GRDC Podcast

With seasons and environmental challenges often stacked against them, the Schaefer family’s determination to succeed in a sustainable manner has seen them adopt technologies, including precision agriculture practices. Robin’s long family association with farming in the northern Mallee region of South Australia has meant pivoting the business several times to keep pace with technology. His experien...

Dr Rick Llewellyn is the recipient of the 2026 Grain Research and Development Corporation, Seed of Light South Award for his contribution to the grains industry. As a Senior Principal Research Scientist with CSIRO based out of South Australia's Waite campus, Rick has made it his mission to move the industry forward over a stellar career in the research field.   GRDC Seed of Light Award recognises...

Growers, advisers, agronomists and researchers all using MyGRDC to access information and events relevant to them. Hear from grower, Tim McClelland, researcher, Greta Duff and agronomist, Quenten Knight about the benefits of using MyGRDC - including personalised event notifications, bookmarking relevant articles and easy access no matter where you are. Contact: MyGRDC Team mygrdc@grdc.com.au Websi...

GRDC's Farm Business Updates have played a big role in updating growers about changing landscapes, including taxation and managing the ever-increasing asset base of their businesses. As part of a recent update, Joanne Gilbert from world leading tax and consulting service, RSM Australia spoke about the changes that have occurred in the years since the Covid pandemic. Joanne encourages all growers t...

Growers in Western Australia are aware of the benefits of growing legumes in their rotation. However, there are key considerations and drivers that need to be considered when making decisions. A GRDC investment with the Grower Group Alliance is aiming to help with that and in this four-part series, we tackle the agronomy, profitability, marketing, and harvesting of growing legumes. This episode ex...

Jessica Koch grew up around farming and technology, developing an early interest in precision agriculture as a way to better understand variability in low rainfall environments. What began as curiosity about soils, mapping and machinery has evolved into a career focused on helping growers make clearer, more confident decisions using the right information at the right time. Now a precision agricult...

GRDC’s Farm Business Updates play a big role in updating growers about farm management systems, including self-development. Dr Jane Foster teaches emotional resilience and has been a presenter at this year’s events. In this podcast Dr Foster discusses the importance of proactive communication skills on-farm to avoid conflict and keep everyone safe. Contact:          Dr Jane Foster Emotional Resili...

Matthew Howell is an agronomist, grower and regional advocate based in South Australia’s Upper South East. Over the past two decades, he has worked alongside growers through a major shift from mixed farming to large-scale continuous cropping, driven by rainfall, soil development and opportunity. In this conversation, Matt reflects on his journey from Cummins on the Eyre Peninsula to building a lif...

Controlling disease in crops has traditionally been the ultimate game of chance. However, work being done in faba and broad bean crops in South Australia has taken some of the risk out of the equation. In this episode, Max Bloomfield, a research manager at Field Applied Research Australia or FAR Australia explores strategies to manage major foliar and soil-borne diseases in faba and broad beans, r...

Disease prevention is pivotal in any cereal crop. This episode explores recognising and preventing diseases in lentils with research scientist Mohsen Khani from the South Australian Research and Development Institute. Lentils are often favoured because of their profitability, but diseases can undo a season's work in a matter of weeks if not kept in check. GRDC has invested in a multi -year grain l...

In this episode, agronomist Sam Trengove, from Trengove Consulting, and lentil farmer Tim Millard talk about one of the greatest challenges for legume growers - lentil pod loss. Lentil pod loss can be devastating to a crop. In some instances, farmers can lose up to 60 percent and the main cause, wind, is out of their hands to control. GRDC has invested in a multi-year grain legume project in South...

James Hillcoat didn’t grow up on a farm. His journey began cycling five miles to a Lincolnshire farm in England, evolved through painting houses and teaching sailing in France, and eventually led him to Australian grain consulting via Marcus Oldham. Today, as a Partner at Pinion Advisory, his work sits at the intersection of profit, people and perspective. In this conversation, James shares what t...

This episode of GRDC’s Grain Automate series speaks with Tim Neale, an expert agronomist and the director of Data Farming, a precision farming company based out of Toowoomba in southern Queensland. Tim works to help the industry get smarter about how to work with technology and managing the influx of automation available now and into the future. Agronomists can spend up to 75 per cent of their tim...

