Weekend rain changes Mid West outlook

Farm Weekly spoke with Elders Northampton agronomist and Yuna graingrower Belinda Eastough at the end of last week about how crops were being affected by the high temperatures and lack of rainfall in the Mid West.

Then the rain came and it came down hard.

"Everything has changed dramatically up here," Ms Eastough said after heavy rain fell in the area.

"We have been inundated with rain in the Geraldton region, so the narrative has changed, everyone is really happy considering we had a disastrous May."

On their property, which is one kilometre west of Yuna, Ms Eastough measured 156 millimetres of rain in her gauge since June 1.

"This property received 143mm for the whole of 2023," she said.

"It is very wet, we've now had more rain in nine days than we had for the whole of 2023.

"After two false breaks in May, we have now officially had a break in this region, so everyone is much happier."

As a result of the false breaks and long term hot, dry conditions, Ms Eastough said some growers were being forced to reseed, and will now be very grateful for the rainfall.

"There's a lot of reseeding of paddocks being done because we had those false breaks," she said.

"Impacted most are those with ameliorated soil because the moisture is held to the surface due to the high clay content.

"A lot of the canola and lupins, and some of the wheat, have germinated on just three millimetres over the whole paddock."

While some reseeding of full paddocks was necessary, Ms Eastough said there were other issues in the area including sheep farmers running out of feed and pest infestations.

"The other important thing that's happening up here is the definite lack of sheep feed," she said.

"Farmers are running out up here pretty badly, they've been feeding since May last year."

The combination of dry conditions and a small early serving of rain have also created a pest problem for growers that received rain in late April according to Ms Eastough.

"Some random thunderstorms came through in late April," she said.

"Not many people got rain, but those people that did, put a crop in.

"Very quickly these crops were targeted by huge populations of moths, so bad they've had to spray.

"We've had cabbage centre moths munching on canola and we've had diamondback moths too, there hasn't been much food around so those crops have been pretty focused on by the caterpillars.

"The cabbage centre moths wrap the leaves around themselves in the middle of the day so when you open the growing centre of the canola you can actually see them.

"The recent onset of cooler weather and rainfall will see the moth numbers reduce which is welcome news."