Breeza farmers planting, harvesting on back of regular rain

Across the board, only a few months into the year, rainfall has exceeded the total for all of 2019, and while farmers are quick to say the drought isn't over, they are embracing the blessed turn of events.

Breeza Station's James Pursehouse is getting ready for the sorghum harvest off the back of a corn harvest a month ago.The Pursehouses planted 200 hectares of corn as a limited irrigation crop and managed to get about four tonnes to the hectare.

The feed variety of corn, which fetches a "very high" price, is already contracted to Norco down south.

READ ALSO:

Fava beans will be sown in the standing corn stubble as part of the crop rotation and to restore nitrogen in the soil.

Mr Pursehouse said the corn had finished up in February, so the soil had a few months to store some of the regular rainfall.

Next week, the Pursehouses will start to harvest 60 hectares of sorghum, and later, another 145 hectares, which was late planted as a "punt". They normally plant double that.

"The sorghum on the highway, we planted on January 14, which is outside the ideal planting window ... it's had 320mm of rain on it, so now it looks good but it's going to be slow to mature because it's getting cooler," Mr Pursehouse said.

He said they were expecting 600-odd tonnes from the crops and hoping for 10 tonnes to the hectare.

In early May, the farming family is planning to start planting barley and bread and durum wheat.

"Everything's had such a good drink now but a little bit of planting rain would been good," Mr Pursehouse said.

He said some the soil moisture profile of some paddocks were almost full, but others were only half full.

More than 350mm of rain has fallen across the property this year compared to 268mm for all of last year.

"We had 80mm for January, 149mm for February, 83mm for March and 44mm for April," Mr Pursehouse said.

"I tell you what, it's been a massive turnaround in the last three months [but] the outlook for July is still looking above average," he said.

"I wouldn't say the drought is over but it's definitely on its way to being over. We've gone from one extreme to the other in a matter of months."

Not far away, fellow Breeza farmer David Tudgey has sorghum in the ground, as well as irrigated cotton. He is planning to plant wheat in the winter.

"We need to get a nice big cotton crop in this winter to harvest November, December to be anywhere near being back on our feet. Summer crops keep us ticking along but we need a good dryland crop to get things going," he said.

"We've got some sort of profile but it's not full. We're a long way off income - that's the main thing."

Mr Tudgey has recorded 301mm of rain at Newhaven so far, surpassing the 2019 total of 221mm on March 30.