IF the Vermeersch family, Scaddan, had the option to order a cropping season this year, they would have picked the one they had.
Jason (above left), Bradd and Hughie Vermeersch, who were photographed standing in a crop of Baudin barley that was yielding 3.5-4 tonnes per hectare, had 3800 hectares of country burnt in last year's fires.
They said a soft start to the season had really helped the farm recover.
"We didn't lose any standing crop, but we did have 15 silo bags full of grain on the ground," Bradd said.
"Of that we would have lost 30t in each bag. The rest went through the CBH special segregation and what was lost was covered by insurance."
This year the family put in a 12,800ha cropping program comprised of Bonito and Stingray canola, Baudin, La Trobe and Hindmarsh barley and Mace wheat.
Despite soil testing showing that they may have lost up to $50 per tonne of nutrients from the burnt country - mostly organic nitogen - the Vermeerschs said there has been little difference in yields coming off barley crops on country that was burnt and that which wasn't.
Now about halfway through harvest, the Vermeerschs were taking off Baudin barley last week that had been sown onto burnt paddocks.
It was yielding 3.5t/ha on average.
"You can really put it down to the good season," Bradd said.
"If we had a dry start it wouldn't have been pretty, but the fact we got moisture early and were able to get the crop into the ground early helped alleviate some of that blow."
