IT HAS been one of those rare winter cropping seasons when everything has fallen into place for the Moore family, who finished stripping 120 hectares of wheat and 80ha of barley on their Darling Downs farm last week.
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Timely pre-sowing and in-crop rains, coupled with a high-protein finish and reasonable prices, have made it one of the better years for Scott and Kirra Moore, and their children Charlie and Ella, on their farm, Cable Hole, at Macalister.
Mr Moore said the crop got off to a flying start thanks to pre-season rain and flooding that built up soil moisture levels over summer.
"We had one of our best summers. From after harvest in October to planting in May we had about 600mm of rain," he said.
"We had flooding in January that went over about one-third of the country for a day or two that filled the profile."
Mr Moore said their good fortune continued right up to sowing, with falls of rain that couldn't have been timed any better.
"We finished fertilising a week before sowing and got 29mm of rain on top of that," he said.
"We started planting on May 18 and were finished by May 21. We planted everything in three days.
"The day we finished planting we got 15mm of rain, so we were pretty lucky. I'd be a great farmer if I could organise the rain like that every year."
Mr Moore said they had another 42mm in July, then nothing until the middle of September when there was a fall of 14mm, and another 16mm a week or two later that benefited the Strzelecki wheat but was a little late for the Baxter.
"The Strzelecki was just starting to put a head out then and yielded a bit better than the Baxter, as it could make use of the late rain," he said.
"The Baxter was a bit earlier and might have got a tiny bit of frost damage, although I think it was more to do with limited moisture."
Harvest, which wrapped up on Wednesday last week, was about a week-and-a-half earlier than normal. Mr Moore said all the Baxter went Prime Hard around 14.5 percent protein, and the Strzelecki was on the borderline with protein up around 14.5pc but screenings over 5pc, so half of it was Prime Hard and half AH2.
The Baxter yielded about 3.2 tonnes/hectare and the Strzelecki averaged 3.6t/ha. The better areas of it went over 5t/ha.
"We sold the Prime Hard for $310/t ex-farm and anything less than Prime Hard goes straight into the feed market. There is only a $10/t spread between Prime Hard and feed. So it has gone pretty well," he said.
The Moores predominantly grow winter crop but plan to shift their rotations towards a 60:40 summer/winter crop mix.
They are developing more country and will increase the area of sorghum they grow, although that might not happen this season unless the weather improves.
"Unless we get some really good rain, I probably won't plant any sorghum this year. If there is a heap of rain, no doubt I'll change my mind," Mr Moore said.
The Moores grew only 40ha of sorghum last summer, which yielded 4.25t/ha.
"We triple cropped it. We went from sorghum the year before straight into wheat and then straight back to sorghum," he said.
"I told myself that if I had 10 inches (250mm) of rain by Christmas I'd put the sorghum in. We got nine, so that was near enough.
"We are not into cotton or other summer crops. We are just keeping it simple with wheat, barley and sorghum."
