LAST Sunday night’s rain band was a win for mostly northern Wheatbelt grain growers as the system failed to deliver substantial rain over areas planted to crop.
A snapshot of rainfall recordings revealed mostly single digits in areas of the central Wheatbelt, Great Southern and South Coast, with nil recordings in the Esperance district.
The system, a combination of an old-fashion south west front linked to a northern “feed”, came and went quickly over Monday, with a wake of scattered showers promised for the rest of the week – mainly for South Coast areas that badly need moisture.
Now all eyes are on forecast charts for next week, showing another south west frontal system with possible north west activity emanating from the Cocos Islands.
To put the season in perspective, there remains a lot of positivity among farmers Farm Weekly spoke with this week.
On one of the northernmost farms, Mary Springs, north of Ajana, Glen Reynolds remained upbeat after recording 11 millimetres of rain on his property.
“It has put everything back on track,” Mr Reynolds said. “We got 10mm from the late May break and over a week in early June we got rain carried in by tropical air, that gave us about 40mm.
“We backed off on canola because of the dry but everything else went in and I’d say there are some positive signs.
“I’m very happy.”
Binnu farmer Craig Simkin also echoed Glen’s sentiments after checking off 11mm in the rain gauges.
“It’s very handy follow-up from the late break in May when we got 23mm followed by about 21mm in early June from that tropical stuff,” he said.
“Crop establishment looks really good and there’s a tip we may get more rain on the 26th and 27th of this month, so there are positive signs.”
At Yuna, Murray Brooks said it has been a good start to the season, albeit late.
“That late May rain gave us 30mm followed by about 28mm in early June before last night’s 14mm,” he said.
“Plus there’s about 100mm under us (subsoil moisture) which gives us a lot of confidence.”
Mullewa farmer Reg Gray recorded nearly 10mm to add to 50mm recorded in late May and early June.
“We also got good rains during November and December last year and that has all met up so we should have about a metre of moisture for the crops to suck on – it’s a good sign.”
With plans to sow Latrobe barley on a leased farm next week, Badgingarra farmer David Hayes said he had “enjoyed” a love-hate relationship with Mother Nature.
“We had six mills on Sunday night but the big story was the 140mm that fell in 10 minutes during that tropical storm two weeks ago,” Mr Hayes said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my 52 years of farming.“
It filled our white elephant dam and knocked down seven fences and took out my ute as water carved a creek through a paddock sown to lupins.“
We’ve had to re-seed the lupins and we’re going to be fixing up this place for quite a while but I have to say we’ve got perfect conditions now to grow good crops.
“We’ve certainly got subsoil moisture and the crops are away and looking good.”
The late-sown barley is an annual strategy on the property because of the quick growth of the Latrobe variety.
“We generally plant after the Wimbledon tennis and it’s a super short season variety where we can get yields of around 3t/ha,” Mr Hayes said.
Eastern wheatbelt farmer John Nicoletti said the season was shaping as one with plenty of potential.
“We’re off to a good start and it’s a lot better than last year,” Mr Nicoletti said.
“We got about 10 mills which was a fantastic result for us at Westonia and it was generally around that mark for Bodallin and to the north of us, though it’s a little drier at Bonnie Rock.
“We only got eight to 10 mills from that late May rain but we had 24mm two weeks ago that effectively was our break to the season.
“With crops out of the ground in the middle of June from nice steady rain, there’s plenty of potential.”
Narembeen farmer and manufacturer Max Hebberman was breathing easier after a 10mm rain event on Sunday night.
“All our crops went in dry although we got a strip of 15mm in mid-May that got germinations away and then we had a few scattered shower events that kept the crops going.
“We’ve obviously got some subsoil moisture because some of our early canola germinated and by now it all could be connected.
“It’s a very positive position but we’d like to see some more rain.”
Lake King farm manager Jorg Brinkman said on balance it was looking like an average season as crops held on with a 6mm rain event last Sunday.
“We took the punt and put in a full program dry and we didn’t get any May rain,” Mr Brinkman said.
“Our break was the 20mm we got two weeks ago and the canola is just germinating along with fairly even germination of the cereals.
“Fingers crossed we get more rain next week because we’ve got minimal subsoil moisture.”
The biggest issue on Jerramungup farmer Rex Parsons’ mind this week was sheep feed.
“We got 7-9mm on Sunday night which was our best rain for the year so far,” Mr Parsons said.
“In total we’ve had about 56mm for the year at the home place and we’re daily hand-feeding our sheep with a full hay ration.
“The crops are germinating and there is some green pick starting to come through but we need a substantial rain.”
South Coast farmers need the same with only traces of rain recorded east of Ravensthorpe.
But Dalyup farmer Michael Hart remained positive “things will turn around”.
“This is Esperance and it can turn fairly quickly,” he said.
“We didn’t get much from last weekend and we haven’t had a true break to the season because an inch (of rain) barely breaks the surface of our non-wettings soils.
“But the crops are out and we’ll start spreading urea on the canola this week.
“The wheat is tillering and we’ve got subsoil moisture so there’s lots of potential.”
East of Esperance, Beaumont farmer Phil Longmire was hoping for heavy showers this week.
"We didn’t get much from Sunday night and with the crops up we need a substantial rain,” Mr Longmire said.
“But the wind has actually caused us the most pain and we’ve had wind damage where we had to re-seed.
“It has been a really windy year so far.
“Maybe our saving grace is that we’ve got some subsoil moisture.”
