Bowenville farmer Peter Waddell won’t be taking his tractor out of the shed this week, despite 25 millimetres of rain across his cropping country on Tuesday.
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The Waddell family have planted 510 hectares of sorghum, but were hoping this week’s forecast rain band across Queensland would deliver a much-needed 50mm to plant a profitable mung bean crop.
“We have set some country aside for the mung beans, but just haven’t got the moisture level in the soil yet,” Mr Waddell said.
“It has been very patchy rain across the Darling Downs and we are running at 60 per cent of the average rainfall for our normal summer season.”
Mr Waddell is also expecting a below average yield from his summer sorghum crop.
“I have to say it’s not the best position to be in to have the double hit of a small crop and low commodity prices for sorghum as well,” he said.
While some Darling Downs farmers missed out on the rain, others were lucky enough to be under a storm with reported rainfall over 70mm across the region.
Dalby Rural Supplies senior agronomist Andrew Johnston said the rain this week across the Darling Downs was very patchy for such a broad looking storm band.
“There really was a big difference in rainfall totals from farm to farm,” Mr Johnston said.
“Farmers around Dalby told me they got more than 80mm, while others only had 10mm of rain.”
Mr Johnston added that Tuesday’s rain had increased the number of inquiries from farmers about planting a mung bean crop.
“A few mung bean crops will now be planted east of Dalby, with a couple of farmers also putting in a small amount of sorghum, corn, and millet.
“Those people north and west of Dalby are still very dry and the crops I recently saw out on the Jimbour Plains are doing it very tough.
“Mung bean seed is currently in good supply, while only some corn seed varieties maybe a bit hard to get hold of this summer.”
With cattle sales kicking off across Queensland next week, Roma TopX livestock agent Cyril Close expects the continuing patchy rainfall across southern Queensland to result in a steady flow of cattle into Roma Saleyards.
“I don’t think producers will be holding out at the start of this year to see if they can get more money for their cattle at a later date,” Mr Close said.
“I’m expecting 2000 to 3000 head of cattle yarded for Roma’s first store sale if the weather generally continues in its current pattern, while 4000 to 5000 head may be penned for the second Roma sale of the year,” he said. Who got the Rain? P30.
