applied to the light soils (it only took small amounts), the lighter soils produced cropping yields on a par with the heavy soils.

 

https://www.science.org.au/fellowship/fellows/biographical-memoirs/eric-john-underwood-1905-1980

[willedoo]

It certainly would be challenging. As far as I know, my cousin is one of the new breed of high tech farmers and relies on a lot of data for decision making. I guess with the high input cost of requirements for that type of soil, cost reduction is the way to make it profitable and that's where the data crunching comes into play. It must be working as they get up to 15% return on investment (depending on seasonal conditions and prices) when the national average is around 4%. I remember him as a smart kid and his father was a clever farmer for his time. Taking up cropdusting was a good backgrounding in how data can be used to improve productivity. A lot of them now are also putting in multiple weather stations on properties that include soil moisture meters. The tech has come a long way since the days when John Deere first started logging crop yields in their harvesters and collating that with GPS data. Putting the right amount of fertiliser in the right place and not wasting it where it's not needed would be a big cost saving on large broadacre properties.

[facthunter]

Soil PH has a lot to do with making nutrients available to the Plant. .   Nev