The past season for farmers around the Central West seemed bleak, with many fearing the frosts and dry weather would ruin their crops. The weather seemed to turn around towards the end, leaving the farmers happy and profitable.
“We all thought that the frosts would destroy the crops, but I was pleased with the weather towards the end of November. We are harvesting the straw now and it’s still a week before Christmas, so fortunately this is one of the earliest seasons we have been able to do that,” Tony Street said.
Other farmers such as Michael Paton would have loved to have a week of rain rather than a week of frosts, but admits the weather at the moment is perfect for other crops like Lucerne Hay.
“There is a huge demand for Lucerne Hay at the moment and the conditions are dry and hot which is perfect for this type of crop, but it would have been nice to get more rain at the beginning of October for the Canola and Wheat crops,” Michael stated.
The Belubula River however has been good for irrigation purposes this season, as it is at 60% capacity. So even with unpredictable weather conditions, the crops never went without a nice big drink.
Even though the weather conditions weren’t ideal for Wheat, Canola, Oats and other Grain crops to propagate, it didn’t stop our local farmers from producing the very best quality.
“I was happy with the quality of the grain but because we failed to get a decent amount of rain at the beginning of the season, we were unable to generate a decent yield, so unfortunately the quality was good but the yield wasn’t”, Tom Harris said.