Ed Scott grew up on a mixed farming property on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula, but his path into agriculture wasn’t a straight line. What began with an interest in animal health and pasture production soon led him deeper into the soil beneath it all. Today, Ed works at the intersection of soils, precision agriculture, automation and sustainability, helping growers better understand what’s h...

Legume marketing has long been considered a chicken and egg scenario. What comes first? The market or the grower collaborations? This episode explores this concept and how growers can collaborate to gain market access. A GRDC investment with the Grower Group Alliance is aiming to increase grower confidence in using legumes in Western Australia. This episode is part of a four-part series investigat...

James Walter is the bioinformatics lead at Australian Grain Technologies (AGT), working at the intersection of genetics, data science and plant breeding. His role focuses on turning vast amounts of genomic and field data into practical insights that help breeders make better decisions and ultimately deliver improved crop varieties to growers. In this episode, James takes us behind the scenes of th...

This episode explores how to set pulse crops up for success, because they really don't forgive shortcuts with herbicides. Navneet Aggarwal, a senior research agronomist for the South Australian Research and Development Institute or SARDI, has been a part of the South Australian Grain Legume Project looking specifically at herbicide safety and weed management in pulses. He says preparation is key,...

This episode focuses on sandy soils and how to unlock their potential to successfully grow pulses, which have traditionally been a challenge. GRDC's investment in the South Australian Grain Legume project has led to a targeted approach to trialling a variety of methods for sandy soil improvement. Agronomist, Jason Brand, has worked closely on this project, previously with Agriculture Victoria and...

Get pulse agronomy foundations right on your farm to reduce risk and build long term profitability. This episode explores examples from the South Australian Grain Legume Project, a GRDC investment. We speak with Sarah Day, communications and extension manager with Mallee Sustainable Farming, and Wade Nickolls, whose family farms pulses at Pinnaroo in the Southern Mallee of South Australia and Vict...

In this episode of GRDC in Conversation, Oli Le Lievre sits down with Ashley Amourgis, General Manager of Southern Farming Systems, just west of Geelong.  Growing up on a dairy farm near Deloraine in Tasmania, Ashley developed a deep appreciation for agriculture as a way of life. That grounding has shaped her journey into the grains industry, where she now works at the intersection of research, ex...

This episode is part two in the GRDC Grain Automate initiative series and is led by the Society of Precision Agriculture Australia (SPAA). Emma Ayliffe, a grower and director with Summit Ag in New South Wales Central West, takes us through a pragmatic approach to autonomy and agronomy. She covers how farm data can be structured and interpreted to support confident, actionable decision making rathe...

In this episode of GRDC In Conversation, host Oli Le Lievre sits down with Darcy Warren, a leading researcher at Field Applied Research (FAR) Australia based in Geelong. Darcy’s entry into agriculture was far from traditional; growing up in the leafy Melbourne suburb of Greensborough, he discovered agricultural science almost by accident at a university open day. From those early sparks of curiosi...

In this episode, Tim Neale from DataFarming explains a new precision ag tool, weedSAT. WeedSAT is a satellite-powered weed detection tool developed with investment from GRDC through the Grain Automate initiative. It uses high-resolution commercial satellite imagery to identify larger, hard-to-kill weeds across broadacre paddocks. This enables targeted spraying using existing boom spray section con...

In this episode, facilitators Amy Wright and Lucy Pedler talk about the rise of young grower groups across South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula. Supported by AIR EP and the Future Drought Fund, these peer-to-peer networks are creating safe spaces for young growers to build skills, confidence and leadership capacity. Participants prioritise topics such as soils, technology adoption, drought resilience...

Have you been thinking of adding a legume to your rotation? In this episode, we are joined by Calingiri legume grower John Young and Glen Reithmuller who is from DPIRD in WA. John shares his experience with implementing legumes into his rotation and Glen shares the surprising efficiency of legume harvestability. Contacts: John Young  WA Grower  johnyoung@wmfarm.com.au     Glen Reithmuller  DPRID ...