Plenty of moisture was left in the ground following unusually good early autumn rain, but now farmers are reporting a dry top layer.
Barellan and Lake Rowan cropper Damon Symes was sowing canola in the lead up to ANZAC day and noticed the soil was drying quickly.
“There is a lot of deep moisture around but this week it’s starting to dry out,” Mr Symes said.
“We’ve had to change our plan a bit. Instead of chasing the moisture we are putting the canola seed on top and waiting for rain.”
Rodents are one of the biggest issues this season and pose a risk to the popular ‘leave it on top’ strategy.
“At the Barellan farm we did an aerial baiting and that had a really good result,” Mr Symes said.
“For the Lake Rowan property, it’s only now we are seeing the mice appear.”
Tungamah farmer Will Ford expects to sow 1000 ha by mid-May.
“We’ve been putting the canola into the ground and after Anzac Day we’ll be onto the wheat,” Mr Ford said.
“There are plenty of mice about, it’s going to be a challenge and we won’t know the impact until the crop germinates in a week or two.”
Devenish farmer John Alexander said his loamy soil had retained enough soil moisture for deeply sown crops like wheat, but the shallow canola was more of a gamble.
Despite this, Mr Alexander said he was sowing to the calendar and wasn't tempted to chase rain.
“It's important to control what you can and not worry about what you can't,” Mr Alexander said.
“You can't control the weather. What you can control is moisture retention by keeping cover on the ground and getting rid of weeds.”
Mr Alexander said he had been setting out rodent bait at sowing, opting to bait within 24 hours of putting the canola seed in, to save time.
“We've been baiting lightly, but we didn't have the labour to go around and find where the mice were before,” he said.
“One of the disadvantages of a good last year is being busy out-loading grain this year. It's a pain, but a good problem to have.”
Currently, there is no decent rain on the outlook but many farmers are being kept happy by the booming price of grains on the world market.
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