Chris Shady says ‘we are actually pretty good’ with soil moisture

A farmer at Mingay has started sowing canola after scoring 20mm of rain. This year he has changed to non-GM canola because of the price difference.

Jordan Course has been sowing at Mingay. Picture: Chris Shady

Some rain late last week was perfectly timed for sowing on Chris Shady’s property.

Chris, who farms at Mingay near Skipton, started sowing canola last week and was continuing sowing canola this week.

He will also plant faba beans, wheat and vetch, with sowing expected to take about 40 days.

“We will hopefully be finished by the end of May,” he said.

Chris said they received 20mm late last week, so they couldn’t sow on Anzac Day because the ground was too wet, and they had 20mm about a fortnight before.

“I don’t like saying it, but we are actually pretty good here and we are happy enough with the soil moisture.”

He said the ideal would be to get another 20mm in a few weeks.

“We’ve got more moisture this year than we had at sowing last year. The summer was hotter and drier but we seem to have a bit more moisture now.”

“Last year we didn’t get a lot of rain post sowing and spring was tough, but we did end up with an above average harvest.”

Chris said they had changed from genetically modified canola to non-GM canola this year because of the price difference.

“We did have three-quarters of our canola GM, but we have gone to all non-GM this year because there is a $100 difference.”

While it was a long way until harvest, Chris said it was a real unknown how markets and prices would be by then because of the effect of Trump’s tariffs.

“The market has been pretty volatile with what Trump has done, so we just do what we do and see what happens.”