AFTER an early April start to seeding, the crop is all in the ground at Darren Kilminster’s Bruce Rock property.
Darren – who farms with wife Tracy – was sowing the last 130 hectares of wheat when Farm Weekly called in early last week and a day later the program was complete.
The Kilminster’s 2017 crop is made up of 50 per cent wheat and 35pc canola, with the remainder planted to barley and a small amount of lupins.
Zen and Mace varieties make up the wheat program, while Bonito canola, Latrobe barley and Gunyidi lupins were also in the mix.
“We’ve probably done a little bit more canola this year due to rotation and price,” Darren said.
“Wheat is down a little bit, compensating for the amount of canola that we’ve put in.”
Around 160 millimetres of rain has fallen on the property this year, including 6mm in April and 12.5mm in May.
The farm received around 6mm over the weekend and Darren was hoping for more in the next week.
“We’re happy with 6mm, it will tie us over for the next little while,” he said.
“It’s a normal start for us anyway, these little rains are what we budget for.
“Another inch or half an inch this weekend coming would be beautiful.”
Darren said some patchy germination had already occurred prior to last week’s rain.
“Surprisingly we thought we were dry seeding and some of the canola has actually come up in the lighter country, so we’re expecting most of it will be up in the next 10 days.”
The team had enjoyed seeding at a steady pace, working 15 hour days with weekends off.
Darren said it was now just a matter of waiting to see how the season unfolded and how the grain market moved.
“I’m hoping the glass is half full this year and grain prices pick up 20 or 30 dollars on the wheat and canola stays where it is.”