MANY farmers in northern NSW are taking a calculated risk on summer crops in order to generate some much needed cashflow after washed-out winter crops.
Loretta Serafin, acting technical services specialist for northern farming systems at DPI NSW, said there would be an increase in the planting of high value crops such as mung beans and sunflowers on the Liverpool Plains.
Ms Serafin, based at Tamworth, said a full profile of moisture had encouraged growers to plant.
A combination of economic and agronomic factors has led to the push into legumes and oilseeds.
Mung beans and sunflowers are both short season crops, which means they can be double cropped following a winter planting, while sunflower values are following the lead of the wider oilseed complex and are at high levels.
Ms Serafin said sorghum still remained the major summer crop in the region and cotton plantings had consolidated on the big year last season.
She said farmers were taking a calculated punt in double cropping paddocks.
“There are the planned summer crops, but there are also those that have had a poor winter crop harvest that are looking for additional cash flow from a summer crop, where they may have normally conserved the moisture for another winter crop the next year.”
Across the country, it is a mixed bag in terms of summer plantings.
Key production areas such as the Darling Downs and the Liverpool Plains have had ample planting rains, but in central Queensland, there has been a dry start to the sowing period.
On the Darling Downs, DEEDI Dalby extension officer Geoff McIntyre said the plant was progressing well.
“There’s going to be a big plant, especially for sorghum and cotton.”
“For sorghum, it will be a bigger plant than last year, there’s a full moisture profile and people have been able to plant within the sowing window.”
“With cotton, there’s probably less planted than last year, but we’re hopeful there’s more harvested after the floods did all the damage last year.”
He estimated the split between dryland and irrigated cotton on the Darling Downs was roughly 50-50.
Sorghum is now in the grain fill stage and progressing well.
Mr McIntyre said growers were hoping good yields made up for mediocre prices.
“Farmers have known the prices aren’t that good, but they had to get a crop in and generate some income.”
It is a contrasting story in central Queensland where Maurie Conway, DEEDI Emerald, said the summer crop looked ‘a little sad’.
“Temperatures have been around 38 this week, and any of the crop that has come up has suffered a bit.”
While there have been isolated pockets that have had good rain, overall it has been a dry start to the season.
“We’ve only got a third to a half of the crop planted.”
In the north of the region, there is still scope to plant until mid-February, but in the south, the end of the planting season is drawing near.
“There’s still time, but farmers need it to rain.”
Ms Serafin said Liverpool Plains farmers were bracing themselves for low prices for sorghum.
“Farmers know there’s a lot of winter feed grain available locally, and many of the end-users are happy to source the cheapest source of energy.”
She said the glut of feed sources for livestock, including pastures freshened by the heavy rains through northern NSW at the end of 2011, had meant irrigated lucerne hay producers were also confronted with low returns.
“The growers have been getting good cuts, but there really hasn’t been that strong a demand for the product.”
She said the interest had continued in dryland cotton.
“It’s come back a little on last year, when it was new and returns were really high, but there’s still a lot in.”
The cool weather has meant cotton crops have had a patchy beginning, she said.
Coarse grain producers across Australia are keeping a close eye on the summer sorghum crops in northern Australia to see what impact it will have on other feed grains, such as barley and oats.
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