About the Author

Biography: PERCIVAL ALFRED YEOMANS or "P.A" as he became known to all, changed Australian agriculture and the thinking and methods of the agricultural community. He was born in Harden N.S.W. in 1905, eldest son of a family of four. In 1928 he married Rita Irene May Barnes, also of Harden. They had three children; Neville in 1928, Allan in 1931 and Ken in 1947. Rita Yeomans died in 1964. Death duties forced the sale of the two original Keyline properties near Sydney. In 1966, "P. A" married Jane Radek. They had two daughters, Julie and Wendy. He designed and built equipment to deeply loosen soil without bringing up the subsoil. This equipment was the first rigid tyned vibrating sub-soil cultivating ripper for use with farm tractors. It is many times more efficient than a chisel plow, and is able to loosen more soil to a greater depth using less tractor power. The Prince Philip Design Award officially recognised the breakthrough success of this equipment in 1974 when P. A. Yeomans Pty Ltd received this coveted award for the Bunyip Slipper Imp with Shakaerator. P. A. Yeomans devoted much of his latter life time to consulting, advising and lecturing on Keyline planning for which he has received requests from many parts of the world. P. A. Yeomans passed away, aged 79 years, in November 1984. Biography - KEN B. YEOMANS H.D.A.. Ken was born in Sydney, as the youngest son of P. A. Yeomans. Ken graduated from Hawkesbury Agricultural College, Richmond N.S.W. in 1969 with a Hawkesbury Diploma of Agriculture (H.D.A.). Ken Yeomans was a foundation member of the Agricultural Technologists of Australasia and is a member of the Irrigation Association of Australia and the Biological Farmers of Australia. Ken has a consulting practice in property design and development in S-E Queensland. His services include the site selection, survey and plan preparation of earthworks for large farm dams and Keyline gravity irrigation systems as well as assessing and making recommendations on; rebuilding the living fertility of soil, grazing management, cultivation practices, cropping programs and subdivision design. Throughout the states of Australia and overseas, for clients with land holdings ranging in size from under four hectares to over four hundred thousand hectares, Ken Yeomans has applied his knowledge and experience of Keyline on family farms, multiple occupancy communities and rural holdings of large corporations.