Farming

Fencing

Farms are generally separated into areas according to their intended use. Areas may include homestead and domestic garden, parking and access, animal and poultry housing and servicing, pasture and grazing, crop and orchard, as well as others that the farmer finds necessary.
Today, this division is much the same, although there are many more "hobby-farms" now that have only animals, poultry or orchards and these may all be in the same area.

In the olden days, the homestead was usually surrounded by a reasonably attractive, sturdy and animal-proof fence and gate, either post and rail or post and wire. Other areas had post and wire, often barbed, or natural hedges to divide them, and access gates for farming equipment linking them. The fence or hedge was often covered with, or made up of, blackberry bushes which were very popular with families nearby for the free berries available in season.

Farm Animals

Farm animals today are quite different from those of "the olden days". Over the years they have been selectively bred for better production (milk, meat, wool etc.), better resistance to disease, and better breeding qualities.
Cattle
are bred for milk and meat. Dairy breeds include (among others) Friesian, Guernsey, Ayrshire and Jersey, and beef breeds include Angus, Hereford and Brahman. Many beef cattle are also used for leather-production.
Sheep
are raised for their wool and for meat. Some of the breeds are Dorset, Montedale, Oxford, Southdown, Suffolk, and Dorper. The most famous breed is undoubtedly the Merino. This Spanish sheep was greatly developed to reach its present state in Australia and New Zealand. Primarily a fine wool producer, it has been bred with several other types to create attributes needed for various applications. Recently, research has shown the possibility of its becoming a major meat source also.
Goats
are not as popular as sheep. They are raised for meat, milk, fibre and skins. Male goats (bucks) can breed from about 7 weeks old, and can breed pretty much any time after that. Does can be bred from about 8 months, and go into heat every 21 days for 1-3 days. Some breeds can breed all year round, but most are seasonal, prefering autumn. The goat gestation period is about 5 months. The litters are usually 2 to 3 kids, but may be from 1 to 5.
Horses
were once raised for manual work or for sport, but have diversified into several classes. Race-horses, herding-horses, show-horses and horses for recreational riding all need different characteristics, and different breeds have been developed with the required attributes.
Pigs
are raised for their meat and skin, as well as being used for medical research due to their physiological similarity to humans.
Other farmed animals
include alpacas, llamas, camels and deer, as well as poultry, ducks and other birds .

Embryo transfer and artificial insemination

were almost unheard of, but are often used nowadays to ensure that females breed regularly, and to help improve herd genetics. When embryos are transplanted from high-quality females into lower-quality surrogate mothers, the higher-quality mother is able to be re-impregnated sooner, increasing the number of offspring that can be produced from them. However, it decreases genetic diversity, increasing the risk of disease outbreaks.

Field Access

Occasionally, on English farms there was a "stile" in a fence. This was two or three wooden steps on each side of the fence, allowing people to climb the fence easily, rather than open a gate. These are much less common now. A larger proportion of fencing is wire or post-and-rail, rather than hedge, and barbed wire is becoming less favoured now than single-strand wire, which is cheaper and easier to maintain.

A more recent alternative to gates to limit road passage of stock, is the stock grid. This is a set of parallel steel bars fixed horizontally in the ground between two sections of fence. The bars are spaced a few inches apart to make it difficult, if not impossible, for cattle or sheep to pass, while allowing vehicles and humans to pass unimpeded. The stock grid is very commonly used in Australian cattle or sheep stations.

Electric fencing

is used to control access by animals and people. Electrical pulses have peaks up to 10,000 volts, which drops almost instantly to a low value when current is drawn so that no harm is done to the animal.
Early fence chargers used a transformer and a mechanical switch to create electrical pulses. Later systems used solid-state circuitry, which was more reliable.
Modern fence chargers use a different design. A capacitor is charged by a solid-state circuit, and when contact is made the charge is released via a controlling device such as a thyristor for a very short time, typically ten microseconds.
Fence chargers may be mains-powered, battery-powered or, more recently solar-powered.

Weeds

The most basic, and probably the oldest weed control tool is the hoe. Later, the plough was invented, allowing much quicker clearing of large areas for crop or grain planting.
Hoes were used as early as 1800BC, though they have undergone many changes since then. These tools cut weeds just below the soil surface. Early types had short handles, and were responsible for many back injuries, but most modern ones have long handles to prevent this. There are also hoes designed for shaping the soil into mounds or ridges for crop planting, and another, called a hoedad, for digging holes for tree planting.
Although many hand-tools are still used and are necessary for smaller jobs, modern machinery reduces land treatment time and cost, as well as improving the results.

