Many southern Queensland growers are breathing a sigh of relief as they put the 2019 winter crop, which saw decade low wheat and barley crops in Queensland and New South Wales, firmly in the rear-view mirror.
While recent rain has been patchy, and some growers are still watching the forecast before they take a chance on planting a winter crop, a green tinge is emerging across the Darling Downs and Goondiwindi regions.
At Burradoo, Condamine, Jake Hamilton has "planted the whole bloody lot" - a total of 4500 hectares.
"We planted 3800 hectares last year and we had no in-crop rain, so to have anywhere from 50 to 100 millimetres of in-crop rain so far this year, there's no comparison," Mr Hamilton said.
"We missed out on a summer crop so while we had moisture there, we thought it was time to catch up and we planted everything.
"We have got four crops in this winter - we've started with faba beans and we've planted some barley, some wheat and some chickpeas."
The Hamiltons began planting faba beans from the middle of April, followed by early barley and early wheat from Anzac Day.
"We've spread our planting over about eight weeks, we certainly haven't been working around the clock," Mr Hamilton said.
"We spread our winter crop out over 10 varieties of all different maturities between the middle of April and start of June. From the 23rd of May onward, we started planting chickpeas trying to avoid any late frosts."
Germination was strong, with only some harder red country where the strike was "pretty poor".
"But we had 30mm of rain towards the middle of May and that's filled in all of our patchy areas so they are catching up, but 90 per cent of it would be pretty good."
They were also "extremely lucky" to receive decent rain in mid June.
"A lot of places missed out, but we had anywhere from 38 to 70mm," Mr Hamilton said.
"The early planted stuff has secondary roots down and it should be exactly what they need to kick them through to spring.
"Some of the later planted stuff, like the chickpeas, they might suffer a bit of water logging, but generally [it should be] okay.
"We've got one field that's holding a bit of water still because it's quite melon-holey, but everything else is looking pretty good."
The Hamiltons took advantage of the dry in 2019 to improve their melon hole country, levelling close to 2000ha.
"As we know from years like this, when we do have a lot of rain, they fill up with water and nothing seems to like growing.
"While the drought was on and everyone was talking about how dry it was, we were getting stuck in and preparing for a flood... levelling melon holes and contouring."
NAB projects strong 2020-21 winter crop prospects
Following a positive start to the season with much of eastern Australia receiving above average rainfall, NAB says the outlook for the 2020-21 winter crop is expected to be average to above average.
NAB's Winter Crop Update report forecasts 2020-21 national wheat production to sit around the 25.9 million tonnes range, based on average rainfall for the remainder of the season.
NAB agribusiness economist Phin Ziebell said the initial forecast is closer to average and in line with ABARES' latest estimates of 26.7mt, and is predicted to jump to 29mt based on 50 per cent above average rainfall for the remainder of the season.
"Rainfall across major cropping regions was generally above average earlier this year but tended to be below average in May, with the exception of Victoria and South Australia," Mr Ziebell said.
"As such, seasonal conditions are very favourable in most of Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania, with most cropping regions experiencing above average soil moisture.
"However, Western Australia and Queensland are chasing rain, with the soil moisture deficit in WA keeping the winter crop outlook dependent on forecast rainfall materialising."
The Bureau of Meteorology's latest three-month outlook points to a wet winter and early spring across most of the country and all major grain-growing regions.
