Off and racing

Most farmers are happy with the gift from the heavens, settling the dust from mostly dry-seeded programs and getting the season off to a good start.

Moora farmer Tracy Lefroy was one who said she didn't even realise how much stress she was carrying in her shoulders until it rained.

"It's been lovely, it was quite the relief," Ms Lefroy said.

"We were just so thrilled, we've got one paddock left to go and then seeding is finished.

"We just didn't realise how stressed we were, and then it rained and we could do that big sigh of relief."

A week ago, emerging crops were showing signs of moisture stress and, according to the Grain Industry Association of Western Australia (GIWA), much of the northern and southern grainbelt were dusty and brown.

"These rainfall events will germinate crops that were sown dry, and those that had emerged will now take off and have reasonable yield potential," the report said.

The year-to-date rainfall for the State, excluding those in the eastern edges of the grainbelt, is now at levels where reasonable tonnages of production are possible, it said.

Perhaps some of the most relieved to receive rainfall were those in the Geraldton zone, who were "looking down the barrel" of a very poor year up until two weeks ago.

With some solid rainfall, in some cases exceeding the average rainfall for the whole of June, this outlook has definitely changed.

Marchagee farmer Michael O'Callaghan said the 25-30 millimetres of rain he received in May "completely changes everything."

"It was looking terrible, we needed a lot of rain because there wasn't much subsoil moisture - but now we are back in the game," Mr O'Callaghan said.

He said anything that hadn't yet germinated was in a position to germinate, making him a happy man.

Prior to the rain, crops that were up were struggling, and - in a large portion of the zone - crops had not emerged.

According to GIWA, on heavy country, some crops were reseeded because they were dying from lack of rain or were too patchy.

As the crops develop, Mr O'Callaghan was hoping for more rain and he said it was often the late August, early September rains that made or broke a crop.

He was slightly weary of the dry Bureau of Meteorology forecast, but so far he said the season was looking good.

"This has been seriously magnificent, it's good timing," Mr O'Callaghan said.

"It could have been a week or two earlier, but it could have easily been a few weeks later, which would have been a lot worse.

"It is a good result, as long as the rain keeps coming."

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While Marchagee received some good rain, the north-eastern and eastern fringe missed out on the good falls of rain, and some of the light country in the northern areas was starting to blow prior to the rain in the past week.

Lack of rain forced the Pulbrook family to prematurely pull-up their seeding rigs this year, cutting 1100 hectares off the planned 3690ha wheat program.

Brothers Lewis and James Pulbrook farm with their parents Grant and Nadine at Canna, 43 kilometres north east of Morawa.

The family typically crops 4800ha in this low rainfall zone, but this year stopped at 3700ha when conditions became too dry.

Their farm received 80mm of summer rain, which is bordering on average, then 20mm at the start of March, followed by 10mm at the start of May and 20mm during the past week.

"It has not been a whole heap," Lewis Pulbrook said.

He said seeding started on April 18 with lupins, and the full program of 460ha was put into the ground.

This was followed by 650ha of canola, before 2590ha of wheat was planted by May 18.

"Then we pulled up because conditions became too dry," he said.

"We had to scale back the wheat program due to dry conditions, limited soil moisture and not much rain on the forecast."

Mr Pulbrook said the crop was germinating well, especially lupins that had enough moisture from the 10mm May rain event to come out of the ground two weeks after sowing.

He said canola and wheat were also emerging and there were no issues with pests and diseases yet.

Weeds were starting to come up and control measures would start while these were small.

This year the Pulbrooks are sowing RockStar wheat after bulking up seed on 20ha last year.

They are also planting Scepter, Vixen and Havoc.

This year, many Geraldton zone growers chased deep moisture, which has paid off as these crops have emerged with enough plants to give good yield potential.

"This practice change of chasing deep moisture occurred over a large area of the State this year and while sowing deep is not without its own risks, this year it has paid off," the GIWA report said.

