Owner/Manager, Warrawidgee Station Pty Ltd - BENEREMBAH NSW
CATEGORY: PRODUCTIVITY
Dean Salvestro is a progressive farmer from Warrawidgee Station Pty Ltd in Benerembah in NSW, who has been farming for over 20 years. Dean and his business have been at the forefront of increasing productivity on irrigated systems, which has earned him a nomination in the Productivity category.
Dean’s business is quite diverse, helping to make the overall business less exposed to the various risks of farming. Today, Dean crops 3,000 ha of irrigated cotton, 300 ha of rice, 2,500 ha of irrigated cereals, 3,000 ha of dryland cereals and 200 ha of grapes. He also commissioned his own cotton Gin in 2015 with eight other growers near Carrathool, west of Griffith.
Dean is interested in efficient irragted systemes with his main aim being to increase his return per mega litre of water. As a result of Dean’s determination to achieve his goals, he has become one the most successful and largest cotton growers in Southern NSW.
One of the biggest changes to the business, was when Dean switched from rice to cotton to improve the efficient use of their irrigated water allocations and increasing their return per mega litre of water. They were also one of the early adopters of bank-less channel irrigated systems in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (MIA).
Dean and his agronomist see adoption of new technology as vital to achieving improved productivity and profitability. For example, Dean was among one of the first growers to use Moddus Evo on his irrigated cereals in the MIA, in order to achieve high yielding irrgated cereal crops.