Getting More Crop Per Drop!

South Africa’s water scarcity and the necessity to import well over one million tons of wheat annually mean that the country’s winter wheat growers increasingly have to optimise their water-use efficiencies. KwaZulu-Natal farmer Egon Zunckel spoke to Lloyd Phillips about his family’s own efforts to achieve higher wheat yield from less water.

- Lloyd Phillips

Egon Zunckel and his sons, Tyson and Carl, have been implementing conservation agriculture practices, especially no-till, on their farm’s commercial mixed grains operation since 1996. Yet they continue researching and experimenting with ways to improve on the delicate balancing act of increasing crop yields profitably while using natural resources, such as water, ever more sustainably.

The Zunckels’ 2 150ha farm, Rustenburg, lies 15km north-west of Bergville in KwaZuluNatal. The family produces irrigated winter wheat on about 120ha in rotation with both irrigated and dryland summer crops, typically comprising two-thirds yellow maize and one-third soya bean.