After experiencing three tough winter crop seasons, Darling Downs farmer David Peters is upbeat this year thanks to strong barley and wheat prices and above average rainfall.
Mr Peters, who runs crop and cattle property Hillcrest at Allora with wife Tanya under the name Davanya Grains, missed out on winter crops in 2018 and 2019 due to dry conditions and harvested an average 2020 crop.
This year he planted 200 hectares of barley across varieties Planet and Spartacus in late May and seeded 70ha of Sunchaser wheat in late July.
Working on wheat prices of $300 per tonne, barley prices of $265/t, and an end-July rainfall figure of 503 millimetres (annual average is 532mm), spirits are high.
"It's been a pretty average couple of years, so it's good to see it where it is now," Mr Peters said.
"This year, there's an awful lot of confidence around with the current season."
Mr Peters said while last year's barley price was higher, the supply was tighter, so to see strong prices even with a bumper crop predicted was a win-win situation.
"All the end users and traders are sitting back thinking there's going to be a good influx of grain, but we're lucky too because there are still relatively good grain prices," Mr Peters said.
"The cattle market is good. People are fairly upbeat and for good reason I think. Things are looking pretty good at this stage."
In 2020, cereal yields at Hillcrest were about 4t/ha, so this year the growers are aiming to best that by a couple of tonnes.
"The crops set themselves up really well and we had a tough finish, which brought the yields back a little bit from what they could have been, but they were still OK.
"I'd be hoping for five or six tonnes per hectare this year, all going well."
This year Mr Peters applied 120kg/ha of urea pre-plant, starter fertiliser at-plant, and top dressed urea in-crop at 150kg/ha.
"This year we didn't have a whole lot of fertiliser down, so before all that winter rain we spread a bit more urea over and top dressed it.
"If the season continues to look good we'll probably throw extra N on the wheat down the track."
The grower has also been keeping on top of disease and weeds with the help of B&B Agricultural Services agronomist Mike Balzer.
"We've done an in-crop herbicide and also a fungicide spray. My agronomist was here recently and he thought in the next week or so we may have to do another fungicide spray.
"The main thing to monitor is spot form net blotch."
Mr Peters will look to start harvesting in early November and get the grain into on-farm silos to aid with marketing.
"I know a lot of people who do contracts, but we normally grow it and get in the silo and then market it once we've got it rather than take a production risk of having something happen, whether it be a hail storm or frost.
"Sometimes it can sit there for nearly 12 months. It depends a lot on the price.
"This last sorghum crop that we've had - the price was good, so the whole lot's just gone. There's not a grain left."
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Brandon Long
Brandon Long is a Queensland Country Life journalist based in Toowoomba.
Brandon Long is a Queensland Country Life journalist based in Toowoomba.
