THIS season's sorghum crops are set to go down to the wire for central Queensland sharefarmer and contract sprayer, Bevan Beer, following a promising wet start that turned dry as the growing season progressed.
With harvest looming in a few weeks, the 1000 hectares of Buster sorghum he has growing on a number of farms in the Capella district are feeling the pinch as they move through what has been a dry finish.
Mr Beer said he started planting the crop under wet conditions on December 28, but the "rain tap has turned off" since then.
However, he said it was still looking a reasonable crop.
In some of his better paddocks if there had been late season rain he said it could have gone as much as 5 tonnes/hectare, but he is still hopeful those stands will produce around 4t/ha.
Overall he expects the crop to average 2.5t/ha.
Mr Beer said the crop was planted on 1.5-metre rows at a sowing rate aimed at achieving an establishment of 50,000 plants per hectare.
"Because we had so much rain, every seed came up and we ended up with about 55,000 seeds/ha. It was more than we wanted," he said.
"And because it was such a good start, the crop decided to stool out and some of the plants ended up with two and three stools per plant."
Neil Lyon
National machinery writer for Fairfax Agricultural Media.
National machinery writer for Fairfax Agricultural Media.
