Things are getting interesting down on the farm…
We are really only another week or so from our planned sowing date. Most things are in place. This week (tuesday) we took delivery of the last load of fertiliser which we can store on farm. That means we hold approximately 70% of the sowing season fertilizer on hand, with the rest to be delivered during sowing. We have our seed cleaned and are nearly ready to go.
Our airseeder maintenance is on schedule with really just the last perished hoses to be fitted and the final hookup of the airseeder bin, bar and tractor to go. So thats all good.
Our spraying program is a little behind program simply because of the rain.
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At the start of the week we received 9.5 mm of rain (monday morning), 38mm wednesday and another 7.5mm on Thursday. Which means we have received well over 50% of our annual rainfall in approximately two months. Please don’t get me wrong – moisture is good, but at the moment its very wet. It is nice to know when you sow a seed that it has moisture to germinate. But this wet will cause problems getting on to the ground for sowing. |
Its also a concern that it means that we are either in for a substantially above average rainfall year if the trend continues (good, but unlikely)- or we will see a drying phase occurring just as our crops are ripening. So when we sow wet and early, we will need to be careful about our plant densities and nutrition so that they don’t grow huge crop canopies which are unsustainable in a dry finish.
Yes, nothing is ever simple, but at least there appeared to be good rain over some of the driest areas of Queensland this time. 🙂
We have also failed to get the last of the grain bags out of the paddock before sowing – its way too wet to get a truck into the paddock and has been over the last few weeks. So we will just have to go around them at sowing and look for an opportunity to extract the grain during winter. A bit dissapointing.
(and as I type – the rain has restarted). There is nothing like listening to rain on the roof is there? Sometimes that rain brings us relief for our crops and is a source of joy – other times, rain can be quite damaging. But either way – with rain or without – we need to make the best decisions we can and keep going forward. Certainly from my experience, I have never seen an ‘average’ year. Yes, every year is different. Welcome to farming….
Dan and I got the opportunity on Monday evening to go to a New Holland Machinery event where the new model header front was released. It was a great opportunity to see where the development of machine is going as well as catching up with other farming friends. NH was also announcing that they are now sourcing headers (combine harvesters as they call them) now from a factory in Europe (Belgium) rather than the factory in the US where ours had always come from. They are claiming better build quality, which doesn’t surprise me. Our last new header (year 2012) is a great design. Good capacity, well thought out – but had so many assembly related issues to fix, you wonder if it was made on Friday afternoon late. NH and the dealer have been excellent in fixing them – but it must have cost someone serious money. But don’t think any other colours are better – I know stories that I can’t tell here of yellow, green and red machines where new models are far more unreliable than they are as 5 year old machines. Build quality and reliability is at least as important as clever design. As machines get more complicated, this is a real industry issue.
Anyway, the rain has now stopped, so Dan and I will try and achieve a few more jobs today on a ‘heavy’ track.
So the next 6-8 weeks are crucial for us as we try and get our cropping program underway. It will be interesting. It always is…
Anyway, I hope all is well with you and your families as you read this. 🙂
NeilK