With between 70 to 100 mls of rain falling in and around Canowindra for the month of April, this has ensured a very good start to the cropping season.
The storm which crossed over on Saturday delivered around 25 mls and if this continues it will ensure some good crops for the year, as long as follow up rain continues.
Most of the oats has been sown and farmers are now onto monola and canola with wheat to start in the first weeks of May.
Tom Harris, Minimbah, Cargo has just started sewing 200 hectares of Monola as well as grazing canola and as long as the ground dries out should finish this by the end of this week. He has just purchased a Massey Ferguson 76 24 Dyna 6 from Cowra Machinery – this power shift tractor handles all agricultural work, including broadacre sowing and also baling in the spring.
Ron from Cowra Machinery said that they have been run off their feet since the rain of last week with all sorts of enquiries in relation to sowing.
Also busy sowing last week were Murray and Charlie Balcomb, who farm Avondale, which is around 600 hectares north of Cargo, as well as their home property at Cudal. They use a John Deere 8345 tractor which pulls a flexi coil seeder and are currently sowing 500 hectares of canola, 100 hectares of barley and 600 hectares of wheat.
Brad O’Reilly, Canowindra Produce agronomist re-iterated that this is the best start to the cropping season that we could have hoped for. He said “farmers need to be looking at controlling weeds for the Autumn season germination and to ensure that they have all of their fertiliser ordered now. I can also offer recommendations for the best type of fertiliser depending on what they are sowing and what sort of soil type they have.”
“In addition, once the crops have been sown, the farmers should do deep soil testing for nitrogen, as often the top soil tests are very different to the deep soil tests, showing high levels of nitrogen when in fact the deep soil tests are quite low.” Brad can be contacted on 0427047618.
Other farmers are busy marking lambs and can now put any to be fattened onto the lucerne pastures which have come along in leaps and bounds.
Don’t forget that whilst we have had some good rain over the past month if your property was lacking in water over summer, give Calidad Drilling a call to come out and investigate water opportunities on your property. They are one of Australia’s most efficient, safe and environmentally friendly drilling contractors and are based locally in Canowindra, owned by Greg Wythes. Give Greg a call on 0447 837 455.
The Rural Handyman can help you when you are busy and Ryan is available for any odd jobs, including rural contracting, fixing leaky roofs, and any sort of house maintenance. No job is too big or small. Give him a call today on 0428 623 954.
In preparation for the hay season, Matt and the team at MGA Central West can fully customise your hay sheds, as well as shearing and storage sheds, stables and hangars and they are available in a number of shapes and colours.