DARKAN farmer Ray Harrington has been to the forefront of pushing boundaries in Australian agriculture.
And his efforts have been recognised in this year's Australia Day Honours List, with a Medal of the Order of Australia in the General Division (OAM) for service to primary industry, particularly in the development of agricultural machinery.
Best known as the father of no-till farming he also spent countless hours attempting to work out a way to reduce weed seed burdens on the farming property managed by himself and brother David.
It resulted in the Harrington Weed Destructor, which is now in full commercial production.
Perhaps ironically, it was April Fool's Day, 1992, that Ray gathered a handful of farmers and his good friend and then Agriculture Department researcher Kevin Bligh, to his Darkan farm, to discuss the future of farming.
At the end of the discussion, it was agreed among the farmers, to form an alliance to share and promote a one-pass system of seed establishment.
David suggested the group call itself the WA No Till Farmers Association (WANTFA).
The name stuck and in August of that year, WANTFA was finalised with Ray the inaugural president.
Ray credits the formation of the group to Kevin, who became the go-to man for information (Google hadn't been invented then).
"Kevin's work saw him communicating with many farmers throughout the State and he became a sort of network person who got like-minded farmers talking with each other," Mr Harrington said.
Ray said he and David started fiddling with seeding establishment in 1974 on the back of direct drilling.
"We made our own scarifier points and that was the start of what was in decades to come would be known as no-till," he said.
In the 1970s, the evolution moved to knife points which were an improvement on the scarifier points but wear was a major problem.
"Then I looked at tungsten and I remember going through the Yellow Pages to see if I could find a supplier," Mr Harrington said.
"I finally found one selling blocks as big as your fingernail for $25 a block.
"We found a way to sweat it onto the leading edge of the knife points and that changed things dramatically because we could get 3000 acres wear out of a set."
What the Harrington brothers stumbled onto changed the face of broadacre tillage.
Today, as he reflects on the history of no-till, Mr Harrington remains circumspect about the system.
"I don't think no-till is the right way to describe what we're trying to do but what's in a name," he said.
"The focus has got to be on the package and it will be a slightly different package for every farmer as it is adjusted into different farming operations.
"Some guys want to use discs, other tines but the point is that it's a one-pass seeding system that is maintaining the integrity of the soil.
"And the system will keep on evolving and my hope is WANTFA will keep on evolving.
"What we've witnessed is that it works."
With the Harrington Seed Destructor (HSD), launched by the Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative (AHRI) in 2012 and funded by the GRDC,
Farmers now have the capability of destroying at least 95 per cent of weed seeds that exit a header in chaff at harvest.
Towed behind a harvester like a chaff cart, it crushes and destroys weed seeds.
Mr Harrington said he came up with the idea for the HSD when he sold his sheep and devoted his Darkan property to cropping in 1996.
"I knew I had to come up with a way of either cremating, catching, crushing, cooking or carting weed seeds at harvest time because my Wheatbelt cousins with cropping enterprises had already run into problems with weed control and herbicide resistance," he said.
Mr Harrington said the development of the HSD had been a wonderful journey involving committed and skilled collaborators, including AHRI director Stephen Powles, AHRI researcher Michael Walsh, Don Hare, Great Southern Engineers and the GRDC's Paul Meibusch.
Unlike chaff carts and windrow burning, the HSD has the advantage of conserving all crop residues and does not require post-harvest management activities.
Mr Harrington has also been involved in the development of the Harrington Sheep Jetting Race, the Harrington Crutching Cradle and the Harrington Vee Sheep Handling Machine.
He is also the current president of the West Arthur shire, was a director of the Grain Pool for two years and sat on the CBH Producers Council for 10 years. He was the inaugural chairman of the CBH Growers Advisory Council for two terms and a member for 10 years.
Others related to the WA rural sector that received an OAM included Valerie Hobson, Bassendean, for service to the community through the preservation of the history of the WA shearing industry.
Ms Hobson was newsletter editor for the Shearers and Pastoral Workers Social Club (formerly Gascoyne Pastoral and Shearing Museum Inc), from 2003-2012 and produced a calendar for five years. She also established the Shearing Hall of Fame in the Carnarvon Heritage Precinct in 2004 and was a member of the Royal Agricultural Society shearing committee for two years and a volunteer at the Perth Royal Show shearing and wool display for many years.
Ms Hobson was also the author of Our Island Home: the story of the circumstances which led to the Cocos Malays relocating to WA and Across the Board, which included stories of the WA shearing as told by the people who worked in the sheds.
Jim Milloy, Morawa, was recognised with an OAM for his service to the community of Morawa, and to Australian Rules Football.
Mr Milloy was Western Australian College of Agriculture (WACOA) Advisory Board chairman from1998-2012 and a member from1980-2013.
He is a foundation member of the WACOA Morawa Independent Public School Board and a WACOA representative, Combined Agricultural Advisory Committee and Machinery Trust, for many years.
He is a current volunteer for the Morawa Tourism Information Centre, a current agricultural representative, Morawa Education Industry and Training Alliance, current treasurer for the Morawa Historical Society Inc.
He has been president of the Morawa Australian Rules Football Club, as well as secretary, coach, captain, patron and life member.