Farm Machinery has also evolved greatly.
Horse-drawn ploughs can plough multiple furrows but this generally requires two or more horses, and horses need to be rested frequently so it becomes costly with regard to farm resources.
The section of a plough that cuts and turns the soil is called a mouldboard. Early ploughs had only one mouldboard and when the plough was turned to start the next furrow, the upturned soil was thrown on top of that from the previous furrow.

Later ploughs have two mouldboards leaned in opposite directions. One mouldboard is raised in the air while ploughing, then after each row the mouldboards are reversed with the result that the soil is always upturned and thrown into the previous furrow.

Modern ploughs may include many very useful features like reversible mouldboards, hydraulical protection that allows them to pass over rocks and other hard material without damage, and simple width-variation. Being tractor-drawn, no animal rest time is necessary.
Many now also have air-conditioning, so life could be a bit more comfortable for our famers.

Insects

Insect pests can be controlled in several ways, including the use of chemicals, companion-planting, crop-rotation and encouragement of natural enemy breeding. All of these, and others, have been tried at various times and with varying success levels.
Chemical application
has been used for thousands of years, perhaps the earliest being the use of sulfur over 4000 years ago. More recently the use of pyrethrum (a natural insecticide obtained from daisys) and rotenone (from tropical plants) have been used. Pyrethrin remains the more popular as rotenone can be hazardous to humans and is lethal to fish.
Today, there is much more awareness of pollution, and farmers and environmentalists are taking action on this.
Companion planting
is the planting of two or more varieties of crop in the same area, as the companion repels the insect pests that would attack the major crop.
Crop-rotation
can help with pest-control by starving the pest population during alternate years, by removing their natural food source.
Natural enemies
of insect pests may be encouraged into the crop area, as they are harmless and eat other harmful ones. An example of this being applied is the growing of blackberry vines in vineyards, to attract parasitic wasps that eat leafhoppers, which ruin grape crops.

Grafting

In some cases, plants can be grafted onto other rootstock that has resistance to the pests. This was once used just for perennials, but is now sometimes used for tomatoes and cucumbers as well as other seasonal produce. Trellising, and removal of lower leaves are also used to discourage non-flying insects.

Chemicals

These are used not only for pest control, but also to boost plant growth and health and fruit-yield. They were (and still are, in many places) applied by hand, but machines are available now that distribute the chemical evenly and quickly over large areas. This also helps reduce the risk of adverse reaction by the farmer to the chemicals.

Borer Beetles

Currently (2024) Perth is facing a challenge from an infestation of borers, a beetle introduced here despite measures by border Patrol and others to detect these early and remove them. Many of the trees in our parks and open space have needed to be removed to control their spread.

Crop-Dusting

In very large areas of farmland in Australia and some other countries, crop-duster planes are now used, but these require a high degree of flying skill and are often too expensive for smaller farms.
Many farms and stations hire a crop-duster for a few days to apply the chemicals, thus sharing the cost. The plane, usually a small Cessna or similar, can also be used for top-dressing, fertilizing, watering and hydro-seeding. In hydro-seeding, seed is mixed with mulch and sometimes fertilizer and formed into a slurry for spreading by hand, truck or aeroplane.

Animal Pests

Mankind has always struggled to control animal pests in various ways. Back in 3000BC, the Egyptians used cats to control rats and mice in grain stores. Cats and dogs are still used today for controlling small animals, though many more advanced techniques have been developed, including trapping, shooting, poisoning and repelling.
Animal pests are many and varied in Australia, including feral cats, dogs, pigs, horses, rabbits and camels. Many of these were not originally present but were introduced, either accidentally, for sport or some other reason, and then got out of control. Rabbits, introduced in 1859, and foxes, some time later, were introduced to provide sport for hunters and have caused many millions of dollars of damage to property. In 1907, a fence called The Rabbit-Proof Fence was constructed across Western Australia, North to south, with a length of 1139 miles (about 1800km. It was intended to keep rabbits from entering Western Australia,but didn't succeed, and another two shorter ones were later built to improve the protection.
Myxomatosis was introduced in 1950 to try to control the rabbit population, and the fences became less important. But this was only partially effective and the rabbits later develped an immunity to it. In 1996 another virus, calicivirus was developed and released and is still used today.
In 2002 the Victorian Government (Australia) trialed a bounty system for foxes, but this was not successful either. Similar schemes have been tried for rabbits, with varying degrees of success. Currently, there is no defined scheme for eradication of either rabbits or foxes in Victoria and they continue to be a big problem to farming with foxes killing sheep and poultry, and rabbits eating and uprooting crops.

Cane toads were introduced to Australia from Hawaii in June 1935 by Sugar Research Australia to control the native cane beetle in Queensland. They are highly toxic and have severely impacted wildlife as well as causing the death of many domestic animals. Having no natural predators they are now out of control and have spread to other parts of Australia, with very little effect on the cane beetle population.

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