Drillham district grain grower Rohan Parkinson, Palardo, believes there are more positives than negatives to come from the recent rain event.
He received more that 190 millimetres of rain in the last fortnight.
Mr Parkinson and his wife Sarah planted 2800 hectares of Pioneer Seeds A66 and and Pacific Seeds Taurus sorghum varieties in the middle of December last year.
Despite the crop being planted on a 60 per cent moisture profile, it was shaping up to be one of the best he had grown in 14 years of farming at Drillham.
"We had 20mm of rain straight after planting to give it a start, followed by 80mm of sporadic storm rain in January, which was not beneficial," he said.
He said another 20mm in February helped the crop, which had been set up very well with urea fertiliser.
With an anticipated yield of upwards of three and a half tonne/ha, the Parkinson had forward sold their crop.
"It is certainly a different ball game now," Mr Parkinson said.
"We were certainly happy with the start of the rain event as it was a positive start to our winter planting but the end result is our sorghum will certainly be downgraded.
"We are now expecting to grade sorghum two, to enable us to fulfil our commitments and may just make three tonne/ha. The disheartening part is how the crop grew so well considering its start of a lower moisture profile and it was outstanding, but we are still hoping for a reasonable outcome."
Mr Parkinson hopes he will be able to get the headers in as early as next week to harvest his sorghum.
"Most of the other growers in the district are in the same situation as us with only a couple of early plantings harvested before the rain," he said.
"The silver lining in this cloud burst is that we will now be able to double crop our self mulching brigalow soil.
"This type of country can handle a full moisture profile very well."
Brian and Kaylene Gibson, Wellcamp, Dulacca had two major falls in the past fortnight, firstly receiving 150mm, followed by 100mm, wrecking one of the 'best sorghum crops' they had grown.
Mr Gibson said his early sorghum had sprouted and since fallen onto the ground.
"This is something that I haven't seen in my 46 years of farming in this country," he said.
Of the 1600ha planted, Mr Gibson said he had lost 1000ha and the balance would be downgraded to less than sorghum grade two.
"We were looking at a return of five tonne/ha and are now looking at two tonne," he said.
He has since fitted tracks to the header to start harvesting his remaining crop in the next couple of days.
His later sorghum plant of 600ha really appreciated the rain.
Helen Walker
Helen is the Toowoomba-based journalist who loves nothing better than covering anything horse sport related, however she covers all commodities and personality yarns. Over the years she has lived in Brisbane, Rockhampton, Longreach and Roma filing stories for the 'bible of the bush'. Contact 0459 827414.
Helen is the Toowoomba-based journalist who loves nothing better than covering anything horse sport related, however she covers all commodities and personality yarns. Over the years she has lived in Brisbane, Rockhampton, Longreach and Roma filing stories for the 'bible of the bush'. Contact 0459 827414.
