The Johnson family has done it again, taking out last year’s Agricultural Societies Council (ASC) Wheat Crop Competition as a part of the Cowra Show.
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The Johnson’s have now won the competition two years running, in 2016 and 2017 and were presented with the ribbon and trophy for last year’s win last Thursday morning.
“It’s just humbling, it’s good to have the competition here,” Tom Johnson said.
“It would be good to see some more people enter every year but it’s humbling to win it again and we are all very happy with the result.
“Not to forget all of the help we get from other people, it’s not just me, it’s a team effort with my father and my brother and all of your suppliers.”
The Johnson’s went onto to compete at the Centrals competition and placed third.
“We ended up third in that, still went well, not as well as we’ve went in the past but I guess that’s the way the season went,” Tom said.
ASC Crop competition Chief Judge Peter Wilson from Lachlan Fertilisers said entrant numbers were down on previous years.
“The only reason why we didn’t have competitors last year is purely because we had crops to the west which we decided to pull out before the judging,” he said.
“They weren’t up to the standard of the crops to the east and south of Cowra last year.
“Last year we had a very marginal growing season conditions and rainfall.”
Peter said there were a number of criteria used to judge the crops, including purity, freedom from disease, evenness and condition.
“I suppose what we have done over the years to a degree, we’ve tended to look at the season and look at a base yield and then judging above that.”
Tom said the family took a gamble last year.
“It was a moisture game really,” he said.
“We got our crops in pretty early, that’s always a gamble because you can get frost on the other end.
“Last year we didn’t have a real frosty finish and we seemed to get away with it, that's the challenge.”
The Cowra Show Society are looking for entrants for this year’s competition, please contact Ian Packer.