A shortage of new and secondhand tillage machinery has played into the hands of a Barellan farmer who imports used air seeders.

David Irvin has six secondhand 18.3m John Deere 1830 No-Till Air Drill and air carts up to 15,000 litres awaiting delivery to Australia for the next sowing season.

On his own property, Barralong, David uses a John Deere 9410 R tractor to pull a tow-between 15,000 litre air cart and 18.3m, 72 tyne JD 1830 bar.

He uses zero till across the farm with a seeding depth of 30mm on a 25cm row spacing.

“A few years ago, we set up a double cart configuration and we were able to put Urea, fertiliser and wheat out at the same time using two carts,” he said.

“We will do that again next season as we have a few extra carts coming in.”

Mr Irvin has the second-hand implements disassembled in Canada and reassembled at Barellan once they arrive.

“There are a lot of characteristics I like on the JD 1830 – we use a knife edge point and also mid row-skip row urea.

“It puts urea out on the ground prior to the tynes going through the ground, keeping it away from the seed.

“We are on a 25cm row spacing so the Urea goes out every 50cm and allows the dirt to be thrown over the top of the Urea, then later on the rain pushes it down into the seed profile.

“Not many people have gone down this track – I’ve been keen on it and about three years ago we set it up.”

Mr Irvin said soil throw is about 7.5cm, with 20mm soil coverage over the urea at a sowing speed of 9-10km/hr.

The bars are configured with 7.5cm x 52.5cm, semi pneumatic packer wheels on behind.

They are positioned between the rows of knife edge points to allow a smoother seed bed after seeding to enable pulse crops to be harvested without clods.

“The packer wheels work well to smooth out the clods and leave a little valley to catch the water,” Mr Irvin said.

“Some of the carts come with conveyors and others with augers, and different configurations of duals and singles.”

Mr Irvin has imported seven units into Australia, ranging from 12m to 18m in width.

“It fills the gap between new and second-hand machines in Australia – they have done in the vicinity of 6072 ha (15,000 acres) to 16,194ha (40,000 acres),” he said. “Some farmers in Australia do 40,000 acres in one year so it is fairly minimal. They come off small farms of 809ha to 1214ha where they have to seed fast in a small sowing window.

“Their ability to get over the country quickly is important whereas in Australia we really only started to move into the 60 footers (18m) a few years ago.”

The importation business started when David bought several antique John Deere tractors from the US.

“Then I started looking on the internet for air seeders when we needed to go to a 60 foot bar, and ended up buying one in Canada.”

Up until COVID, David was regularly taking groups of farmers to Canada on machinery buying tours.

He said the Federal Government tax incentive on machinery had activated many inquiries.

“There is not enough new and second-hand machinery in Australia, especially tractors, so we have had a reasonable amount of interest in our air seeders.

“They are selling into Victoria and NSW, including the local region. I do all the finding, buying and importing.”

The 23 day buying trips in 2014 and 2016 involved intensive searches for the right machines mixed with sight-seeing.

“I used to break the machines down myself in Canada with a couple of workers but cannot do that now due to COVID,” Mr Irvin said.

“The sheer satisfaction of doing it myself is huge – I cannot measure it.”