(June, 2025)
Service and reliability growing confidence in the Mallee
For Ronnie Kiley and his family, dryland farming in the Mallee region of northwest Victoria requires fast responses, progressive methods, and high-tech machinery that can cover a lot of country in a short amount of time.
It’s a very different scenario to that facing Ronnie’s grandfather, who was given a few paddocks near the small township of Sea Lake as part of the post-World War One Soldier Settlement Scheme, raising a family that included nine sons.
Just one of the boys stayed on the farm – Ronnie’s father Terry – and today the scale of Kiley’s Run is vastly different. The Kileys have just spent a month seeding 11,000 hectares of wheat, barley, oats, canola, lupins and lentils.
Ronnie also has his own property, Ninda Downs, and works alongside his father, brother Zane, brother-in-law Mick, Mick’s son Ethan, and a full-time mechanic and truck driver, operating a fleet of machines sourced from Haeusler’s at Sea Lake, just 19km from Kiley’s Run.
The fleet includes a three-year-old John Deere 8RX 370 quad track tractor, a 9RX 640, an X9 1000 and S680 harvester, and See & Spray sprayers with target and broadcast capabilities.
This season they invested in a new John Deere P660 seeding bar and C650 cart to make the job easier, and Ronnie said he was “extremely happy” with the performance of both.
“We run two seeding operations and I mostly operated the C650 during sowing,” he said.
“Calibration was so simple on the seeder box compared to anything else we’ve had. Previously we had to calibrate each crop by putting a bag under the box, weighing it, punching it into the screen and getting into the cab to check it.
“With the EZCal facility you get the bucket out of the back of the truck, put it into the hopper on the side of the air cart and press start, and the C650 does it all for you. So, instead of taking half an hour, you can have the whole machine calibrated in five minutes. It’s a massive plus.
“We were loading eight tonnes in the box, putting in the hectares and rates for the paddock, and we might have had 20kg left in it at the end. You can’t get any closer than that. If I can work like that every day of the week, I’m happy!”
The new P660 Precision Air Hoe Drill is 18.3m (60ft) on 30.5cm (12-in) spacings, with the primary aim of enabling the Kileys to sow more hectares in a day.
“We were doing 9km/hr pulling the new bar compared to our previous machine, which was 80 foot wide on 15-inch spacings and did 12.5km/hr,” Mr Kiley said.
“I really can’t think of anything you can improve on with this set-up.
“It was brilliant, no breakdowns, we just did a few hoses but that was just trying to get the angles right. We had it turning pretty well too. I had a play around with that and I rang Darren to get a few tips, and I couldn’t fault it.”
“Darren” is Darren Allan, their local John Deere Account Manager at Haeusler’s in Sea Lake.
“He is brilliant, absolutely amazing,” Mr Kiley said.
“Darren’s a former mechanic, very smart on the machines, knows them inside out and that goes for every machine, tractor-wise, tech-wise, headers, sprayers, he’s amazing.
“We’re nice and close to Sea Lake if we need a spare part or want him to come out, but the level of service that Darren provides definitely plays a part in us choosing to buy through Haeusler’s. It gives you confidence.”
Ronnie is still to finish setting up all aspects of the John Deere Operations Center, but said the Kiley’s Run team appreciate it for being able to see where the tractors are, how much fuel they’re using, whether they need filling up, and how many hectares they’ve covered.
“That’s what I mainly use Operations Center – for the machinery side of things. It’s also handy for us because we don’t have to be out in the paddock. When we had some backpackers working for us, we could get on the mobile or the iPad and talk them through anything that was happening on the screen,” he said.
“Dad is incredible on the technical side of things, he’s all over it, and he loves the See & Spray. The cameras on the John Deere spray rig work really well for summer spraying.
“To be honest, John Deere is 10 years in front of anyone else with their technology.”