IT was the lure of water and the potential for irrigation that initially enticed Charlie Gracie to purchase a 2430-hectare scrub block on the Balonne River.
Three decades on and Katoota, 35km north of St George, is now a highly productive mixed farming operation with 500ha of irrigation.
These days the operation is run by Charlie’s son Robert who enlists the help of his teenage son, Dillon, when he’s home on holidays from boarding school.
“We are trying to get Dillon more interested in the cotton but he’s pretty keen on the cattle side of things at the moment,” Robert said.
This year the Gracie family have a 250ha crop of BRF74 that was planted in the first week of October.
That accounts for just 30 per cent of their normal cotton plant, according to Robert.
“We knew we were going to be short of water but it’s a pretty reliable river here,” he said.
“There have only been two or three years since we have been here that’s it hasn’t flowed in January.”
Rain over Christmas and New Year has backed up Robert’s theory.
“We had six inches (150mm) from Christmas until mid-January and got a flow in the river which was great,” he said.
“It was a nice quiet Christmas for a change – no one was rushing around starting syphons.”
Robert said pest pressure had been minimal this season with some fields not even sprayed once.
He was busying organising an application of PIX when Australian Cotton and Grains visited in mid-January, just to help slow down the growth of the crop.
“We just want to slow it down a little because conditions have been perfect,” he said.
“At this stage we will be looking at a defoliation at the end of March and picking the first week of April.”
The Gracie family also have some forage sorghum under irrigation this summer and will save their fallow country for irrigated chickpeas and wheat in winter.
“We did that last year and it went well so we are keen to go again especially with chickpea prices being so attractive.”
