Duane Bozarth wrote:
Brock Ulfsen wrote:
I seem to recall that most Vets had a certificate (like a trade
qualification) until well within my lifetime.

From my perspective, that's incomprehensible...

Kind of like doing a nursing course at a hospital (Australia moved to
University bases nursing training only in the last 10 or 15 years) as
opposed to getting a degree in medicine.

DPI handled stuff "in house" until it was gutted about 10 years ago.

Who/what is DPI?

Department of Primary Industries, each State has one.

Ah, we've been growing things like Durum wheat here. Queenlands
wheatbelt is in warm temperate and subtropical climates.

But there is a lot of hard white and red wheat grown as well somewhere
down there--otherwise we wouldn't be fighting so hard for market export
share...

Possibly in the far south of Western Australia. The US doesn't export,
it dumps, when it has surplusses, it undercuts us, then often can't
deliver in later years at any price. We can't do the same, the US
complains to the WTO. Also the US sunsidises farmers, we don't. And they
subsidise exports, we don't do that either.

I wouldn't like wheat quite that short for the reasons stated
before--would force one to run the combine header nearly on the ground
which makes for picking up lots of dirt and wear on the lower carriage
in order to not miss the shorter than average heads.

Our combines have been evolving pretty fast.

No faster than those here, I'm sure. Actually, that raises an
interesting question--is most of your ag equipment designed/built there
or is it from somewhere else, perhaps adapted to specific conditions?

The main chasis come from the US. Europe, China, but working gear is
usually added here. Very small market, for medium to large machines mostly.

Typical new machine for us--

http://www.deere.com/en_US/ProductCa...leVersion.html

One difference w/ us may be that we're all dryland in rain-limited areas
so that a variety which reaches 2 ft in trials where the rainfall is
adequate probably won't make that in most years for us. Add to that the
shorter than average heads and one is running the header on the ground
to avoid missing some heads.

We trial in the ares we grow, our farmers don't trust glossy books
without seeing a few hectares growin in their district. Good source of
income for those with highway frontage, grow sample crops with bigs
signs up...

....Brock.