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Wet summer creates crop options

15-Feb-2012

Wet summer creates crop options
MICHAEL BUSHELL
Published in Forbes Advocate, 14 Feb, 2012

Two wet summers in a row have caused headaches and heartache for Forbes grain growers, but the wet seasons have also cast a brighter light on summer cropping options in the Lachlan Valley.
With water allocations to licensed irrigators now at 117 per cent, crops such as corn, soyabeans, sorghum and even rice have returned to the Forbes landscape, some for the first time in more than 10 years.

Andrew Cogswell from Forbes-based broker, Lachlan Commodities, said the company had witnessed a five-fold increase in summer corn, soyabean and seed sorghum plantings from last year.

                                                                                                                           Greg Miller, AWS territory manager with
                                                                                                                           Lawrence Pearl and Shirohie Millet 
Mr Cogswell estimated about 1000 hectares of corn had been sown in
the Forbes area last September, compared to between 200 and 300 hectares at the same time in 2010.

This should equate to a yield of around 10,000 tonnes at the end of the summer, compared to 2000 tonnes a year earlier.

Lachlan Valley Water executive officer, Mary Ewing, said farmers with a licence to irrigate now had access to more water than they had for a decade.

“Since 2002 really, there has been very little water allocated to those growers [general security licence holders] so they’ve had no water to use,” Ms Ewing said.

“Now with water allocations of 117 per cent of their licences this year, that’s given people the confidence to go ahead,” she said.

“I think with people knowing they can use 100 per cent of their licence this year, in 2011/12… that has given people the confidence to plan to grow summer crops, and it’s a welcome return of confidence and a welcome improvement in conditions in the Lachlan as a whole after a very debilitating drought.”

Ms Ewing said irrigators in the lower Lachlan Valley, west of Forbes, had planted cotton again after a 10 year absence.

“An annual crop like cotton is easy for people to drop out of their rotation, whereas people would have kept growing lucerne and would have used what little water they had for that,” she said.

“But cotton and rice are both annual crops that - when there is little or no water around - is easy to drop out of your crop rotation,” Ms Ewing said.

Higher than average summer rainfall has also helped sheep and cattle producers and those who grow summer forage crops.
Auswest Seeds Central NSW territory manager, Greg Miller said sales of seeds for summer forage had increased by about 25 per cent on last season.
Forage sorghums, Lawrence Pearl and Shirohie millets, Lablab and Cowpeas had all been popular options for farmers looking to grow pasture in the warmer months, Mr Miller said.
“It’s mainly been dryland [growers] and it has been the wet summer that has given people the opportunity,” he said.
Varieties of millet in particular had been extensively planted in the Lachlan Valley area.
“There is less risk involved in the millets than with sorghum, which if it does turn dry, won’t get you the production you would need,” Mr Miller said.

Higher than average summer rainfall has also helped sheep and cattle producers and those who grow summer forage crops.

Auswest Seeds Central NSW territory manager, Greg Miller said sales of seeds for summer forage had increased by about 25 per cent on last season.

Forage sorghums, Lawrence Pearl and Shirohie millets, Lablab and Cowpeas had all been popular options for farmers looking to grow pasture in the warmer months, Mr Miller said.

“It’s mainly been dryland [growers] and it has been the wet summer that has given people the opportunity,” he said.

Varieties of millet in particular had been extensively planted in the Lachlan Valley area.

“There is less risk involved in the millets than with sorghum, which if it does turn dry, won’t get you the production you would need,” Mr Miller said.

 




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