Farmers weigh in on early sowing after ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred offers an early start in some areas

Farmers are taking advantage of recent rainfall to start sowing grazing crops, while others will wait for the autumn break.

Some farmers have taken advantage of rainfall from ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred to start sowing early, while others are waiting for the traditional autumn break before beginning their winter cropping programs.

Southern NSW farmer and agronomist Don Kirkpatrick from Mangoplah said it was dry in many parts, but that wasn’t unusual for the district.

“It has been bone dry in early March plenty of times before,” he said.

Mr Kirkpatrick said there had been intermittent rainfall and storms, but the professional cropping operators would most likely sow by the calendar rather than wait for a break.

However, storm activity allowed some grazing crops to be sown early.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology rainfall totals in summer were below to very much below average for most of the western two-thirds of Victoria, and for NSW they were below average to very much below average for areas in the west and north of the state

So far in March Ballarat has received 11mm of rain, compared to the long-term average March rainfall of 41mm, while at Horsham there has been 4.4mm of rain in March, compared to the long-term average of 14mm.

At Moree there has been 6.6mm of rain for the first 17 days of the month, compared to 61mm for the long-term average and at Wagga Wagga there has been 6.6mm of rain, compared to 46.5mm average

In northern NSW, there has been some activity with farmers sowing dual-purpose crops following falls of rain in the past week.

Moree farmer Matthew Madden said to the east of him there had been some reasonable rainfall in the aftermath of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

“The storms have been very variable,” Mr Madden said.

“People have started by putting in a little bit of stock feed, and there has been urea and lime going out,” he said.

In his area, falls of 6mm to 12mm were recorded, which was welcome but not enough to start sowing.

The soil moisture levels were at about 80 per cent and Mr Madden planned on sowing wheat, canola and chickpeas as part of the winter program this year.

Agronomist and farmer Don Kirkpatrick of Maxwell in southern NSW inspects a pasture crop. Picture: Nikki Reynolds

Gorst Rural director Cam Conboy from Lake Bolac said rainfall in the area had varied from 6mm to 20mm in the past week to 10 days.

He said there would be people looking to start putting in some livestock feed as soon as the opportunity presented.

However, it was still hot.

“With the current temperatures (in the mid-30C and above), any young seedlings would risk drying up,” he said.

In terms of preparation for winter cropping, Mr Conboy said that in the next week or so, farmers would start preparing their firebreaks and getting ready to burn any stubble.

“I feel that they are confident to get started even though it is dry.”

Mr Conboy said the dry weather also meant there had been very little summer weed control.

“Most of our farmers are either flat out feeding or watering stock,” he said.

DLF Seeds agronomist Frank McRae from Orange, NSW, said things were getting desperate and people were really wanting to sow stock feed but it was still risky.

“We are really looking for some rain,” he said.

Mr McRae said once rain was forecast, and reliably forecast for a widespread area, farmers would take the opportunity to sow dual-purpose crops.

“It has really dried out across the board,” he said.