As the sorghum harvest gets under way at “Breeza Station”, farmer Andrew Pursehouse laments what could have been a successful season.
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Despite “ideal conditions” when the 300 hectares was planted in October, the lack of rain has significantly impacted both yield and quality.
“It’s almost a replica of last year - not enough rain at the right time,” he said.
“It’s halved the budgeted yield.
“You do all the right things up until needing that little bit of rain at the end and you get pipped at the post, but that’s farming.”
This year, the Pursehouses planted 50 hectares less than last year because “we just didn’t have a full profile of moisture in the soil at planting time”.
The situation is so dire that they didn’t even spray this year’s crop.
“We couldn’t even put Roundup on it to dessicate it because it would have killed itself and that’s unheard of, really. Normally, we put Roundup on it and take it off early but it did it itself,” Mr Pursehouse said.
Despite their concerns, the sorghum’s quality may just get them over the line.
“We were a bit surprised this morning when we took a sample in, that it was actually making sorghum one. The grain is small but it’s still making sorghum one,” he said.
“It’s $20 dockage [per tonne] if you got to two.”
Mr Pursehouse said about two-thirds of the sorghum is being harvested this week and the rest might be ready next week.
“This will probably end up being exported I would say, seeing as it’s going into the Werris Creek silo,” he said.
“The prices are good at the moment, which is a good consolation.”
The Pursehouses are also harvesting corn crops.
“We’re sort of halfway through our corn harvest. The rest isn’t ready yet,” he said.
“The yield could have been double if we had some reasonable rain.
“It will be probably half of its potential a bit like the sorghum. We just needed one good lot of rain in January but we didn’t get it.”
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