For the past six decades the Dowerin Machinery Field Days has showcased the latest international farm machinery along with homemade innovations that are world leading in their design.

When the Dowerin community came together back in the 1960’s to raise funds to water the local footy oval and tennis courts by running a farm machinery field day a tradition was started; a tradition that has grown to become one of Australia’s leading farm events.

Over the decades the rapidly changing technology on display each year has been a showcase of an industry hungry to adopt the biggest and the best from around the globe.

As technology advanced, so has the machinery. Today’s farm machinery combines advanced engineering and sophisticated ag technology to drive efficiency and productivity to levels even recently thought to be unachievable.

This combination of design and technology and modern farming management practices has allowed WA farmers to improve their resilience to better manage the myriads of risks that come with running complex farming operations.

Our state’s grain growers have long been drivers of innovation and early adopters of technology as they race to compete in an increasingly competitive globalised world that demands more grain from every hectare and labour unit to remain viable.

A Journal of Agriculture paper written in 1967 by A.W Hogstram on the past, present and projected future of the industry highlighted that farms were already on a trajectory of increasing in size as the number of broadacre farm businesses peaked at 22,000 at the time before starting the long downward run as neighbours brought out neighbours.

Farmers were needing new technology and bigger machinery to manage the increase in acres they were cropping. This came mostly through the use of ever-increasing horsepower, width and complexity of machinery as capital replaced labour. 

The “cost-price squeeze” on agricultural products, was driving continuous improvements in farm efficiency and productivity and WA farmers were leading the charge. 

Back then wheat was the grain of choice dominating three quarters of the cropping followed by oats and barley, with total crop area of 8.4 million acres (3.4 million hectares), less than a third of what is planted today. 

In 1970, under wheat quotas, CBH Group receivals were 1.8m tonnes, fast forward to 2023 and this tonnage has grown tenfold with an unprecedented 22.9m tonnes going through their bins.

The last sixty years has been an exciting time to be involved in the WA grains industry as change has been the one constant. To mark this year, we have reached out to our older farmers and long-term exhibitors to share with us their recollections of the game changers.

The following list is by no means reflective of all the innovations witnessed but here are a few that marked a turning point in the adoption of new machinery.

Experimenting with no-till farming and the practice of minimal disturbance of the soil during seeding began in the 1960s and many believe West Australian Garry Hine of Wellstead to be Australia’s first no-tiller.

It took until the early 1970s for the first boom sprays to be on display at the Field Days as the 70’s saw the widespread take up of herbicides being used to control weeds. 

While the first boom sprays were homemade, innovative local manufacturers quickly began producing their own versions leading to the development of what today is a booming domestic spray machinery manufacturing industry. Who can ever forget the Computer Sprayer with its distinctive bubble tank or the blob dobber foam marker.

With bulk came bigger tractors with local farmers across the eastern Wheatbelt opting to build their own four wheeled drive tractors. This led to the iconic Phillips Acremaster tractors being built between 1974 and 1983 in Merredin, starting a trend of sophisticated farm machinery being designed and built locally.

The late 1970s saw the big swing into self-propelled machinery as farmers moved away from locally made harvesters to American and European manufacturers with big 21 and 25 ft fronts.

The 1980s saw the first rubber tracked tractors and locally made airseeders hitting the market. Some may remember the 80 ft Mollerin Monster that was displayed at Dowerin in 1981. At the time it was the largest seeder in the world.

That decade was rounded off with the deregulation of the wheat industry in 1989 allowing for more competitive grain marketing which started the construction of large on farm storage systems.
Chaser bins, seed destructors, seed collection carts, liquid carts, GPS technology, autosteer, spot spraying and camera weed identification were introduced in the 1990’s and precision farm management since then has become the norm. 

The era of ag tech had well and truly arrived by 2000 as smart phones and mobile phone towers dotted the Wheatbelt and the efficiency of machinery continued to evolve. 

By every measure the pace of change is speeding up. The next wave of productivity improvements will be driven by advances in automation, robotics, remote sensing, data analytics and digital platforms, along with genetic tools and continuing crop and soil science research. 

Climb into any new tractor, header or sprayer and you will be confronted with an array of computer screens and no end of optional apps and ag tech to bolt on. Already we are seeing autonomous sprayers on display and no doubt the first completely driverless chaser bins, harvesters and seeders are on their way. 

Ag economist Henry Schapper from UWA famously said back in the 70’s that farmers needed to get big or get out. He has been proven right, with the number of registered member growers with CBH Group now sitting at around 3,500 with 80% of the grain grown by just 800 growers. The big just keep getting bigger, and with it they are demanding ever larger more complex machinery. 

Still the Dowerin Machinery Field Days remains strong with a community ethos that supports the state’s biggest farm machinery day. It’s an event the town is quite rightly very proud of, and we will continue showcase innovation to grow industry, connect stakeholders and to cultivate our regional communities through our event activities.

We look forward to sharing this year’s event with you on Wednesday 28 and Thursday 29 August.

By Danielle Green