A WET summer has been a saving grace at Gavin Hooper’s Corrigin property this year, with most of his crop out of the ground despite little rain in the past two months.
Gavin, wife Michelle, and father Bill, received just 5.5 millimetres of rain on their property east of Corrigin in April, and only 4mm in May.
However, thanks to 170mm of rain prior to the start of seeding on April 19, subsoil moisture had kickstarted germination.
“Probably 90 to 95 per cent of what we’ve seeded has actually germinated on subsoil moisture so it’s lucky we had a wet summer,” Gavin said.
“If we hadn’t we would have been hurting I think.”
Sixty per cent of the 1200 hectare program is planted to wheat, made up of Mace and Yitpi varieties, while the remaining 40pc is planted to Spartacus and Fathom barley.
“Cereals are all we do, we keep it simple,” Gavin said.
“We’ve been mixing things around, trying to spread the flowering window out as a bit of frost mitigation.
“Out here frost is an issue but the dry finish kills you more often than the frost does, so you’d rather go early and optimise your potential.”
The team plans to finish seeding this week and remains positive despite a drier than average winter outlook.
“Considering the season so far it’s looking good, we probably don’t need a lot of rain and we’ll have a reasonable season,” Gavin said.
Gavin is also running several trials on his property as part of his involvement in the Corrigin Farm Improvement Group (CFIG).
This includes a three-year trial funded by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), investigating double break rotation options.
Gavin’s property is one of three demonstration sites working with CFIG and the West Midlands Group across the Kwinana West zone, and is undergoing its second year in trial.
The site was in chemical fallow in 2016 and this year was seeded to four pulse crops including field peas, lentils, Albus lupins and chickpeas.
The aim of the trial is to quantify the rotational benefits of a double break - including broadleaf crops or pastures - and to identify whether profitable broadleaf cropping sequences are available as alternatives to continuous cereals.
“We’re generally a fallow, cereal rotation here and going off that are we better to grow a potentially higher value crop and get a double break, and then get a high-yielding, lower cost cereal rotation after that.”
Gavin said the pulses had germinated surprisingly well given the low amount of rainfall.
“It’s amazing how much comes up on the subsoil moisture, it’s going to be quite interesting to see how they go because the lentils in particular are quite good at the moment, and the field peas.”
Three other trials are also taking place on the Hooper’s property including another rotation trial on chemical fallow and a phosphorus placement strategy trial.
The property is also hosting a weather station for CFIG through the Department of Agriculture and Food WA funded eConnected Grainbelt project.
