Rutherglen farmer’s canola harvest defies dry spring with surprising yields
A North East farming family thought their canola would struggle after frost and drought, but yields have surprised them with better-than-predicted results.
Despite frost, and a dry spring Neil Fisher and his family are harvesting some better-than-expected crops in Victoria’s North East.
Neil farms alongside his wife Liz and brother-in-law and sister, Damien and Helen Neil at Rutherglen and they grow canola and wheat and also run prime lambs.
“Considering how dry the year has been canola is yielding better than our predictions,” Neil said,
Initially he thought it would be in the vicinity of 1.3 to 1.7 tonnes/ha but the outcome was closer to 1.5 to 2 tonnes/ha which was a result they were pleased with given the fact that canola pricing was tracking better than wheat.
“It had been windrowed for about 10 days before we got the header in and it was windrowed for longer than expected because of the intermittent rain,” he said.
Late-season rain hasn’t stopped either.
Despite, a forecast for warm and fine weather this week they witnessed a deluge at Rutherglen on Saturday night that delivered 65mm in one storm.
“It came in a very narrow stretch, just in one area, all in one rain event,” he said.
Just 10km away there were falls of 2mm to 10mm showing how isolated the rain activity was.
“I think there will be some damage, and some of the grain will fall out, but it was just a small area,” Neil said.
The canola harvest was anticipated to be complete in about 10 days and then he would consider moving onto wheat. But the wheat could be later than that before a header entered the paddock.
“We are hoping for 4.5 to 5 tonnes/ha for the wheat, and we are taking into consideration that wheat prices are at historically low levels,” he said.
Neil said some of the wheat had been hit by a frost a few weeks ago and he was expecting to see some yield adjustment in patches due to that.
Damage was as high as 30 per cent, from frost, in the Anapurna wheat variety.
“We are expecting warm days this week, and we really need that weather so we can get all of the canola finished,” he said.
In addition to crops the family also runs prime lambs and Neil said the way input prices were going at the moment with costs for urea and MAP the livestock side of the business was fast becoming the “favourite” enterprise.