"There is a big contrast in yield potential between those that did chase moisture and those that did not, and this could end up adding significant tonnes of grain to the 2023 WA total."

There has been quite a turnaround in the Kwinana zones from a week ago.

The rainfall between the end of May and beginning of June was described as having a 'training' effect - meaning rain cloud after rain cloud soaked the towns on its path.

Cunderdin was fortunate enough to be right in line with this system.

Cunderdin farmer David Fulwood said he received 200mm on the wettest days.

"We were feeling very lucky and fortunate to be in that position," Mr Fullwood said.

He sowed canola, barley, lupins and wheat in a program similar to the past few seasons.

Seeding started in early April - making the most of some Easter rain - and took about seven weeks, finishing on May 22.

As they finished up in May, the soil started to dry out.

But Mr Fulwood said the crops held on and managed to germinate.

Good soil temperatures also contributed to a nice germination.

"The whole program went into subsoil moisture," Mr Fulwood said.

"The past 10 days (of seeding) started seriously drying out, it was a drying profile, so it wasn't at full moisture, but it was there and it was enough to germinate the crop.

"It's tracking well.

"It was one of the better years, not having to rush and having a good knock down."

Mr Fulwood said the early rains germinated a lot of weeds for knock-down, but now the paddocks were looking clean.

"The crops have been able to get up and away, ahead of the weeds," he said.

"Most people around the place are saying their crops are fairly clean and we'd agree with that."

Mr Fulwood said he "wasn't too concerned" about the rest of the seasonal outlook.

"Anything could happen, we're just going to play the season as it comes, which is what we do every year," he said.

"I won't change anything significantly because of the forecast."

GIWA said the country was unusually consistent from Meckering through to Merredin, but there was a bit of a patchwork of paddocks across the zone - with crops up from the early sowing in April and May, and the later 30 per cent or so of paddocks that were sown dry being brown up until now.

The Narrogin area is also reported to be looking good, after some concern subsoil was looking too dry, said Elders agronomist Emma Steele.

"Things are looking really good, most of the crop has germinated, everyone has finished seeding and we're waiting to see how the rest of the season goes," Ms Steele said.

"The Narrogin area is pretty good, we've had good rainfall this whole season - it's looking quite good for everyone around here.

"While most of Kwinana has received good rainfall, GIWA reported the eastern and north-eastern fringe of the zone - from Buntine down to Kalannie and across to Bonnie Rock - had lighter falls of rain of generally less than 20mm.

"This rain was on top of less than 50mm YTD, hence affected growers are bracing for a below-average year," the report said.

Elders, Dalwallinu agronomist Tristan Clarke said recent rain in the area was patchy, with farms recording anywhere between 14-50mm.

A couple of bumper seasons have left farmers wanting to scale back, as they fear their luck may be starting to run out.

"The majority (growers) have left a portion of their programs out, they're not putting their whole program in," Mr Clarke said.

"A couple of good years in a row, high input costs of fertiliser, and probably just the seasonal outlook not looking very positive... there's very little confidence around."

Before the rain, Mr Clarke said there was a good band of moisture about 30cm deep into the soil, but now there's likely to be moisture in the full profile of the soil.

This has put early canola and barley crops in good condition.

"There's some early canola crops that look very good and some early barley and wheat that had a few small rainfall events that germinated in April and May which look very good," he said.

Mr Clarke said there were very few weeds and no pests as yet, but he is expecting a lot more weeds to pop up in the next few weeks.

"We're expecting a pretty big flush of ryegrass after this rain, there's going to be a lot of weeds coming up in the next few weeks," he said.

"They're expecting it and they're prepared and they'll be into it as soon as possible."

Mr Clark said the rain delivered relief to many but looking out from now, farmers were "cautiously optimistic".

The west and southern portion of the Albany port zone is behind in growth stages compared to this time in 2022 and have less subsoil moisture reserves, while the majority of the Lakes district crop has only emerged with recent rains.

