RAIN is not unusual in the Wheatbelt during this time of year, but it’s not often that hail brings seeding operations to a halt.
Ben Wilson was left shocked during the weekend before last when 70 millimetres of rain and hail almost the size of golf balls left a white blanket across his mixed enterprise farm north east of Quairading.
“It looked like snow everywhere because it was thick on the ground,” Ben said.
“The next morning against the bottom of the trees it was still all white.”
Ben farms with wife Emma and parents Ian and Rebecca.
They have already received 410mm on the farm this year – 80mm more than the average annual rainfall.
The downpour brought the 4400 hectare seeding program to a standstill for a day and a half, but Ben expected more interruptions could be on the horizon.
“We were lucky enough to be able to scratch in the last of our clover yesterday and today but the challenge will be whether it can pull the bar with it fully in the ground with the lupins in the next few days,’’ he said.
“I think there might be a few bogged tractors and sprayers to come.”
Ben said the full extent of the storm damage was unknown, but he was wary of potential run-off.
“We lost a fair bit of water to runoff and probably a fair bit of soil as well and hopefully not too much of the seed but time will tell with that,” he said.
“We had just put the clover and medic in, just shallowly, and it was a fair sheeting off those paddocks, it might be all down the creek.
“The worst of it weatherwise came through the paddocks that we had canola up, driving across you can still see canola there.”
The wet summer led to challenges with summer spraying, with several paddocks inaccessible.
“It took us a while to get onto some of the paddocks because they were so wet and some of the summer weeds were sprayed at less than ideal timing but you can’t do much about it when you can’t get on your paddocks,” Ben said.
The Wilson team was preparing to begin sowing 410ha of lupins made up of Mandelup and Jurien varieties when Farm Weekly visited last Wednesday.
All 780ha of canola was in the ground after an April 12 start to seeding, while 950ha of barley and 2300ha of wheat was next on the agenda.
Despite the high rainfall leading to a challenging start to his seeding program, Ben said he was not complaining.
“We’re lucky in the fact that we’ve got a lot of subsoil moisture so it’s a matter of being able to get it in and up without getting totally washed out and bogged out,’’ he said.
“I think most people are optimistic. Frost is still playing on a few guys’ minds but, at the end of the day, you’ve got the opportunity to get things in early, to have a higher yield potential so we’ll just keep going from now and get it in and up.”
