THE 2018 season is well underway in some parts of the State with farmers in the Esperance region seeding canola and other areas slowly getting ready.
Two storms passed through Merredin, Corrigin, Quairading and Bruce Rock over Easter and early last week, giving farmers another opportunity to get a final knockdown on their weeds.
Merredin Rural Supplies agronomist David Keamy said the region didn’t have lots of rain but some farmers were putting in pastures, some were putting in canola and he knew of one crop being sown to barley.
“Last week we had anywhere from 4 to 40 millimetres but the 40mm was very isolated, the average has probably been more like 8-12mm, which is basically starting to get a green tinge,” Mr Keamy said.
He said some farmers had already started seeding with more expected to come online between now and Anzac Day – Wednesday, April 25 – but said most were trying out their airseeders, making sure everything was working and calibrated.
Mr Keamy said depending on the rainfall, growers would get at least one good weed knockdown before seeding.
“They will have a knockdown spray now which is real good, so we get rid of a few weeds – they are all winter weeds that are coming through,” he said.
Last year was a good start for the Merredin area although the season slowed after that.
Mr Keamy is hoping this year will be different.
Anything that was up last year hung on and was pretty good because there was a fair bit of subsoil moisture, but Mr Keamy said they had not received big rains this year to increase subsoil moisture.
“The 14mm was surprising and got a fair way down, but it looks like the next 10 days will be dry, it’s still 33-34 degrees Celcius and it looks like its going to stay around the 30s, so in 10 days all that moisture will be gone,” he said.
“We live in hope that we will get another thunderstorm or something – it would be nice if it was a widespread steady rain, but it has been a long time up here since that happened.”
Elders Esperance agronomist George Bungey said seeding was cranking up in across the region with big-program growers starting with longer-season canola varieties which were hybrid and Round Up ready.
“I think there are even some long-season wheat in the coastal area that will be put in sometime soon, maybe within a week or so,” Mr Bungey said.
Late summer rain across the region was variable, but some areas did receive significant falls.
Mr Bungey said there were some growers seeding into good moisture or at least really good subsoil moisture, so it would not take much to wet the top and hopefully get a good germination.
“I would say some of the guys on the sandplain area would be going into pretty good moisture,” he said.
It has been over a week since the area has had a significant fall, with the biggest front hitting a month ago.
Mr Bungey said most growers would have done a few passes with boomsprayers with some areas that received 150mm or more last month, producing a good germination of ryegrass and volunteer cereals.
“Over the past few years there has been a bit of a trend to go a bit earlier and a few people have tried longer season varieties, but I think with the size of some programs now, a few growers have to go this early to cover the ground and finish in time,” he said.
Mr Bungey said most people would be starting at a similar time to last year, with the majority looking to start over the next two to three weeks.
Landmark Dandaragan/Moora agronomist David Hurst said there was no seeding activity yet across his area.
“Generally the whole district has had some summer rain in the past three months, in variations of 50mm to over 100mm, which has given us a little bit of confidence,” Mr Hurst said.
“It is probably starting to become the norm, we are getting 50-100mm somewhere prior to the season starting and it didn’t used to be, but it seems to be the pattern now – a year without summer rain seems to be unusual.”
Mr Hurst said growers east of Moora had patches of 10-22mm and were spraying at least one or two rounds on various paddocks.
He said producers with bigger seeding programs usually started between April 15 and April 25.
“It will be mostly dry seeding, but we won’t need much of a break for that dry-sown canola or lupins to join up with some of the summer rainfall we have had and any small break would get the season away nicely,” he said.
Elders Geraldton agronomist Peter Eliott-Lockhart said the region was looking “alright” on the back of patchy rainfall.
“Out east has had 10-15mm of rain underneath the thunderstorms, so people are knocking some sheep feed in on those paddocks that got the rain,” Mr Eliott-Lockhart said.
“We are looking like we are ready to go once we get a bit of rain and the seasonal forecast is medium/positive so it might not be too bad.”
Mr Eliott-Lockhart said the plan would be to get some canola in the ground early and if they could get some good rains before the middle of May, then lupins and canola would go in as planned.
He said if they didn’t receive good rain by then some break crops would still go in because of rotation and some of it would be changed to cereals, depending on the forecast.
Mr Eliott-Lockhart said most medium-sized growers would start on Anzac Day with bigger operators starting earlier to wrap up by the start of June.
“Sometime around the middle of April guys will go regardless and I have some guys knocking stuff in to dry soil now with moisture not very far away, so if they do get 5mm of rain it will come up and get cranking,” he said.
Landmark Katanning agronomist Kim Adams said the area was looking very dry and they had not reported any substantial rain to make much of a difference to soil moisture.
“I would say most places are either dry or not wet enough to start seeding on moisture,” Ms Adams said.
“There might be some dry sowing which could start, if we don’t get rain for 10-14 days, by then I would say moisture profiles will probably dry out enough to go completely dry seeding.”
Ms Adams said there would possibly be growers seeding pastures soon but she suggested it was a mixed bag as to when most would start seeding.
“Growers will start having a play with things and put it in dry, but it all depends on what the forecast does,” she said.
Last year the Katanning area had 150mm or more rain in February.
Ms Adams said the growers who kept on top of their weeds conserved a lot of that moisture and were able to start seeding in early to mid April into moisture.
“Anyone who didn’t keep on top of their summer spraying last year lost a lot of that moisture quite quickly and then it was never dry enough to go dry seeding,” she said.
“It was quite wet/dry for a long time and then we struggled through with minimal rainfall in May which did cause a lot of staggered germination.”
If the area doesn’t receive any rain in the next 10 days then they may see a dry profile which they could seed into and hope for the rain.
“Generally I would say that not many people will be jumping into it at the moment,” she said.