While GIWA said it is not too late for average grain yield potential to be achieved, frost will have a greater impact over a wider area with this late emergence.

Borden farmer Jamie Spence received 50mm to 100mm during the past couple of weeks, and wrapped-up seeding at the end of May.

He said his neighbour received about 170mm, which has left massive trenches and half a paddock unusable, so he counted himself lucky he didn't incur too much rain damage.

Prior to the big rain event, Mr Spence received a constant drizzle of about 10mm, which he said helped the soil soak.

On March 26, the farm received 12.5mm, on April 14 it received 14.5mm, followed by a large rainfall event of 64.5mm on May 31 and a final 13.5mm on June 5-6.

The Borden farm is looking good, with the rain enough to kickstart most of the crops out of the ground.

"We started our canola almost in the first week of April, and as soon as we finished our canola we had some moisture, so we kept going with the wheat, but then we stopped because we didn't get enough rain towards the end of April," Mr Spence said.

"The soil was wet, but not wet enough or dry enough to seed - so we stopped for a week."

According to GIWA, in the Albany South region, about 30pc of the area intended to be cropped is yet to be sown.

This will now go in once it dries out a little.

Most of this is heavy country, of which about 80pc is expected to be sown to wheat and the remainder to barley.

In Albany, there continues to be a few pasture paddocks that were intended to be cropped left out to carry the higher-than-normal sheep numbers still on-farm.

"Following the rain, patchy canola crops will improve and pastures that hung on during the dry May, will now be able to support the extra sheep kept on-farm," the GIWA report said.

"In saying this, sheep feed will be tight until August.

"There have been reports of pests in the area, with mice, earwigs and redlegged earth mites spotted in crops.

"The Esperance zone was in desperate need of the recent rains, and the coverage over the region was patchy, with some of the drier areas unfortunately missing out again.

"Most growers in the region hadn't received more than 10mm of rain for May, and were looking forward to the rainfall that came last week."

This year doesn't hold a candle to the past two years for crop establishment and early vigour at East Munglinup, 110 kilometres west of Esperance.

George, Tom and Jack Carmody and their father Tim have sown 4000ha of their 4300ha property that also supports cattle.

The family has stuck with its plans to sow a full program, despite receiving only sporadic rain events in the lead-up to and during seeding.

Average annual rainfall on the property is 450mm.

A wet harvest last year has provided good subsoil moisture, but there was no follow-up after Christmas.

"It dried out," George Carmody said.

"We had a small rain event at the start of seeding in mid-April and then nothing until 25mm was recorded in the gauge in the past week.

"Seeding finished at the start of June.

"Overall it has been a very dry start compared to the past two years."

Mr Carmody said it was just lucky the subsoil is wet because the topsoil has really dried out.

The Carmody family planted 1900ha of canola, including several Roundup-Ready and Clearfield varieties, and the rest of the program was made up of Scepter and Calibre wheat over 2100ha.

A small 100ha area was planted to barley for silage for cattle.

Mr Carmody said crop germination had been very staggered.

"The heavier soils have had the handbrake on, as the lack of topsoil moisture has taken a toll," he said.

"But the lighter soils are catching up."

Mr Carmody said the decision to not reduce the seeding program was made easier by the fact they grew a lot of canola last year, providing a good lead-in to cereals this year that could cope better with a drier start.

"Now it is nose down doing grass sprays and thinking about nutrition top-ups," he said.

GIWA said large areas of the Esperance zone were sown on the angle to get crops up in the drying profile.

"This, along with chasing moisture deep, is another area of practice change that growers have adopted recently," the report said.

"This year, larger areas of the grainbelt have been sown with these practices than ever before.

"Weed control in the canola paddocks has been challenging, as the crops have a large range of growth stages due to the staggered emergence following planting - particularly around the use of Triazine.

"A lot of nitrogen went out ahead of the rains, and growers will now be concentrating on getting rid of the flush of weeds that are expected to germinate now the country is wet," the report said.