LOCAL residents may have noticed the presence of smoke across the district throughout the past week.
For those out of the know, some of the district’s broadacre farmers have been out conducting narrow windrow burns.
This practice aims to burn off weed seeds, collated in a narrow line in the paddock called a windrow, before they germinate.
Swan Hill consultant agronomist Rick Rundell-Gordon said narrow windrow burning has only picked up by Mallee farmers in the past five years, after being common practice in Western Australian for the past decade.
“If you didn’t know much about farming, you’re probably thinking farming is still stuck in the old ages and you’re just burning stubble for the sake of it, but there’s a whole reason for it now,” he said.
For more on this story, grab a copy of Friday’s Guardian (April 8).
