In a season that brought smiles to many farmers' faces in South Australia, no smile was broader than that of Bazz Lutze on the Yorke Peninsula.

Four years of consistent R.U.M. usage paid off when Bazz reaped some of his best crops in decades.

A small paddock of the desirable new bean variety Fiesta, grown only with 8L/ha of R.U.M., yielded 16 bags/acre, with the beans crop valued at $350/tonne. Tests at the Ardrossan silo resulted in the beans being awarded No. 1 Quality for Seed.

The sowing programme began in February with a light application of reactive rock phosphate followed by seeding in early June.

Herbicide (simazine) and 4L/ha of R.U.M. followed.

About 8 weeks later, fungicide (mancozeb) with a further 4L/ha R.U.M. went on.

And, except for a bit more fungicide in October, that's how it was done!

No super, no 'fertiliser cocktails'.

Safe Bananas at Reserve Creek, NSW

Mathew and Jenny Hesse have developed a thriving and productive 15ha banana plantation near Murwillumbah, NSW.

Growing mostly Red Dacc'as and Lady Fingers, they are cutting every week.

Broadacre farmers won't wish to know that their rainfall last year was 120 inches!

"But", as Jenny grins, "we've had a couple of dry years where we only got half that."

Mathew, a bricklayer by trade, and Jenny, a country girl from a broadacre farming family, live right in the middle of the plantation with their two young children.

Jenny says, "We always wanted to reduce the amount of chemical fertilisers... didn't want to use any toxins on our bananas"

"Our house is only 5m from the bananas... so we can only aerial spray with liquid lime and R.U.M."

Technical info:

After two applications of R.U.M and liquid lime the Hesses have noticed:

- less leaf fall,

- better leaf growth,

- thicker and wider stems,

- the Brix level has jumped from 3-6 to 10-11,

- "heaps more growth in the suckers"