Wet winter delivers bumper crops for Scenic Rim

Following one of the warmest and driest autumns on record the Bureau of Meteorology measured 200.8mm of rain in Beaudesert over winter, which is almost double the average winter rainfall. 

Tamrookum dairy farmer Greg Dennis said the extra pasture had allowed him to start cutting hay and securing cattle feed for next autumn.

“From a feed-growing and cow point of view it’s really a good situation for the farm to be in,” he said.

“We’ve now got a good opportunity to get in there and get hay cut which we’re going to be pretty flat out doing for the next few weeks.”

“We like to do that in the spring, put as much good quality feed away for next autumn as we can.”

Confidence among feed growers was low at the start of winter with only 4.8mm of rain falling in April, making it the driest April on record.

With an increased need for irrigation and a rise in electricity prices farmers were worried about the cost incurred to maintain their pastures.

However,  Mr Dennis said with the record winter rain they had not needed to irrigate their crops since late May.

“Normally it’s a daily job going through winter and spring in this region when you’ve got rye grass and a milking herd of dairy cows to feed every day,” he said.

“At the moment we have not had to irrigate for four months.”

Mr Dennis put the success of this year’s winter crops down to the way the way the rain fell across the three months.

“We can get wet winters and the ground can get waterlogged and go sour if it gets too wet,” he said.

“This time we’ve seen a lot of rain but because it’s been spaced so nicely over the weeks as we’ve gone through June, July, August, September we just keep getting the right amount of rain.”

“Everything has been getting a chance to dry out and fire away again.”

More of the same is expected in spring with BOM forecasting above average rainfall.