We take a look back at the pictorial coverage and news stories from The Rural from 2020.
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The year started off with coverage of devastating bushfires and quickly moved to challenges posed by the coronavirus outbreak.
In keeping with celebrating the success stories in agriculture we covered the high prices paid for a Hereford bull from Batlow at the Wodonga Hereford National Show and Sale (which was conducted online).
The Batlow vendors sold a bull for the top price of $55,000. Greg and Bronwyn Peel of Yarawa South Poll Herefords sold lot, 14, Yarawa South Paradise P112 (AI) (PP) to two Tasmanian studs, Valma of Whitemore and Nova of West Ridgley.
"There was a lot of interest before the sale, a lot of phone calls and inspections as well," said Mr Peel.
He said it was the first time Yarawa South had sold a bull to Tasmania. With more than 40 years in the industry he described the rising two-year-old as being a "stand out."
In keeping with seed stock industry success Dunoon Angus Stud at Holbrook sold a bull for a high of $140,000.
The outbreak of coronavirus put a dent in trading relations between Australia and China and affected the price of wool, however, there was some good news in this region in terms of pregnancy scanning rates.
Tim and Bek Lubke of "Strathview", at Henty in the eastern Riverina had one mob of composite maternal ewes, aged two to four years, return an in-lamb percentage of 210.
Mr Lubke said genetic selection certainly played a role, but he attributed the success to feeding and nutrition too.
While the lambs were actually conceived during the dry times, and the season has since turned for the better, he explained that the females were fed a ration of 300 grams of lupins per head commencing two weeks before joining.
The Lubkes have also been conditioning scoring ewes. If the ewes are a score of 3.5 or higher it is often the case that a lot of triplets are born.
In addition to the high percentages of "in-lamb" ewes there has been emphasis on making sure these figures correlate at lamb marking as an indication of good survival rates.
"With our triplet ewes we are seeing 208 per cent survival rate," Mr Lubke said.
Meanwhile, working dogs achieved some excellent results with a kelpie from Cooma making $20,000 at auction.
Vendor Lucy Sellers of Delegate said she was thrilled with the result and congratulated the organisers on running such a good auction in the current COVID-19 pandemic environment.
She said the dog she sold was called Alfie. He's a two-year-old sired by Telford's Blitz from the dam Bendoc Park Janice.
In the spirit of giving back to the community a long-running project in Wagga, which involves selling charity steers to support the Willans Hill School, also achieved success.
A buoyant beef cattle market and some spirited bidding at the Wagga cattle sale lifted the value of a Poll Hereford steer, which made 432c/kg.
The steer was sold in a partnership venture with the Wagga RSL.
In keeping with tradition, and past auctions of charity steers at Wagga, a bid for $12,000 came in first and was paid by Aristocrat Technology. The steer was then donated back and offered to the open market.
With sky high beef prices and an ever increasing Eastern Young Cattle Indicator (EYCI) the steer named 'Friday' commanded 432c/kg which equated to a per head price of $2505 after being purchased by Coles Myer.
John Rodd of Wagga has had a long association in preparing the steers for auction and he was particularly fond of 'Friday'. "I weighed him before I took him in, he was 580 kilograms," Mr Rodd said.
The Poll Hereford, just shy of 16-months of age, represented excellent growth for age which Mr Rodd said was indicative of whiteface cattle.
"It was good to see him sell into such a strong market," he said.