Kanyapella benefits from rain

Handy rainfall of more than 30mm has helped to bolster winter crops at Kanyapella in northern Victoria.

Farmer Mark Haydon hopes to have winter sowing at his property at Kanyapella complete in the next couple of days.

The northern Victorian property has experienced some handy rainfall, equating to about 34mm, which provided plenty of hope when it arrived last weekend; however, other than that, it has mostly been dry.

The plan was to dry sow and hope that a break would arrive to help crops emerge.

Mark Haydon, sowing wheat at Kanyapella. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

Now, Mark is looking to the skies for another follow-up rainfall event from last weekend.

“We haven’t finished sowing here yet but are hoping it will be complete by Thursday,” he said.

This year he planted canola, faba beans, barley and wheat.

Some of the earlier sown canola has already germinated and benefited from the recent rain.

“The canola has started to emerge, and we have barley up too,” he said.

“Before the rain last weekend, it had been extremely dry,” he said.

“It’s truly been a year for dry sowing,” he said.

Mark said crops were sown by the calendar rather than waiting for an autumn break, which had largely escaped his region this year.

In addition to growing crops, he also has some Angus cattle.